Recreation

Elizabeth Francis Moody 1939-2010

Actress and Director Elizabeth Moody died in Christchurch on Monday January 11, 2010.

Did you know?

Elizabeth Moody was directing the play where Mayor of Christchurch Bob Parker met his future wife, Joanna Nicholls.

Parker was playing Garry Essendine, the lead in Noel Coward’s comedy Present Laughter, while Essendine’s seductress, Joanna Lypiatt, was played by Joanna Nicholls.

Read the full story online with your library card and password / PIN:
Supporting act by Philip Matthews, The Press, 15 December 2007. Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre. Accessed 13 January 2010.

A familiar presence on stage and screen, Moody was well-known in Christchurch and New Zealand theatre, television and film.

Moody joined the Court Theatre, which her mother Yvette Bromley helped found, as a full-time actress in January 1976. She last acted on its stage in 2003. Director of about 12 plays for the Court between 1984 and 2002, Moody also directed at the Repertory Theatre as late as 2009.

Radio talkback and five years at Excalibur’s Theatre Restaurant in Christchurch were other jobs in a long and varied career.

In 2007 she was struck by cirrhosis of the liver. She was in palliative care for four months before returning to work.

Film and television career

Regular appearances on television panel advice programme Beauty and the Beast, hosted by Selwyn Toogood, made Moody a well-known face.

Her film career included appearances in the classic New Zealand film Scarecrow, as well as Peter Jackson films Braindead, Heavenly Creatures, and Lord of the Rings (the extended version, as Lobelia Sackville-Baggins).

Further information

January 2010