Lynn Carol Rainbow-ReidAM (born 19 September 1942) credited also as Lynne Rainbow, is an arts administrator and philanthropist and former actress of stage, radio, television and film, dancer and voice artist and archivist.
Early life
Rainbow was born in Australia to Judge Alfred Ernest Rainbow and his wife.
A fourth generation performer, her great-grandfather was British theatrical tycoon and singer John Fuller, who emigrated to New Zealand and was known as the 'Silver throated tenor of New Zealand'. Her grandfather was also a theatre tycoon, Sir Benjamin Fuller, who established he's own company Fuller's Theatres Circuit, with brother John Fuller Jnr. launching a number of venues across Australasia
Rainbow's mother was a dancer, whose partner was Ron Shand.
Rainbow has worked in the entertainment industry throughout England, the US and her native Australia. Serving as a judge by day, and dancing as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake by night, she has been involved in stage, film, TV and radio for over three decades.
She is best known for her role in the TV series Number 96 as original character Sonia Freeman, the chemist, from March 1972. She stayed in the role until 1973, during which time her character was involved in numerous controversial storylines, including Sonia engaging in an apparent incestuous relationship, an inter-racial kiss, with Chad Farrall, (which was apparently the reason why thes series was not able to be sold overseas, primarilty to American) and losing her husband Dr. Gordon Vansard in a car accident (played by Joe James (born Brighton, England , UK; 4 August 1925 - died; Eastern Suburbs (Sydney), New South Wales, Australia; 16 June, 2017) and then suffering a nervous breakdown, before returning exclusively for the film version of the series in a major storyline in which now remarried to a journalist Duncan Hunter whom with his partner flight attendent Diana Moore (played by Rebecca Gilling) are planning to send her mad, to obtain her interitence.
Rainbow reprised the role of Sonia Freeman in the film version of the serial, Number 96, in 1974. In the film, a newly married Sonia returns to Number 96, but again worries she is losing her mind. Rainbow shot all her scenes for the film in a single day, before rushing off to give a theatre performance as Elvira in Blithe Spirit that night.[citation needed]
After Number 96 Rainbow continued to make guest appearances in Australian television drama series, featuring in the miniseries Against the Wind (1978), took a regular role in the soap opera The Young Doctors, guest starred in six episodes of A Country Practice, and appeared in an early episode of Home and Away.
Rainbow was awarded in the Queens Birthday Honours with the Order of Australia (AM) with the citation being for "significant service to the community through support for a range of cultural and charitable organisations, and to the performing arts as an actor".
![[icon]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small}
