Helen Grieve (1931–1981), child actress, was born in Sydney. Her first film role was in The Overlanders (1946), opposite Chips Rafferty. Shot on location in the Northern Territory, the film was seen by an estimated 350,000 Australians, then the most popular Australian film of all time. Grieve's second, and last, film was Bush Christmas (1947), again with Rafferty. Filmed in the Blue Mountains, it was popular in Australia and Britain and seen in 41 countries. A 1951 newspaper article in Brisbane's The Worker announced that Grieve was retiring from acting to study science at Sydney University, as there was very little film work available in Australia. As Grieve's daughter Janie Joseland-Bennett recalled in a 2019 National Geographic article: 'After seeing The Overlanders, Dad's dream was to meet my mother, work on the land and have that rural life.' David Joseland and Helen did end up getting married and together they ran a property in remote South Australia. Grieve died in 1981, and her grave is inscribed with: 'Her life was devoted to the outback and its people.'
