Mercia Deane-Johns

Deane-Johns was in the Australian TV series Homicide in 1975 and 1976. She performed in the TV series Bluey as Debbie Morley in 1976. In 1977, she was in Cop Shop, a long running police drama series.

In 1981, she appeared in Heatwave and Winter of Our Dreams.[3] Heatwave, directed by Phillip Noyce was based on the Juanita Nielsen disappearance case of the 1970s. Winter of Our Dreams was an award-winning drama written and directed by John Duigan. In 1982, she was in Winner Take All – Downside Risk,[4] a TV series about the fast-paced world of big business. In 1985, she was in Winners – The Other Facts of Life.[5] In 1991 Deane-Johns appeared in What's Cooking? an Australian cooking television series.[6]

In 1991 Channel 9 introduced a new series called Chances, based around a family who won AUD$3 million in a lottery and the effect it had on their lives. Deane-Johns played the part of Sharon Taylor, a good time girl who made a living as a hairdresser. Chances was discontinued in 1992 after a run of 127 hour-long episodes.

Deane-Johns was in the television film McLeod's Daughters in 1996 with Jack Thompson, Tammy MacIntosh and Kris McQuade. She was in the long-running Home and Away from 1997-2001, playing Melanie Rainbow. In 2002, she was in the Canadian-Australian co-production of Guinevere Jones, a teenage fantasy series where she played the part of evil witch Morgana. In 2007, she appeared in Unfinished Sky a story about a farmer who takes in an Afghani woman who has fled from a brothel.

In 2014 she had a supporting role in the film Last Cab to Darwin.[3] In 2017 she played the part of Bulldozer in Throbbin' 84.[7] The film takes its name from the 1984 Australian compilation music album Throbbin' '84.

Deane-Johns appeared in two seasons of The Other Guy in 2018 and 2019. She performed in season two of the comedy drama series Mr Inbetween in 2019. She was also in the documentary series Location Scout which was about the making of the Australian comedy film Top End Wedding, which was filmed around Darwin in 2018.

She has worked with some of Australia's best-known actors[8] imcluding John Hargreaves, Judy Davis, Nicole Kidman, Charles Bud Tingwell, John Meillon and Alwyn Kurts.

As well as acting, Deane-Johns has done voiceovers including four episodes of Persons of Interest in 2014.[9]

Deane-Johns is also a writer and has kept an anecdotal record of her thespian experiences in a series of articles called Mercia's Missives. She describes the difficulties in working with misogynistic directors, unsympathetic make-up artists, bitchy co-stars and young actors who think they are God's gift to women.[10]

Deane-Johns wrote for the (now defunct) Australian Playboy magazine for four years in the 1980s. As she relates in her cogitations Mercia's Missives: "I spent a lot of time in my room, writing a column for Playboy magazine, simply entitled Women. Peter Olszewski, also known as JJ Mc Roach, the founder of the Marijuana Party was the editor at the time. I enjoyed writing for Playboy. I had a lot of material around me at the time for inspiration. Things were fine".

As well as singing and acting Deane-Johns has done stand-up comedy and has ambitions to appear at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe one day. She appeared with co-star and fellow Australian singer and actress Anne-Maree McDonald in Caliente[11] in 2011. This was a one-hour stand-up comedy routine which they performed at The El Rocco Room, in Sydney's Kings Cross.

When pregnant with her daughter Natasha, Mercia was the first pregnant woman in the world to be photographed for Playboy.