Justine Clarke

Justine Clarke (born 1971) is an Australian actress, singer, author and television host.

Clarke has been acting since the age of seven and has appeared in some of Australia's best known television shows. She is best-known for her portrayal as Roo Stewart on the soap opera Home and Away (1988–1989), as Ally Kovac on the drama series Tangle (2009–2012), and as a presenter on the Australian children's show Play School, a role which she has held since 1999. She is also a film and stage actor, and won the Best Actress Award at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival in Argentina in 2006 for her role in independent film Look Both Ways. She has won two ARIA Awards.

Clarke was born in Sydney, New South Wales to Beverley (née Levine), an actress and singer and Leonard Clarke, a singer. They separated when Clarke was eight-months old after which she was raised by her mother.

At the age of seven, while attending Woollahra Public School with other up and coming talents like Mouche Phillips and Deni Hines, she began appearing in television commercials, one of which was Arnott's Humphrey B. Bear biscuits. At eleven, she played the role of Brigitta in the stage musical, The Sound of Music.

Clarke's first significant acting role was as the character Anna Goanna in the 1985 film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. The same year, she appeared in the TV series The Maestro's Company and featured in the 1986 mini-series Professor Poopsnaggle's Steam Zeppelin. The following year, she made appearances in A Country Practice and Willing and Abel.

Clarke appeared in a telemovie Touch the Sun, by the Australian Children's Television Foundation

In 1987, Clarke began filming an eighteen months role on the soap opera, Home and Away, as one of 17 original cast members, playing the character of Ruth "Roo" Stewart. The character of Roo was reinstated in the cast list in 2010, portrayed by Georgie Parker, making the character of Roo one of only two remaining original characters in the series (along with Ray Meagher's character of Alf Stewart). Clarke was one of several Home and Away cast-members to star in an early stage musical about the soap, which toured the UK in 1991.

Following her departure from Home and Away in 1989, Clarke appeared in the short-lived series Family and Friends before going on to act in several mini-series including Come In Spinner and Golden Fiddles.