Beloved Australian actress Val Jellay has passed away from pneumonia at the age of 89. The sad news was announced via Twitter by Val’s comedian son Marty Fields on Saturday. The comedian had been keeping fans in the loop via social media as his mother’s condition had deteriorated over the last week.
Marty’s tweets detailed Val’s heartbreaking decline from pneumonia. His last tweet announcing her passing concluded that Val was at peace with her husband Maurie.
“She’s back with her beloved Maurie now,” Marty tweeted.
Val Jellay was best known for her role as Nancy Buckley in the popular TV series The Flying Doctors, which ran for nine seasons. Val’s real-life husband Maurie Fields also played her on-screen hubby Vic in the series. The couple married in 1960 until Maurie sadly passed away due to a heart attack in 1995. They had one son together, Marty.
Val was born in Sydney in 1927 and she began her career in vaudeville, where she worked the Tivoli circuit before moving into acting on both the stage and screen. Over the length of her career, she appeared in episodes of Prisoner, Neighbours and Homicide as well as regular guest appearances on Good Morning Australia with her friend Bert Newton.
Val arriving at the 2010 TV WEEK Logie Awards with her son Marty.
As well as her career on stage and screen, Val was also a published author. She had much success with her three books After You’ve Gone: My Life After Maurie Fields, So You Want To Be In Showbusiness and Stagestruck: An Autobiography.
The actress was also a constant attendee of the TV WEEK Logie Awards. She even accepted her husband Maurie’s Logie when the actor was posthumously inducted into the Logie Awards Hall Of Fame in 1996.
Val’s son Marty has said that he would like his mother’s final resting place be beside his father in Albert Park.
“There is a beautiful plaque placed as a tribute to Dad in those gardens and his ashes are actually buried there too,” Marty told the Herald Sun.
