McDonnell spent three years as a member of "Energy Connection", a youth dance theatre company in Adelaide, South Australia, until she was admitted to the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney.
[2] She played a different role, Detective Sergeant Jan Murray, in Janus, a spin-off of Phoenix.
Other television credits include the television series Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left, Chances, The Secret Life of Us, Horace & Tina and The Saddle Club; and the mini-series The Dirtwater Dynasty, Come In Spinner and Simone de Beauvoir's Babies.
[4] [5] McDonnell died on 15 March 2013, aged 49, in Melbourne, after a year-long battle with pancreatic cancer.
[3] A documentary about her life and death, called All In Her Stride, was completed in 2014, with McDonnell as a co-producer.