Kingston

Distinguished and Famous people from Kingston

📚 Eddie Perfect

Composer, actor and writer Eddie Perfect attended St Bede’s College in Mentone before studying music theatre at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. His work has ranged from cabaret and screen acting to writing the score for Beetlejuice on Broadway, which earned a 2019 Tony Award nomination. There is a pleasing local detail behind that theatrical journey: he has recalled discovering the original Beetlejuice film as a teenager at a Mentone video shop. Schooling and an ordinary suburban film rental belong to the early part of a career that later reached an international stage.

🏏 Shane Warne

Shane Warne’s connection with the City of Kingston includes his years at Mentone Grammar. The school identifies him with its class of 1987 and honoured him in 2023 by naming its main match oval in his memory. Family members, former teammates and coaches attended the unveiling, bringing school cricket back into the story of a player who later became internationally famous. The association is educational and sporting; it does not make Mentone his birthplace. Remembering the school connection also shows the smaller teams and coaches behind the public career of a champion leg-spinner.

📚 Nina Carr

Nina Carr was foundation principal of Mentone Girls’ School, which opened in 1955. Living in a flat at the school, she tended its front garden and organised parents’ working parties while building its educational foundations. After a decade she moved to lead Mac.Robertson Girls’ High, where her consultative style helped students negotiate changing expectations for young women. Mentone’s connection is particularly tangible: school grounds, routines and opportunities had to be created together. The hall bearing her name recalls a foundation principal who was involved in both the educational plan and the practical work around it.

🧪 Gerald and Rae Oppenheim

Gerald and Rae Oppenheim expanded Ego Pharmaceuticals into larger premises at Cheltenham in 1978, including a research department. A new manufacturing plant opened at Braeside in 1986. The enterprise had begun decades earlier in their Elsternwick home, with Gerald making products and Rae delivering and promoting them. Their son Alan and his wife Jane eventually took over management when the founders retired in 1993. Cheltenham and Braeside belong to the industrial growth of that family business, linking the district with laboratory work, production and the gradual development of an Australian manufacturer.

📚 Manning Clark

Manning Clark’s family settled at Mentone in 1934 after years of moving between his father’s church appointments. He was then beginning the university years that would lead to a career as a historian and teacher. His six-volume A History of Australia brought religion, class and individual character into an expansive national narrative. Clark’s public lectures and distinctive delivery helped him reach audiences outside universities, although fellow historians disputed aspects of his scholarship. The Mentone connection is a family home at the transition from school to adult study, before the Canberra career for which he became best known.