Elaine Lee

Elaine Joyce Knoesen (23 February 1939 – 17 September 2014) better known professionally as Elaine Lee, was a South African-born actress of radio and theatre and stage. She made her film debut in her native South Africa in 1968, but became best known in Australia for her role of fashion designer Vera Collins in the 1970s television soap opera Number 96. Career Lee was born in 1939 in Springs, Transvaal Province (present-day Gauteng), and grew up on a gold mine until her father, an electrician, died when she was nine. She was brought up by her mother and had a sister Barbara. A former waitress, her acting career began in the 1960s in Johannesburg where she became a stage manager for a theatrical company and acted extensively in the theatre and on radio, starring in productions throughout her native South Africa, as well as Zimbabwe and Zambia. Lee emigrated to Australia where she became well known Vera Collins in Number 96, starting in 1972. Lee was known as a sex symbol through the role of Vera, a perpetually unlucky-in-love fashionista and clairvoyant. Lee was an original cast member of the series and a key figure in many of the show's major storylines. Vera was raped three times, including by her onscreen husband Harry Collins (Norman Yemm). Lee remained in the role of Vera for four and a half years, finally leaving in mid-1976. She appeared in the 1974 feature film version of Number 96 in which she was raped by a group of bikers in the opening scene. Producer David Sale said that Number 96 was always going to be controversial and shocking, so we thought "start the film version with a rape sequence and get it over with". A planned comedy spinoff from Number 96, called Fair Game and featuring Lee with Lynette Curran and Abigail, did not eventuate. Its pilot was divided up to create segments of three episodes of Number 96 (Episodes 1079-1081, airing in Sydney, November 1976).