The second child and elder daughter of Dr E.H. Molesworth (an expert on leprosy and cancer) and Patience Mary Terry, Judy Fallon was a notable journalist.
Born in Sydney in 1916, Fallon was the sister of Edmund James Cairns Molesworth (born 1913, known as James) and had a younger sister, born 1919.
In company with her husband Jo (Joseph James) Fallon, a photographer, she worked as a society reporter in Sydney in the 1940s. In October 1949, she moved to London to further her career, leaving her husband in Sydney (where he later divorced her on the grounds of desertion).
In London, she formed part of the Society of Australian Writers, with other expatriate Australian writers. In 1953, she contributed a section on Australian women to a book called The Sunburned Country, designed as a gift for Queen Elizabeth II on her ascent to the throne: her depiction of Australian women, particularly her insistence that they were poor cooks, drew forth a flurry of condemnation in the letter sections of Australian newspapers.
Fallon published her only substantial monograph, a travel book on New Caledonia called Pacific Pantomime, in London in 1952. It was launched on the Wellington, the headquarters of the Master Mariners' Company, with Fallon wearing a dress custom designed by Michael of Lachasse, with a print of Indigenous dance that matched the dustcover of the book. She is also the author of a play, 'Old Man's Darling', a copy of which is held in the Hanger Collection at the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland: no production details have yet been traced.
Sources:
'Sydney Girl's Corroboree Dress', Sun, 30 July 1952, p.24.
Berkeley, Elaine. 'Party for Sydney Girl's First Book', Daily Telegraph, 18 May 1952, p.39.
'Mum Is Pivot of Aust. Home', Brisbane Telegraph, 19 November 1953, p.23.
'Why Judy Wasn't Home When the Duke Called', Truth, 7 March 1954, p.9.
