Rebecca Catherine Gibney (born December 14, 1964 in Levin, New Zealand) is a New Zealand-born Australia-based actress.
Gibney was born the youngest of six children, and brought up in Wellington. Gibney moved to Australia at the age of 19.
After working as a model, she broke in to television with the role of Julie Davis in the children's series Zoo Family in 1985 and went on to play mechanic Emma Plimpton for four years in the critically acclaimed and popular drama series The Flying Doctors.
In 1990, she starred in All Together Now, quitting the show after three seasons.
The title character of Dr. Jane Halifax in Halifax f.p. was created especially for her, by the producers of her previous show Snowy. Halifax f.p debuted in 1994 with the episode "Acts Of Betrayal", and continued with a further 20 telemovies leading up until 2002.
She appeared in the mini-series Kangaroo Palace in 1997, and in Day of the Roses in 1998.
In 2002 and 2003, Gibney had a role in Stingers.
Gibney's most high-profile role since Halifax was in the telemovie trilogy Small Claims as Chrissy, co-starring with Claudia Karvan 2003-2006.
She appeared in the movie adaptation of Stephen King's novel Salem's Lot released in 2004 and then followed up in 2006 with King's "Nightmares and Dreamscapes" TV Mini-series.
Her most recent TV role has been as Lydia, a hippie restaurant owner and operator in the Network Ten drama series Tripping Over.
She also has a small role in the film Clubland, starring Brenda Blethyn, and directed by Cherie Nowlan. The film is known as Introducing the Dwights in the United States.
A series of Australian television commercials for Advil in 2006/7 have featured Gibney and her family. A new television commercial with only Gibney appeared in October 2007.
Rebecca was executive producer and also starred in New Zealand feature film The Map Reader as Amelia alongside Michael Hurst and played the mother of Michael, The map reader of the title portrayed by Jordan Selwyn, nephew of New Zealand acting icon Don Selwyn. The film is set for a 2008 release.
Rebecca currently hosts a documentary series produced by Television New Zealand called Sensing Murder in which unsolved New Zealand murder or missing person cases are probed by psychic investigators from both New Zealand and Australia.
From August 2008, Rebecca can be seen as the female lead on Channel 7's new Tuesday night show "Packed To The Rafters". She plays the role of the mother Julie Rafter.
Gibney has been married twice, firstly to Irwin Thomas (former lead singer of Southern Sons; aka Jack Jones) in 1992, which ended in divorce. She married production designer Richard Bell in November 2001 and gave birth to her first child, a son, Zachary Edison Bell, in early 2004.
She currently resides in Tasmania, Australia with her husband and son.
Rebecca Gibney won both an AFI (Australian Film Institute) Award for Best Actress, and a peer-nominated Most Outstanding Actress Logie in 1991 for her role in Come In Spinner, an ABC Television mini-series set in wartime (WWII) Sydney. Her co-stars, Lisa Harrow and Kerry Armstrong were also both nominated for the Logie award.
She has been nominated for both AFIs and Logies on numerous occasions. At the Logies, she has been nominated for the Most Popular Actress 6 times (1992, 1997 - 99, 2001 - 02), Outstanding Actress 4 times (1998 - 2000, 2005) and Most Popular Comedy Female Personality (1992). Most recently she has been nominated consistently for Best Actress AFIs for her role as Jane Halifax in Halifax f.p. .
Gibney won two Most Popular Actress People's Choice Awards in the late 1990s. Gibney was also nominated for 'Most sexiest Aussie actress' in July 2004's edition of Picture magazine only to lose out to Toni Pearen.
