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The Century Theatre Sydney was chosen for the world premiere of Ray Lawler’s “The Summer of The Seventeenth Doll”. This was celebrated as the season started on December 2 1959.

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is a 1959 Australian-British film directed by Leslie Norman and is based on the Ray Lawler play “Summer of the Seventeenth Doll”. In the United States the film was released under the title Season of Passion.

Plot - Queensland sugarcane cutters Roo and Barney spend the off season in Sydney each year, seeing their girlfriends. For sixteen years Roo has spent the summer with barmaid Olive, bringing her a kewpie doll, while Barney romances Nancy. In the seventeenth year, Barney arrives to find that Nancy has married; however Olive has arranged a replacement, manicurist Pearl. Roo has had a bad season, losing his place as head of the cane cutting team to a younger man, Dowd.

Australian playwright and dramatist, actor, theatre producer and director Raymond E-venor Lawler AO OBE, has died on Wed July 24, 2024) at age 103 after a brief illness.

We knew him as Ray Lawler and I would have to say that his death is much more than significant, every death is significant, however Ray Lawler is an Australian legend whose play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll went a long way in radically changing our culture — a play that to this day is considered unparalleled in significance.

Contributed by Greg Lynch -