Ethel Lang - Infinite Women

This biography is republished from The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia. Written by Kathryn Mcleod, National Film and Sound Archive. See below for full attribution.

Born: 1902, Australia
Died: 1995
Country most active: Australia
Also known as: Ethel Isabel Brunton Gibb

Ethel Lang (1902-1995) was born in Sydney in 1902. In 1924, she began working as a radio actress at 2FC, one of Australia’s first radio stations. In the 1930s she played a number of leading roles for ABC radio, including Portia in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Jane Marryot in Noël Coward’s Cavalcade. During this time, she also worked extensively with 2SM and 2GB.
In 1943, Lang began broadcasting her own program, Aunt Jenny’s Real Life Stories in which she also starred. The serial ran for 18 years and was the program which made Ethel Lang a household name. Lang also played Mrs Lawson in the radio serial The Lawsons, and Meg MacArthur, one of the main roles in the long-running radio serial Blue Hills. Like other women in early radio, her career is significant as it came at a time in Australian history when most women were encouraged to become housewives and mothers. In 1992, Lang was awarded the A.M. (Member of the Order of Australia) for her services to the performing arts. She died in 1995.

Work cited
Kathryn Mcleod, ‘Lang, Ethel’, in The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia, Australian Women’s Archives Project, 2014, https://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0294b.htm, accessed 16 January 2022.