Parramatta’s top 20 most famous faces from number 10 to 6
From Girraween to the catwalks of the world: International supermodel Robyn Lawley has cracked the top 10 of Parramatta’s most famous list.
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PARRAMATTA is brimming with celebrities that once called the western Sydney suburb home.
Some were here a long time, others only stayed a short time but have left a lasting impression. Others still live here. Regardless, their contribution to Sydney’s west lives on and helps pave the way for future generations to achieve greatness.
Each day we will be releasing our top picks for the most famous faces that have grown up, gone to school or lived in the Parramatta area.
All 20 will be listed on our website over coming days with your opportunity to agree, disagree or suggest others who should be on the list.
10. Brett Kenny
The son of a former Australian baseball representative, Parramatta Eels legend Brett Kenny did not turn to rugby league until well into his teenage years after baseball and athletics. The Guildford junior impressed in a President’s Cup (under 19s) trial in 1980 and was moved straight into the Eels’ under-23s. By the end of the year was a first-grade centre.
“My father was a baseballer, so for me that was a natural progression,” Kenny said.
“I played baseball in the summer and football in the winter at Guildford. When I got graded in 1980 for Parramatta, I thought ‘well, you know, I’m getting paid to play football, I’m not getting paid to play baseball’, so obviously the football was going to take over.”
Along with Peter Sterling, Ray Price, Mick Cronin, Steve Ella and Eric Grothe, Kenny formed the nucleus of a side which dominated the New South Wales Rugby League premiership between 1981 and 1986, winning four premierships.
Under coach Jack Gibson, all of the players were made to have jobs outside of footy.
“When Jack arrived in ‘81, he made sure that everyone had a job. He got me started as the cellarman at Parramatta Leagues,” Kenny said.
9. Harry Hopman
Harry Hopman is regarded as the godfather of the Australian Davis Cup.
Three-time Australian Open finalist Hopman, who died of a heart attack in 1985 aged 79, is best remembered for his successful tenure as a Davis Cup captain from 1939 to 1967.
Australia won 22 Davis Cup crowns during Hopman’s time at the helm of Australian tennis.
The mixed teams Hopman Cup was first held in Perth in 1989 and named in honour of the Parramatta-raised Hopman.
Hopman attended Rosehill Primary School, where his father was headmaster, and later Parramatta High School, where he played tennis and cricket.
After his successful playing career, Hopman moved to the US and became a successful coach to future champions Vitas Gerulaitis and later John McEnroe.
8. Robyn Lawley
She’s on of the world’s most in-demand models but growing up in Girraween, Robyn Lawley had the usual insecurities.
“I felt awkward and unattractive. I did not like my body at all. I couldn’t shop in ‘normal’ fashionable shops and that had a disastrous effect on my self-esteem,” she says.
The plus-size model attended Macarthur Girls High School and at 16 was signed by a modelling agency. She started getting regular work for magazines including Dolly and Girlfriend but there was pressure to lose weight.
“I was never told outright to lose weight but instructed to eat a bit more healthily and step up the exercise,” she said.
“Being the sportsgirl of the year consecutively at Macarthur Girls High School and a strict vegan, those options were already out for me.’’
At 18 she signed with Bella Management and her career took off.
She’s since modelled for the cover of French Elle, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan and Vogue Italia. She’s created her own swimwear line, photographed Leah Kelley in her swimwear and has a food blog, Robyn Lawley Eats.
7. Greg Page
He’s the former trainee teacher who rocked a yellow skivvy all the way into entertainment history. Greg Page, 46, is the original Yellow Wiggle, lead singer of the global juggernaut The Wiggles from 1991 to 2006 and again from 2012 to 2013.
Page grew up at Northmead and went to Northmead Creative and Performing Arts High School before famously meeting fellow Wiggles Anthony Field and Murray Cook while studying early childhood education at Macquarie University.
In his autobiography, Page wrote about feeling racked with low self-esteem from as early as age eight, when the girls he fancied at Baulkham Hills Primary School didn’t respond in kind. And the feeling was further compounded when, at age 16, he started going grey and wondered if “no one will want me’’.
He hung up the famous yellow skivvy after being diagnosed with a condition called orthostatic intolerance in 2006 but later returned to the group briefly.
He was replaced by the group’s first female member Emma Watkins.
Since retiring from The Wiggles, Page has worked on an educational TV program called Butterscotch’s Playground.
6. Betty Cuthbert
Betty Cuthbert won a place in the hearts of Australians after winning three gold medals in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
Winning the 100m, 200m and 100m team relay, the blue eyed girl from Ermington was the first Australian ever to win three gold medals at a single Games, earning the title of the nation’s Golden Girl.
Following her return from Melbourne, 50,000 people attended a victory parade through the streets of Parramatta in her honour.
“Work stopped in Parramatta’s shops where Betty, in the back of an open Rolls Royce drove along the main street, where cheering crowds stood six deep,” reads a newspaper account of the parade held on December 10, 1956.
“Betty drove under banners across the road reading: ‘Parramatta welcomes Betty Cuthbert’. ‘Welcome to Betty, our Golden Girl’.”
Cuthbert came back from injury in 1964 at the Tokyo Olympics to win gold in the 400m. She is the only athlete to win Olympic gold over all three distances.
Cutherbert said she knew she was a fast runner when she was a student at Ermington Public School.
“Ever since I was eight, I knew I could run fast, because at school I beat all the boys, and my teacher encouraged me to join the running club,” she said.
“From the age of 13, when we had Jubilee school races, I won the 75 yards, and then I used to win the state championships and it gradually progressed ... “
Of her upbringing, Cuthbert said: “My parents always encouraged me and I had a good home life. We were always taught to respect things and other people.”
As a teenager, Cuthbert attended Parramatta Home Science School. She left school at the age of 16 to work in the family nursery.
Cuthbert, who had multiple sclerosis and had used a wheelchair for many years, died last year aged 79.
A monument honouring the sporting great is on the Ermington avenue that bears her name.