[1][2] She joined the series in 1993, and is the longest serving female cast member of a television soap opera in Australia.

[3] She originally was a primary school teacher who trained at the Riverina College of Advanced Education in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, in 1975 where she had her initial actor training.

After further experience with the Q Theatre in Penrith, west of Sydney, she started working in television and won a small part in soap opera The Flying Doctors.

She undertook her best-known role on 12 January 1993, when she joined the cast of Home and Away playing Irene Roberts.

In 2014 McGranger overtook former co-star Kate Ritchie as the longest serving actress to play the same character in Australian television.