She is best known locally and internationally for her role in Home and Away as Floss McPhee in that series first year (with several guest stints), before being written out as producers wanted to concentrate on a younger and updated cast.
Previously she was known locally as Norma Whittaker in Number 96 and in sitcom Kingswood Country[6] Kennelly was born in Brighton, Sussex, England in December 1936 and arrived with her family in Australia at an early age, where she attended North Sydney Girls High School before training at the Independent Theatre.
Whilst her husband, amateur inventor Les was killed off in the infamous bomb blast storyline, Norma remained with the series for 4+1⁄2 years, returning for the final episode.
After the series' demise it was given to Tom Oliver, who housed it at a wine establishment business he owned in Sydney Jacks Sellers[8] In a 2009 reunion with the cast of Number 96 on Where Are They Now?, Kennelly stated she had wanted to become a serious actor featuring in plays by such dramatists as Arthur Miller and Bertolt Brecht, but ended up in Number 96 instead as Norma, in which she used a blonde wig to disguise 'the real Sheila'.
She played retired carnival worker Floss McPhee for the first year of screening, but was eventually written out, as the producers wanted to concentrate on a younger cast and updated formula.