Vale Bill HughesProducer, Director, Filmmaker 1944 – 2024Bill Hughes passed away in the early hours of Sunday morning, 7 April. He was a few weeks away from celebrating his eightieth birthday. I worked with Bill in the 1990s. We lost touch after that and I don’t feel entirely qualified to write the kind of tribute…
Continue readingMike Jenkins died last week and our industry is diminished by his passing – but forever enhanced by his seminal contribution as writer, director, producer, executive producer. You can count on one hand – less than one hand – the people who have left a permanent mark on Australian film and television. Mike is one of them. Even…
Continue readingIt’s unfathomable to me that I’m writing this. That someone with such vivid, dynamic talent – whose ideas and stories felt limitless and unbounded by the laws of nature – might no longer be with us. “What do we want to see next?” was a regular question Alison asked when we were deciding on the…
Continue readingJames Davern died this week. I’m sorry, I don’t use euphemisms; I don’t think he was too keen on them either. He was my friend and mentor for nearly sixty years, and I will miss him greatly. As will his beloved family and so many, many others. Larger than life, that was Jim. Renaissance man,…
Continue readingTom Hegarty, an admired pioneer of Australian television writing, has died in Sydney at the age of 88. In an era when dramatic writing was not considered a proper career, Tom wrote in the evenings while working as a traveling salesman for Lever Brothers in Queensland. Like many in the 1960s, Tom got his first…
Continue readingIt’s not often in life you have meaningful friendships that influence your lives. My partner, Janina, and I were lucky enough to have one such with Patrick Edgeworth and his wonderful wife, Susie. Patrick had a wonderfully pragmatic way of dealing with life’s ups and downs. His most memorable qualities were centred around a calm dignity,…
Continue readingOne of Australia’s finest writers and one of the Guild’s most loyal and influential members, Mac Gudgeon, sadly passed away last week after a long illness. The President of the Australian Writers’ Guild, Shane Brennan, said, ‘Mac was a towering presence in the Guild. He was not just our heart and soul, he was our conscience,…
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