Betty Bryant

Betty Bryant, born Elizabeth Bryant on 27 June 1920 in Bristol, England, was a British-born Australian actress who worked in film and theatre. She died on 3 October 2005 in Seattle, Washington, at the age of 85.

Bryant's early life was shaped by family circumstances that brought her to Australia. Her father died when she was four years old, after which her mother, a professional singer, emigrated with her to Melbourne. The family later relocated to Sydney in 1932 following her mother's remarriage. During her teenage years, Bryant appeared on the local radio program The Youth Show.

Her screen career began with supporting roles in the Australian films The Broken Melody (1938) and Gone to the Dogs (1939). Her prominence as a performer grew substantially when she was cast in the lead role of Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940), a production described as the first Australian film to achieve international success. Director Charles Chauvel characterized her as the most significant film personality to emerge from Australia since Errol Flynn. Bryant is reported to have been discovered for the role by screenwriter Elsie Blake-Wilkins. She was also initially selected to play Carol Beldon in Mrs. Miniver, a role she had to relinquish after becoming pregnant in 1942; the part was subsequently taken by Teresa Wright. Bryant was also originally cast in Jungle Captive (1945) but was replaced by Amelita Ward.

On Broadway, Bryant appeared in 1932 in the play Ten Nights in a Barroom.

In June 1941, while in Singapore to promote Forty Thousand Horsemen, Bryant met Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer sales manager Maurice "Red" Silverstein. The two married shortly afterward in Sydney and had three children together. Maurice Silverstein died in 1999.

In her later years, Bryant directed her energies toward humanitarian work. In 1966, she co-founded the Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific alongside her husband and Australian Marist priest Stan Hosie. The organization, now known as Counterpart International, had grown to approximately sixty branches worldwide by the time of Bryant's death. In 2000, Bryant and Hosie received the Humanitarian Service Award, presented by Hillary Rodham Clinton.