Oriel Gray

Who was Oriel Gray?

Oriel Gray is an award winning Australian dramatist and playwright who wrote from the 1940s to 1960's. The major themes of her work were "social and political issues such as the environment, Aborigines, assimilation and bush life".

Gray was born Oriel Bennett in Sydney, New South Wales. She came from a politically active family and was herself a member of the Communist Party of Australia from 1942 to 1950.

She married John Gray in 1940, an actor whom she met while at the Sydney New Theatre and they had a son, Stephen. By 1947 her marriage had broken down and she moved onto a long term relationship with John Hepworth with whom she had two more sons, Peter and Nicholas. Gray died from a heart attack, aged 83 in Heidelberg, Victoria, on 30 June 2003.