Betty Bryant

Elizabeth Bryant Silverstein ( Bryant; 27 June 19203 October 2005), better known as Betty Bryant, was a British-born Australian actress known for playing the lead character in Forty Thousand Horsemen.

Early life Bryant was born on 27 June 1920 in Bristol, South West England. When she was age four, her father died. With her mother, a professional singer, she emigrated to Melbourne, Australia. In 1932, the family relocated to Sydney after Bryant's mother remarried. As a teenager, Bryant was featured on the local radio show The Youth Show.

Career

Bryant began her career as an actress playing minor characters in film as The Broken Melody (1938) and Gone to the Dogs (1939). Her film breakthrough came when she played the lead character in Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940), which was the "first Australian film to win international success".

In June 1941, while in Singapore promoting Forty Thousand Horsemen,

Later years

In her later years, Bryant spent her time campaigning for humanitarian aid. She founded the Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific (FSP), now called Counterpart International, together with her husband and Australian Marist priest Stan Hosie in 1966; at the time of her death, the organisation had some sixty branches worldwide. Bryant and Hosie were awarded the Humanitarian Service Award by Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2000.