Her younger brother Peter Mendoza (born 1927) was an actor most notably with JC Williamsons in Australia and repertory theatre in England.
As a child she toured with her mother, working in small mime parts and crowd scenes for the opera, ballet, musicals and revue.
[3][4] She realised that art was her calling at age 12 and commenced life classes at 14 and portraiture eventually became her forte.
[10] Mendoza appeared as a castaway on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 8 September 1979,[11] and in 1985 painted the presenter, Roy Plomley.
She was a Patron of the Tait Memorial Trust, an Australian performing arts charity based in London.