Patricia Ann Ruth Noble (3 February 1944 – 23 January 2021) was an Australian singer and actress who enjoyed performing careers in Australia and England before turning to acting in the late '60s.
Patricia "Trisha" Ann Ruth Noble was born into a family of performers in Australia: her father Buster Noble was a popular comic, singer and dancer while her mother, the former Helen de Paul, was a choreographer and stage producer. As a child, she appeared in various productions of her parents, and became a performer in her own right on a popular radio program in 1950. Noble studied singing and dancing, and was qualified to teach ballet at the age of 14. She subsequently became the lead singer and featured dancer in her parents' production of a revue called International Follies.
Noble's television debut followed in 1960, and was signed as regular performer on Bandstand, a weekly Australian musical showcase. A recording contract with the Australian division of HMV Records -- a unit of the EMI group -- led to the release of her first single, "I Love You So Much It Hurts," in late 1960. "Good Looking Boy," released a year later, charted in both Sydney and Melbourne (Australia didn't have an established national record chart in those days), and led to the release of Noble's first album, Just For You, which was given the first Logie Award ever granted for Best Female Singer. Her success as a singer didn't distract Noble from her acting, and she appeared in serious theatrical productions during this period.
Having gone about as far as music could take her in Australia, Noble headed for England in 1963, and started at the top when she ended up making her BBC debut alongside the Beatles; Noble and the band ended up making several televised appearances together, and she seemed poised for a major singing career, issuing a fine girl group-type record in 1963 with "Don't You Ever Change Your Mind" b/w "Sour Grapes." She was a regular panellist on Juke Box Jury and also appeared in the jukebox musical Just for Fun, and got a singing spot in one episode of Secret Agent/Danger Man.
Somehow, the success never came to Noble as a singer, despite appearances at the London Palladium and the Paris Olympia Theater, and by 1966 she'd begun to emphasize her acting once again, though she continued to record sides for Polydor until late in the decade. It was as Trisha Noble, with her hair dyed blonde, that she enjoyed considerably more success, both in England and America.
During the 1960s, Noble released six albums in Australia and one in England, the most popular being The Blonde Bombshell (1961) which received an award for most outstanding vocal performance on an album. In the second half of the 1960s, she turned to acting and made her dramatic screen debut in a 1965 BBC television production entitled The Snowball, and soon found herself appearing on other television series, including the 1966 Danger Man episode "Not So Jolly Roger" , Callan with Edward Woodward , and films such as Death Is a Woman (1966), in which Noble had a lead role as the femme fatale), and Carry On Camping (1969).
She relocated to the United States beginning in 1971 and appeared in films and television series. She guest-starred on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century as Sabrina, a superhuman thief in the episode "Cruise Ship to the Stars"; and a guest appearance on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1976 where she played a female reporter who tries to seduce Ted Baxter (Ted Knight) during the episode "Ted's Temptation". Also ‘’Up Pompeii! as high priestess of the vestal virgins.’’
In 1980, Noble played the role of heiress Phyllis Morley in the mystery comedy film The Private Eyes starring Tim Conway and Don Knotts. Another ongoing role was as Detective Rosie Johnson on the police drama Strike Force (starring Robert Stack) on ABC in 1981–82. Soon after Strike Force was cancelled, Noble returned to Australia in 1983 with her son Patrick because her father, Buster, was seriously ill. She re-established a career there as a theatrical actress. In 1986, she appeared in the television miniseries Body Business.
In 2002, Noble filmed a small role as Padmé Amidala's mother (and thus the maternal grandmother of Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa), Jobal Naberrie, in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones which was cut from the final film – but included on the DVD release. Noble briefly reprised the role in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith in 2005. She continued to perform on the live stage and, as of 2007, appeared with the new National Music Theatre Company, Kookaburra, in their premiere season of Pippin as Berthe at the Sydney Theatre. One of her most recent roles was in the Australian theatre production ‘Ladies In Black’ (2017).
Noble died on 23 January 2021, after what was described as an 18-month battle with mesothelioma, aged 76.
(Edited from Wikipedia and AllMusic)