Debra Lawrance

Debra Lawrance (born 1 January 1957) is an Australian actress. She is best known for her role on Home and Away, as Pippa Ross, which she played from 1990 to 1998 and in a number of subsequent return appearances, the most recent being in 2009.

Lawrance is also known for her role as Rose in Please Like Me, for which she won an AACTA Award for Best Performance in a Television Comedy and a Logie Award for Most Outstanding Supporting Actress.

Debra Lawrance was born in Melbourne, Victoria and was the second youngest of six children. In 1975 Lawrance studied and graduated in 1977 from NIDA alongside such alumni as Mel Gibson, Steve Bisley, Judy Davis, Sally McKenzie and Robert Menzies.

Lawrance has appeared in a number of roles including The Sullivans as Prue Waterman (1976), in Skyways as Sheila Turner, A Country Practice as Kerry Burgess (1982), Bellamy (1981) as Lisa and Sons and Daughters between 1983 and 1984 as Lisa Cook.

Lawrance had a more permanent role in Prisoner from 1985 to 1986 as Daphne Graham, after having had minor roles including as a Nurse and Trainee Prisoner Officer Sally Dean much earlier in the series.

Lawrance featured in miniseries The Last Outlaw, (1980) a series about Ned Kelly, and feature film Silver City (1984).

Lawrance's big break was a lead role in The Fast Lane, a widely successful ABC comedy. Her success led to her appearance in the film Evil Angels (released as A Cry in the Dark outside of Australia and New Zealand) starring Meryl Streep.[10] Lawrance also appeared in Two Brothers Running with Tom Conti.[11]

In July 1990 Lawrance was cast in Home and Away,[12] taking over the role of Pippa Fletcher (later Ross) from Vanessa Downing. Lawrance left the main cast in 1998, but has made returning guest appearances over the years, the last being in 2009.In 2023 Lawrance gave an extensive interview with Talking Prisoner were she revealed that she was still close friends with many of the cast.

Lawrance subsequently starred in Blue Heelers in the recurring role as Reverend Grace Curtis, Tom Croydon's ill-fated wife from 2001 to 2004.[11]

Debra's theatre credits include the London tour of Jack Davis' No Sugar, the role of Vi in the Melbourne Theatre Company production of The Memory of Water, the 2009 tour of Steel Magnolias in the role of M'lyn, the title role in the 2010 tour of Driving Miss Daisy.[11][13]

From 2019-2022, Lawrance played Minerva McGonagall in the stage production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.[11][14][15]

From 2013 to 2016, Lawrance played Rose, the mother of the protagonist Josh Thomas, in the comedy drama Please Like Me appearing in all four seasons of the show, during which her character dealt with divorce and mental illness.[16][17]

In 2017, Lawrance appeared as a celebrity contestant on Hell's Kitchen Australia.[18][19] Lawrance won the series, winning $50,000 for her nominated charity Ovarian Cancer Australia.[20]

In 2018, Lawrance read Charlotte Voake's Ginger on Play School Story Time on ABC Kids.[21]

She briefly joined the cast of Neighbours in 2018 as Liz Conway, the sister of Susan Kennedy.[22]

In early 2023, it was revealed Lawrance had joined the cast of a new crime drama on the Nine Network called Human Error.[23]

From 2 April 2023, Lawrance appeared as a contestant in the ninth season of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!.[24] As on Hell's Kitchen Australia, Lawrance's nominated charity was Ovarian Cancer Australia.[25] Lawrance was eliminated fifth on 23 April 2023.[26]

Lawrance's performance on Please Like Me was met with critical acclaim. She won an AACTA Award for Best Performance in a Television Comedy at the 4th AACTA Awards in 2015 for her part in a two-hander episode (with Thomas) in the show's second season.

Lawrance was also awarded a Logie in the peer-voted Most Outstanding Support Actress category at the 2017 Logie Awards.

Lawrance met her husband Dennis Coard when he was cast as Pippa's second husband on Home and Away as Michael Ross.[11] They married in 1992 and have two children, daughter Grace (born 1992) and son William (born 1999). Lawrance experienced four miscarriages before their son William was born.[27]