Judy McIntosh

Born in Hamilton, Judy McIntosh grew up in Hawke's Bay, amidst a creative family. All four of her sisters have spent time in the arts, whether as designers, curators, or in the screen world (sister Jan has produced many television shows).

Judy’s own journey began after Auckland’s Theatre Corporate visited high school when she was 14. She later trained with the company (under theatre legend Raymond Hawthorne) after completing a Bachelor of Arts. She did two shows a day in schools, with another performance in the evening. She would look back on those days with nostalgia. "We were tutored and nurtured so carefully, and there was a real team spirit."

Her first screen gig was playing one of the only female cops on 80s TV show Mortimer’s Patch. As the roles began to pile up over the next few years, screen work quickly became her preferred home. Casting agents often picked her for "socially responsible roles" (lawyers, doctors, teachers). As she commented in the late 80s, "if someone needs a tarty girlfriend I don’t get asked to audition".

After playing teacher to one of the inmates in acclaimed borstal drama Kingpin, McIntosh won her first starring role on screen. In 1985 teleplay Out in the Cold she was a solo mother who cuts her hair short and disguises herself as a man, so she can work at a cool store. The haircut made her feel like "such a boy" and cost her a part in Australia, but was swiftly followed by two of her most memorable roles.

In road movie Arriving Tuesday (1986) she co-starred as Monica, who returns home after time in Europe, and tries to encourage her sculptor boyfriend (Peter Hayden) to come out of his shell. When the pair head north on a road trip, their relationship is strained further after they give a lift to a charismatic Māori poet (Rawiri Paratene). The first feature by Richard Riddiford, Arriving Tuesday was a rare Kiwi stab at big screen romance. It made few ripples at the box office, though critic Helen Martin has described it as "well paced, with warmth and wit cut through by moments of bitter anger ... the love and hīkoi storylines are skillfully interwoven".

McIntosh won a GOFTA Award for her work. Another followed when she joined the ensemble of Barry Barclay and Tama Poata's feature Ngāti. The film competed at the Cannes Film Festival, and won wide praise; it is seen as a landmark in Māori filmmaking. McIntosh played the Pākehā teacher who introduces Ross Girven’s character to life in a small East Coast community, in the late 1940s. (McIntosh and Girven later joined the last season of soap Gloss; McIntosh was "serious-minded" lawyer Jessica Dunbar-Jones.)

In an interview with The Listener, McIntosh mentioned the challenges of learning and taking risks, when good film roles only arrived once or twice per year. "The more roles you get, the greater your confidence becomes. My performance in Ngāti felt lighter, expressive, full of laughter and with a lot more spirituality compared to Arriving Tuesday, which was more heavy and solid."

After visiting France for Arriving Tuesday's first screenings, McIntosh decided to try her luck in England. But agents never got back to her, and she felt like "a second-rate citizen purely because I was a Kiwi". McIntosh was temping, saving to come home, when a friendly local encouraged her to make more effort on the acting front. So she did. She met an Australian who had just passed up a role in Birmingham. Next thing McIntosh was on-stage with Julian Glover (Tár) in King John's Jewels. New Zealand musician Mike Chunn saw the play, and found McIntosh and Glover "particularly electric; their clashes quite brutal". On the final night, Glover told her that stardom awaited her in Europe, if only her breasts were bigger.

Back home by late 1987, McIntosh jumped back into theatre and screen roles, and decided she was up to co-hosting magazine show Weekend, opposite Gordon McLauchlan. That year she co-starred in British-Kiwi TV movie The Grasscutter, as the woman who learns that her Irish boyfriend is a former terrorist. Soon after she featured in this ambitious promo for the 1990 Commonwealth Games.

The Grasscutter marked the first of a long run of international projects: in England, Australia and even in Narnia. In Australia, McIntosh spent three years playing a doctor on award-winning show G.P., and co-starred opposite LA Law heart-throb Harry Hamlin in legal thriller Ebbtide (1994).

The international projects included fantasy film Bridge to Terabithia. Pressed for a favourite, McIntosh listed another fantasy movie shot in New Zealand: playing mother to the pint-sized adventurers of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. McIntosh had definitely tackled roles "far more demanding in terms of screen time and the responsibility of carrying a film", but she loved the "great sense of family" on set, and had fond memories of a magical gala premiere in London. She continued to get fan mail from her time in Narnia.

Back home, her CV also included kidult fantasy Mirror, Mirror, a starring role in short film A Funeral, and an NZ TV award for a guest role on TV's Marlin Bay — as a woman who leaves her rugby league-playing husband.

In 2011 McIntosh joined the cast of Go Girls as Robyn Caulfield — mother to Matt Whelan’s character, and a member of North Shore’s nouveau riche. She went on to act in film within a film Not Set in Stone, Robyn Malcolm TV series Agent Anna, and played a judge on Dirty Laundry.

Judy McIntosh passed away on 2 December 2024. She was 64.

Profile updated on 5 December 2024

Sources include
Judy McIntosh
Mike Chunn, 'A little luck and lots of hard work' (Interview) - The NZ Herald, 9 July 1987
Michelle Joe, 'Judy McIntosh - Arriving Sunday' (Interview) - The Listener, 9 April 1988, page 23
Claire Logan, 'Gloss: Now We Are Three' - Onfilm, August 1989, page 31 (Volume 6, No 5)
Helen Martin and Sam Edwards, New Zealand Film 1912-1996 (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1997)
Gloss Season 3 press kit