Jude Kuring
Australian actress
title: "Jude Kuring" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["year-of-birth-missing-(living-people)", "living-people", "australian-stage-actresses", "australian-film-actresses", "australian-soap-opera-actresses", "20th-century-australian-actresses", "21st-century-australian-actresses"] description: "Australian actress" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_Kuring" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Australian actress ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Jude Kuring |
| image | |
| birth_name | Judith Kuring |
| birth_date | |
| birth_place | Windsor, New South Wales, Australia |
| occupation | Actress |
| yearsactive | 1968–95; 2003-2017 |
| awards | Nominated, AFI Award Best Actress in a Supporting Role, for Maybe This Time (1980) |
| :: |
| name = Jude Kuring
| image =
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| birth_name = Judith Kuring
| birth_date =
| birth_place = Windsor, New South Wales, Australia
| death_date =
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| othername =
| occupation = Actress
| yearsactive = 1968–95; 2003-2017
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| awards = Nominated, AFI Award Best Actress in a Supporting Role, for Maybe This Time (1980)
Judith Kuring is an Australian actress who appeared in theatre, film, and television during the late 1970s and early 80s. She remains best known for her stint as the recurring character of petty criminal Noeline Bourke in the soap opera Prisoner in 1979 until 1980.
Early life and education
Judith Kuring, later known as Jude, was born in Windsor, New South Wales.
Career
Stage
Kuring started her acting career in theatre in 1968. She joined the Australian Performing Group in Melbourne in the early 1970s, performing in a number of plays, variety shows and other stage productions. Along with Helen Garner and four other women, she devised and performed in the 1972 seminal performance at the Pram Factory, Betty Can Jump, which influenced feminist theatre and thought across Australia for the rest of the decade.
in 1981, alongside Chris Westwood, Kuring formed a women's group as a subgroup of APG, they had been discussing the lack of roles for women in local theatre, relegated to the "hooker with a heart" or mother, and began organising members at the Nimrod Theatre, they were given a 110.000 grant from Limited Life Project" which they utilised for play readings and a series of workshops and included a seminar on women, comedy and music.
Screen
Although making her first appearance on the police drama Homicide in 1971, Kuring would not begin television acting for another four years until being cast in a minor role in the 1975 television movie They Don't Clap Losers. During the next few years, she was seen on the television series Alvin Purple as well as playing various characters on comedy shows, including Wollongong the Brave.
In 1977, Kuring made her film debut in The Singer and the Dancer as Mrs Herbert, the nagging daughter of Mrs Bilson (Ruth Cracknell). Later that year, she appeared in her breakout role as Grace in the cult film Journey Among Women.
She had supporting roles in Newsfront and The Journalist.
She was subsequently cast as Noeline Bourke in the soap opera Prisoner.
Noeline was largely portrayed as a "bogan" thief and the head of a small family of petty thieves, Bourke was introduced to the series as an inmate emerging to fight Monica Ferguson (Lesley Baker) for position of "top dog" while Bea Smith (Val Lehman) is recovering in hospital. One of the subplots during the first and second seasons of the series focused on her criminal family, and in one episode, her dimwitted brother Col is killed by police during a hostage situation. Her character was released shortly after, however she was again caught breaking into a warehouse with her daughter Leanne and returned to Wentworth where she served another brief stint.
Taking time off from the series, Kuring appeared in the 1980 film Maybe This Time for which she was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role by the Australian Film Institute.
Kuring reappeared on the series, her character being reintroduced shortly after the death of her daughter Leanne, who had been killed during a protest at the prison. After being accepted into the prison's work release program, she is coerced to help one of the employees, Kay White (Sandy Gore), by using her family to steal fabric from the factory. She is set up by White however and, with the work release canceled, she is transferred to Barnhurst (another prison) for her own protection.
After guest appearing on Waterloo Station in 1983, Kuring subsequently moved away from acting.
After a long tenure away from acting, Kuring once more returned to her former career in 2013 to play a prominent role in the movie Prisoner Queen, which centred on an obsessed fan of the Prisoner television series.
In 1995, Jude featured in the pilot of an LGBTQI+ sitcom called Buck House, playing the lead role of Phyllis Buck. Originally filmed before a live studio audience at the Australian Film, Television & Radio School, Buck House underwent considerable rewrites following its initial popularity. A new 8-episode series was created for streaming on the internet in 1997.
In 2013, she appeared in film The House Cleaner and in 2017 7 from Etheria.
Filmography
Film
::data[format=table]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1975 | The Firm Man | Conservationist | Feature film |
| 1975 | They Don't Clap Losers | TV movie | |
| 1976 | Summer of Secrets | Shop Assistant | Feature film |
| 1977 | The Singer and the Dancer | Mrs. Herbert | Feature film |
| 1977 | Journey Among Women | Grace | Feature film |
| 1978 | Newsfront | Geoff's Wife | Feature film |
| 1979 | Temperament Unsuited | Mr. Redmond | Short film |
| 1979 | The Journalist | Kate | Film |
| 1989 | Maybe This Time | Meredith | Feature film |
| 2003 | Prisoner Queen: Mindless Music and Mirror Balls | Mum | Feature Film |
| 2013 | The House Cleaner | Dame Judith | |
| 2017 | 7 from Etheria | Agnes | Segment: "Little Lamb" |
| :: |
Television
::data[format=table]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | Matlock Police | Reporter | TV series |
| 1971/72 | Homicide | Sister/Claudia Jones | TV series |
| 1972 | Division 4 | Nurse/Miss West | TV series |
| 1975 | Wollongong the Brave | 3 roles | TV miniseries |
| 1976 | Alvin Purple | Arlene | TV series |
| 1977 | The Of Show | Various characters | TV series |
| 1979 | The Garry McDonald Show | Various characters | TV series |
| 1978-80 | Prisoner | Noeline Burke | TV series |
| 1983 | Waterloo Station | TV series | |
| 1995 | Buck House | Phyllis Buck | TV series |
| 2023 | Celebrity House Cleaner | Dame Judith | TV series |
| :: |
Theatre
::data[format=table]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1973 | Dimboola: The Stage Play | Mavis McAdam, Aunt of the Groom | Stage play |
| :: |
References
References
- (20 January 2023). "Betty jumps high". [[State Library of New South Wales]].
- Kenny, Kath. (29 September 2022). "Friday essay: 'with men I feel like a very sharp, glittering blade' – when 5 liberated women spoke the truth". The Conversation.
- Reade, Eric. ''History and Heartburn: The Saga of Australian Film, 1896–1978''. Rutherford, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1979. (pg. 251); {{ISBN. 0-8386-3082-0
- Ingleton, Suzanne. (2006). "Australian Theatre History. The Australian Performing Group at the Pram Factory". PramFactory.com.
- Milne, Geoffrey. ''Theatre Australia (un)limited: Australian Theatre Since the 1950s''. Amsterdam: Rodopi B.V., 2004 (pg. 281); {{ISBN. 90-420-0930-6
- (12 January 2009). "ACMI tributes Jude Kuring". if.com.au.
- (3 March 2001). "PCBH Characters: Noeline Bourke (Jude Kuring)". wwwentworth.co.uk.
- (16 September 1980). "The woes of Women in Theatre". The Sydney Morning Herald.
- Watson, Sophie. ''Playing the State: Australian Feminist Interventions''. London: Verso, 1990. (pg. 219); {{ISBN. 0-86091-970-6
- "Buck House".
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