Josephine O'Neill
{{short description|Australian film critic and poet}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2023}}{{Use Australian English|date=November 2023}}
{{Infobox journalist
| name = Josephine O'Neill
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=y|1905|12|15}}
| birth_place = Dunedin, New Zealand
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=y|1968|02|28|1905|12|15}}
| death_place = Sydney, New South Wales
| education = St Dominic's College
| alma_mater = University of Otago
| occupation = Film critic and poet
| years_active = 1932–1968
}}
Josephine O'Neill (15 December 1905 – 28 February 1968) was an Australian film critic, journalist and poet.
Early life and education
O'Neill was born in Dunedin, New Zealand on 15 December 1905. She was the first-born child of Josephine (née Monaghan) and doctor Eugene Joseph O'Neill. She completed her secondary schooling at St Dominic's College and graduated from the University of Otago in 1927 with a BA.{{Citation |last=Horne |first=Julia |title=Josephine O'Neill (1905–1968) |url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/oneill-josephine-11305 |work=Australian Dictionary of Biography |access-date=2023-11-29 |place=Canberra |publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University |language=en}}
Career
O'Neill moved to Sydney in 1928 and, with her sister Helen O'Neill, she established Aunt Ann's Aid, based on a London business known as Universal Aunts and the Useful Women. Jobs undertaken included mending clothes, visiting patients, accompanying children and shopping.{{cite news |date=22 April 1928 |title=Aunt Ann's Aid |page=1 (The Sun Sunday) |newspaper=The Sun |issue=1308 |location=New South Wales, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article222022735 |accessdate=30 November 2023 |via=National Library of Australia}} They advertised in The Sun{{cite news |date=22 April 1928 |title=Advertising |page=23 |newspaper=The Sun |issue=1308 |location=New South Wales, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article222022672 |accessdate=30 November 2023 |via=National Library of Australia}} and The Sydney Morning Herald{{cite news |date=16 May 1928 |title=Advertising |page=1 |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |issue=28,194 |location=New South Wales, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16464886 |accessdate=30 November 2023 |via=National Library of Australia}} for two months and in June 1928 The Land announced that it would publish "Aunt Ann", a column answering women's questions on shopping and domestic issues.{{cite news |date=15 June 1928 |title=The "Land" Shopping |volume=XVIII |page=18 |newspaper=The Land |issue=908 |location=New South Wales, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111647332 |accessdate=30 November 2023 |via=National Library of Australia}} Aunt Ann's Aid advertised in The Land in 1928{{cite news |date=12 October 1928 |title=Advertising |volume=XVIII |page=18 |newspaper=The Land |issue=925 |location=New South Wales, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111652226 |accessdate=30 November 2023 |via=National Library of Australia}} (but no column appeared), and in 1929 in The Muswellbrook Chronicle{{cite news |date=24 May 1929 |title=Advertising |volume=8 |page=11 |newspaper=The Muswellbrook Chronicle |issue=41 |location=New South Wales, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107925019 |accessdate=30 November 2023 |via=National Library of Australia}} and The Canberra Times.{{cite news |date=9 October 1929 |title=Display Advertising |volume=4 |page=5 |newspaper=The Canberra Times |issue=616 |location=Australian Capital Territory, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1015890 |accessdate=30 November 2023 |via=National Library of Australia}}
O'Neill's short stories and poems appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald,{{cite news |date=13 April 1929 |title=Omar |page=13 |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |issue=28,478 |location=New South Wales, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16570547 |accessdate=30 November 2023 |via=National Library of Australia}}{{cite news |date=18 May 1929 |title=For the Children |page=13 |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |issue=28,508 |location=New South Wales, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16570841 |accessdate=30 November 2023 |via=National Library of Australia}} The Sun{{cite news |date=9 June 1929 |title=One to Two |page=7 (Supplement to The Sun) |newspaper=The Sun |issue=1367 |location=New South Wales, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article223956969 |accessdate=30 November 2023 |via=National Library of Australia}} and the Sydney Mail{{cite news |date=9 October 1929 |title=Spring-Cleaning |volume=XXXVI |page=29 |newspaper=Sydney Mail |issue=915 |location=New South Wales, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article160392478 |accessdate=30 November 2023 |via=National Library of Australia}} from 1929.
A short story by O'Neill was included in the 1932 inaugural issue of Ink, published to raise funds to enable the Society of Women Writers of New South Wales to provide assistance to members in need.
An early film review by O'Neill of Dracula and of the making of Frankenstein appeared in The Sun in December 1931.{{cite news |date=13 December 1931 |title=–Gives Us HORROR! |page=24 |newspaper=The Sun |issue=1498 |location=New South Wales, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article224286293 |accessdate=30 November 2023 |via=National Library of Australia}} Two months earlier The Daily Telegraph had published her review of the play Street Scene, produced by Doris Fitton for the Independent Theatre.{{cite news |date=19 October 1931 |title=Grim Realism |volume=1 |page=9 |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |issue=211 |location=New South Wales, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article246562117 |accessdate=30 November 2023 |via=National Library of Australia}} From May 1932 her reviews were published regularly in "The Daily Telegraph Talkie Section", This Week's Films and other film columns in that paper.{{cite news |date=16 May 1932 |title="The Daily Telegraph" Talkie Section |volume=2 |page=7 |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |issue=78 |location=New South Wales, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article246326498 |accessdate=30 November 2023 |via=National Library of Australia}} She also wrote a chat column, "life-lines" for a year from mid-1939{{cite news |date=24 June 1939 |title=life – lines |volume=IV |page=6 |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |issue=81 |location=New South Wales, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article247601960 |accessdate=30 November 2023 |via=National Library of Australia}}{{cite news |date=1 June 1940 |title=life – lines |volume=V |page=7 |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |issue=61 |location=New South Wales, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article247763214 |accessdate=30 November 2023 |via=National Library of Australia}} but her main focus remained on film reviews.
O'Neill appeared on radio in Harry Dearth's "Leave it to the Girls" alongside fellow journalist Elizabeth Riddell and two others from 1951 to 1955.
From 1957 she wrote film and theatre reviews for The Sydney Morning Herald and the "Show Business" column for the Sun-Herald.
O'Neill died suddenly in Sydney of a heart attack on 28 February 1968. In an obituary of fellow critic Sylvia Lawson, Tom O'Regan wrote referred to O'Neill as "the doyenne of Australian film reviewers from the 1940s to her early death in 1968",{{Cite web |last=O'Regan |first=Tom |date=2017-11-08 |title=Demanding the impossible |url=https://insidestory.org.au/demanding-the-impossible/ |access-date=2023-11-30 |website=Inside Story |language=en}} while ... named her as one of "Australia’s first wave of significant film critics, who came to prominence in the 1930s" along with Beatrice Tildeseley, Erle Cox and Kenneth Slessor.{{Cite web |last=Walmsley-Evans |first=Huw |last2=O'Regan |first2=Tom |last3=Mead |first3=Philip |date=August 2015 |title=Kenneth Slessor and the Sound Cinema: The "Chief Film Critic whose Reviews are Accepted as the Most Reliable in Australia" |url=https://www.screeningthepast.com/issue-39-slessor-dossier/kenneth-slessor-and-the-sound-cinema/ |access-date=2023-11-30 |website=Screening the Past |language=en-US}}
References
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Category:University of Otago alumni