Coral Drouyn

Drouyn was born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, to Terry O'Neill, an actor and son of an Irish tenor, and Peggy Haig, an actress. Her maternal uncle was the British actor Jack Haig and her maternal grandparents were Charles Coppin and Bertha Baker, both of whom were music hall performers billed as "Haig and Esco". Drouyn emigrated to Australia in the 1960s, where she wrote comedy for her father's Melbourne-based program "Time for Terry" and worked as a singer, while writing material for theatre restaurants.^[1]

At the age of four, she appeared in an uncredited role as "Precocious Child" in the Hollywood film I Was a Male War Bride.^[1] During her acting career, when she was often billed as Coral Kelly^[1],she featured in the ill-fated TV soap opera Arcade as health studio receptionist Consuela McPhee.

Retiring from acting, Drouyn began writing for television, working as a scriptwriter for Grundy Productions series such as The Restless Years, Prisoner and Neighbours. During her time on Prisoner, Drouyn worked her way up from freelance writer to in-house story editor, creating characters and stories before leaving the series prior to its 600th episode.

Drouyn subsequently was involved in the creation of serial Pacific Drive before performing story editor duties on Blue Heelers and Home and Away.

Her book 'Big Screen, Small Screen', detailing the craft skills involved in screen-writing, was published in 1994.

Drouyn now works as a theatre critic.^[3]

In 2022 Drouyn gave extensive interviews with podcast series 'Talking Prisoner' where she delved deep into her time writing and working on Prisoner.

• Coral Drouyn at IMDb