Coralie Wood hasn't been coy about much. One thing she of the flaming red hair and prominent eyelashes never wanted to talk about, though, was her age. Very few knew just how old she was.

Now it can be told: the longtime Canberra publicist, CAT Awards convenor and local identity celebrated her 80^th birthday on Tuesday, October 27 at a lunch at the Commonwealth Club. In attendance were many Canberra friends and - via technology - family members who are interstate and overseas.

The event was organised by the former owners of Teatro Vivaldi, Mark Santos and Anthony Hill, for whom she publicised shows by Rhonda Burchmore, Amanda Muggleton and other stars.

"It's rather sad," she says of turning 80. She certainly doesn't feel, or act, old.

"I just don't like being that age."

Surely it's better than the alternative?

"I would agree, but I've got another 10 years in me."

Wood has had a long career working with the stars. She has toured with Simon Gallaher's production of The Pirates of Penzance and over more than four decades has done publicity for Sir Cliff Richard, Peter Allen, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Shirley MacLaine, among many others.

She's also publicised many Canberra-made plays and musicals and worked with a vast array of local talent - even alpacas. In 2008 she was awarded the medal of the Order of Australia for her services to entertainment in the ACT and in 2018 she was inducted into the Association of Community Theatre's Hall of Fame.

One thing that has been slowing her down and making her sad is the shortage of work since the coronavirus took hold. The performing arts were hit particularly badly all over Australia.

"I've always been such a busy person, such a busy bee," she says.

"It just stopped really. I didn't believe it would go on for so long. I feel very sorry for all of the people involved with me."

The arts, she says, seem to have been largely forgotten in efforts to support people during the pandemic.

She also had to cancel the 25^th gala awards night for the CAT Awards celebrating amateur theatre in the ACT and regional NSW. The winners were announced online. The coronavirus has meant very few shows have gone on this year, so the next years awards might be merged with those in 2022.

But Wood has persevered through ups and downs in her life, and no doubt will continue to do so.

She's weathered changing times for publicity: landlines and paper have made way for mobile phones and computers. Her very personal touch, holding lunches for launches and going so far as to pick up clients and drive them to their hotel, has been replaced to some extent by more centralised control of things from the bigger cites.

Wood has always had a wide range of ideas and activities, from a hot-dogs-and-Coke-in-a-gym launch for a local production of West Side Story to co-producing Jesus Christ Superstar at the AIS Arena.

She was born Coralie Cohen in Melbourne and began acting while at Methodist Ladies' College, playing Eliza in the all-girl school production of Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion before going on to professional work in radio.

Her air force husband, John Wood (not the actor, though she has worked with him several times), converted to Judaism, and they had two children, Shanie and Arran.

They spent time in London and eventually returned to Australia settled in Canberra, where she soon became an important part of the city's performing arts world.

About 30 of Wood's friends attended her birthday lunch and several of them spoke about her and how much she has done for them and for Canberra.

One of Wood's oldest Canberra friends is Bev Porteous, whom she met in London in 1967.

They were both service wives and young mothers - their daughters would become friends. Wood's hair was already bouffy, but back then it was black.

It was not until the late 1970s that her longtime friend and hairdresser Charles Oliver created the eye-catching red 'do that, along with her eyelashes, is one of Wood's trademarks,

Porteous says among the things that struck her almost immediately about Wood was "her warmth and being so spontaneous and enjoying life".

They both ended up in Canberra, where Porteous worked in corporate public relations.

Wood and Porteous would often swap stories and give each other advice.

They did many other things together, too. Porteous has had a lot of fun with Wood and her friends over the years. Real estate agent Allan Curtis would hold wine bottlings - inviting people over to help bottle sizeable quantities of wine he had bought. They would, of course, enjoy it afterwards.

Another memory: Porteous says Barry Humphries was "a delight" when he came to perform in Canberra. She reminded him she had seen him many years in ago in Melbourne while they were both on their way to school.

"He was 17 and knitting socks on the number 7 tram for the soldiers."

Porteous says she talks to Wood every day on the telephone and is struck by how fast time has passed, how how long they've known each other and how much has happened.

"I still can't believe she's 80 - I can't believe I'm 80."

Canberra musician Ian McLean met Wood decades ago when he was conducting a Canberra Philharmonic Society production of Fiddler on the Roof in which she appeared.

"She was Yente, the matchmaker, of course."

Wood also helped explain the Jewish customs in the story to the cast

McLean won a CAT Award for his musical direction of Philo's Carousel and was invited by Wood to become one of the judges who watched and critiqued performances in Canberra and NSW and who helped decide the nominations and awards.

"I thought it was a wonderful thing and I still do," he says.

One of the best things about the CAT Awards - the city's only award of its kind, he says, is the sense of pride it gives performers who win or are even nominated for awards.

"It gives them confidence in their performing ability and has pride of place in their show biography."

Some have gone on to professional careers, including musical theatre performer Billy Bourchier and opera soprano Lorina Gore.

McLean says Wood was very helpful with free publicity advice when he was conducting the Royal Military College Band - "that's her generous nature".

Another longtime Canberra friend is Peter Gordon. He met Wood when he was 16 in 1971, in a showbiz sort of way.

"She recruited my then girlfriend, later wife, later ex-wife Debbie Chesterton to do a radio play on the ABC. Coralie was on it - she's a great thespian in her own right."

Although, with her striking look and flamboyant manner, "Coralie is one of Canberra's great characters", he says she has always been a woman of substance and a hard worker.

"Coralie is an amazing entrepreneur who created many firsts: she was the first to do theatre restaurant in Canberra, the first to do computerised ticketing, and the first and only full-time theatre publicist."

Gordon became what he calls "a hanger-on" when Chesteron went on to perform in Wood's longrunning Canberra production of the comedy Dimboola, which he says he saw " 316 times", often from the bar.

As a sideline from his public service job, Gordon worked for Wood when she began the BASS ticketing service in Canberra and was organising concerts at Bruce Stadium with artists such as Billy Joel and Dire Straits and attending the afterparties.

"I drank more than I got paid."

He remembers a time Wood picked up the rock band Dr Hook at the airport and was driving them to the Crown Plaza when one of its members. Ray Sawyer, asked, "Do you have any coke?"

Being a dedicated publicist, Wood said she would buy some on the way. She went into a Coles supermarket and came out with some Coca-Cola.

"He took out his glass eye and winked at her."

Along with the high spots, Wood has had upheavals in her life, such as the breakdown of her marriage, the problems that led to her BASS outlet closing, some fractured friendships, and now the lack of work during the pandemic that's left her, as she says, "looking at the ceiling".

She's spent quite a lot of time at her Curtin home with her little dog Bella.

And, she says, she's discovered who her real friends are.

"I had a lot of people but I realise now very few are there for me."

Although he was not at the lunch for Canberra friends, one of the people who has long been there is veteran entrepreneur Michael Edgley. At 77, he is nearly the same age as Wood and has worked regularly with her for the past 40 years on shows including the Moscow Circus.

"I don't know what to say," he says.

"She's the best, she's an icon - I bet that's a word that's been used to describe her by other people.""

He was last in Canberra with a circus about four years ago and, COVID restrictions permitting, hopes to bring the show to the ACT next year.

Will he use Wood as his publicist then?

"Is the Pope a Catholic?!"

That's something to give Coralie Wood hope that things will improve soon.