Ngarla Kunoth also known as Rosalie Kunoth-Monks was born on Utopia Station in the Northern Territory, as a child she travelled around with her parents, her father was a shearer at different stations throughout the Northern Territory.
In 1951, at the age of 14, when she staying at St Mary's Hostel in Alice Springs, film directors Elsa and Charles Chauvel recruited her to play the lead female role in Jedda (1954), the first feature length, colour film made in Australia. Kunoth was also the first Indigenous lead female role.
From 1960, Kunoth spent ten years as a nun in the Melbourne Anglican Community of the Holy Name, but left the order and married Bill Monks in 1970, and worked with the department of Aboriginal Affairs. She was soon appointed as an adviser on Aboriginal Affairs, and stood for election to the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly in 1979. She lost the election, but continued her activism working to improve the lives of Indigenous people.
In 2008 she returned to Utopia; in August that year Kunoth went to Canberra for Amnesty International and denounced the Federal government intervention in the Northern Territory, as a "high violation of humans rights".
Kunoth continues her work in social work and politics and as a campaigner for the Indigenous peoples. (Source: Wikipedia website; Australian Biography website)
