Early life

Rabe was born Pamela June Koropatnick in Oakville, Ontario, Canada in 1959. She graduated from the Playhouse Acting School in Vancouver. Rabe relocated to Australia in 1983 with Australian director, Roger Hodgman. They were married in 1984.

Career

Theatre

Rabe is a prolific contributor to theatrical life in her adopted country in acting and directing, across a wide range of genres - musicals, comedy and drama. She is a long-standing collaborator with the Sydney Theatre Company and the Melbourne Theatre Company.

Some of her high-profile acting roles include Amanda Wingfield in Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie at Belvoir, for which she won a Helpmann Award, Nora Boyle in Patrick White's The Season At Sarsaparilla, for which she won a Green Room Award for Best Actress, and Richard III in the Sydney Theatre Company production of The War Of The Roses, which also starred Cate Blanchett as Richard II.

In 2005 she performed a challenging, Croatian play called Woman-Bomb.

In 2010 she starred in the Melbourne stage production of David Mamet's play Boston Marriage.

In 2012 Rabe received a Helpmann Award for Best Female Actor in a Musical for her performance in Grey Gardens for The Production Company. In July 2015 she won a second Helpmann Award, this time for Best Female Actor in a Play, for her performance in The Glass Menagerie.

Rabe has directed several high profile plays for Australian theatre companies, including the Australian premiere of In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), and Elling for which Rabe was nominated for a Green Room Award for best director on both occasions. In 2012 Rabe was invited to be a member of the guest triumvirate who programmed the Melbourne Theatre Company season for that year.

Film

In 1989, Rabe made her film debut with a minor role in Against the Innocent. Her second role came in 1993 when she was cast in John Duigan's romantic comedy, Sirens with Hugh Grant and Sam Neill. Rabe's first leading role was in the 1995 film Vacant Possession. Following this, she appeared in Così with Toni Collette, Lust and Revenge directed by Paul Cox, and Paradise Road, a film starring Glenn Close set during World War II. In 1997, Rabe was cast in the leading role of 1997 film adaptation, an adaptation of Elizabeth Jolley's novel The Well, for which she received an AFI Award for Best Actress. More recently she appeared in the Jasmila Zbanic drama film For Those Who Can Tell No Tales and she narrated the upcoming 2015 film, Symphony of the Wild.

Television

Rabe has appeared on several Australian television series throughout her career. Her first was in 1990, when she received a guest role in the soap opera A Country Practice. Then she featured in a number of recurring roles including the family series Ocean Girl and The Secret Life of Us and a lead role in the short lived series Mercury. In September 2013 it was announced that Rabe would be cast in the Australian prison drama series, Wentworth, a reimagining of the classic Network Ten soap opera Prisoner. She joined Wentworth in Season Two as sadistic prison governor Joan "The Freak" Ferguson, a role originally played by Maggie Kirkpatrick in Prisoner. Rabe as Ferguson is seen as intimidating and evil and often uses a clever, non-physical approach in a way to control and manipulate the prisoners and officers alike, with little need for violence, unlike Kirkpatrick's character who mainly resorted to violence. Rabe appeared in both Season Two and Season Three in a leading role, as it was finally discovered that Ferguson is unstable and her crimes are revealed. Rabe will reprise her role as Ferguson in Season Four of Wentworth in 2016.

Other work

Rabe served on the board of the Australian Film Institute from 1999-2002 and is a former member of the Board of Directors of NIDA.

Filmography

Film

Title	Year	Role	Notes
Against the Innocent	1989	American Woman
Sirens	1993	Rose Lindsay
Vacant Possession	1995	Tessa
Così	1996	Ruth
Lust and Revenge	1996	Obnoxious Woman
Paradise Road	1997	Mrs. Tippler
The Well	1997	Hester
The Boy Who Feeds Cats	2004	Narrator	Voice; short film
For Those Who Can Tell No Tales	2013	Mum
Symphony of the Wild	2015	Narrator	Voice

Television

Title	Year	Role	Notes
A Single Life	1985	Margaret Bennett	Television film
Nancy Wake	1987	Madeleine	Miniseries
A Country Practice	1990	Marnie Rose	Season 10 - "My Sister's Keeper" (Parts 1 & 2)
Seven Deadly Sins	1993	Greed	Miniseries
Ocean Girl	1995	Commander Byrne	Recurring role; Season 2 - 13 episodes
Mercury	1996	Claire Bannister	Leading role; Season 1 - 13 episodes
The Bite	1996	Samira Nazib	Miniseries
Frontier	1997	Rosa Campbell Praed	Miniseries
Stingers	2001	Eve Reisner	Season 4, Episode 18 - "True Colours"
The Secret Life of Us	2003	Luciana	Recurring role; Season 3 - 9 episodes
CrashBurn	2003	Andy	Season 1, Episode 13 - "Seven Letters or Less"
Holly's Heroes	2005	Mrs. Rocacelli	3 episodes
Wentworth	2014-	Joan Ferguson	Leading role; Season 2 - 4 (24 + episodes)

Awards and nominations

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Year	Format	Association	Category	Nominated work	Result
1997	Film	AACTA Awards	Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role	The Well	Won
1997	Film	Stockholm International Film Festival	Best Actress		Won
1998	Film	Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards	Best Actor - Female		Nominated
2002	Theatre	Helpmann Award	Best Female Actor in a Musical	The Wizard of Oz	Nominated
2005	Theatre	Helpmann Award	Best Female Actor in a Play	Dinner	Nominated
2007	Theatre	Helpmann Award	Best Female Actor in a Play	Mother Courage and Her Children	Nominated
2009	Theatre	Green Room Award	Best Female Actor in a Play	The Season At Sarsaparilla	Won
2009	Theatre	Helpmann Award	Best Female Actor in a Play	War of the Roses	Nominated
2012	Theatre	Helpmann Award	Best Female Actor in a Musical	Grey Gardens	Won
2015	Theatre	Helpmann Award	Best Female Actor in a Play	The Glass Menagerie	Won
2015	Theatre	Helpmann Award	Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role - Play	Beckett Triptych Footfalls	Nominated
2015	Television	Astra Award	Most Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor	Wentworth	Nominated
2015	Television	AACTA Awards	Best Lead Actress in a Television Drama	Wentworth	Won
2016	Television	Logie Awards	Most Outstanding Actress	Wentworth	Nominated

[ Source: Wikipedia ]