Steve Dodd was an Aboriginal Australian actor, notable for playing Aboriginal characters across seven decades of Australian film. After beginning his working life as a stockman and rodeo rider, Dodd was given his first film roles by prominent Australian actor Chips Rafferty. His career was interrupted by six years in the Australian Army during the Korean War, and limited by typecasting.
Steve Dodd, serving with the Australian Army in Korea (1953), Australian War Memorial
Gallipoli is a 1981 Australian war drama film directed by Peter Weir and produced by Patricia Lovell and Robert Stigwood, starring Mel Gibson and Mark Lee. The film revolves around several young men from Western Australia who enlist in the Australian Army during World War I. They are sent to the Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire, where they take part in the Gallipoli campaign. During the course of the film, the young men slowly lose their innocence about the purpose of war. The climax of the film occurs on the Anzac battlefield at Gallipoli, depicting the futile attack at the Battle of the Nek on 7 August 1915. It modifies events for dramatic purpose and contains a number of significant historical inaccuracies.
Australian theatrical release poster