1.
Michael Pate
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Michael Pate, born Edward John Pate in Drummoyne, Sydney, was an Australian actor, writer, director and WWII army soldier. For the remainder of the 1930s, he worked primarily in radio drama and he also published theatrical and literary criticism and enjoyed brief success as an author of short stories, publishing works in both Australia and the United States. During World War II, Pate served in the Australian Army in the South West Pacific Area and he was transferred to the 1st Australian Army Amenities Entertainment Unit, known as The Islanders, entertaining Australian troops in various combat areas. After the war, Pate returned to radio, appearing in many plays, between 1946 and 1950 he began breaking into films. In 1949 he appeared in his first leading role in Sons of Matthew, in 1950, he appeared in Bitter Springs with Tommy Trinder and Chips Rafferty. Also in 1950, Pate adapted, produced, and directed two plays — Dark of the Moon and Bonaventure, Pate spent most of the 1950s in the U. S. appearing in over 300 television shows and many films. Most notable among these was a 1954 Climax, live production of Ian Flemings Casino Royale, in which Pate played the role of Clarence Leiter, opposite Barry Nelsons Jimmy Bond. On the big screen, he played the role of Flavius in Julius Caesar. Pate went on to play many Native American roles, in 1956 he appeared in the film The Court Jester. Pate also played the role of a gunfighting vampire in the 1959 horror film Curse of the Undead. Michael Pate also played parts in the 1957 television series Zorro along with Guy Williams in episodes 27 and 28, michael Pate played the role of Puma, the Comanche chief in Andrew V. McLaglens western McLintock. in 1963 playing opposite John Wayne again. During his time in the U. S. Pate became an instructor and lecturer. In 1959, he returned briefly to Australia, where he starred in a TV presentation of Tragedy in a Temporary Town, shown as part of the Shell Presents anthology drama series. Get Smart, Rawhide in Incident of the Power and the Plow, Incident at Superstition Prairie and Incident of the Boomerang, among others, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in 1966, he played Frenchy Godey, a scout with Kit Carson and the John C. Fremont expedition in the episode Samaritans, Mountain Style of the series, Death Valley Days. In the story line, Carson and Gody stop to help a settler in dire straits, in an earlier Death Valley Days episode, The Measure of a Man, Pate was cast as the notorious bandit Augustine Chacon. In the story line, Rory Calhoun as Arizona Ranger Burt Mossman captures Chacon with the reluctant aid of another outlaw, Burt Alvord, Mossman handcuffs Chacon and orders Alvord to throw the key into the bushes. Soon Alvord is returned for the hanging which he had avoided some four years earlier, in another 1963 Death Valley Days episode entitled The Peacemaker, Pate played the Navajo Chief Hastele
2.
Colleen McCullough
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Colleen Margaretta McCullough AO was an Australian author known for her novels, her most well-known being The Thorn Birds. McCullough was born in 1937 in Wellington, in the Central West region of New South Wales, to James and her father was of Irish descent and her mother was a New Zealander of part-Māori descent. During her childhood, the family moved around a great deal and her family eventually settled in Sydney where she attended Holy Cross College, Woollahra, having a strong interest in both science and the humanities. She had a brother, Carl, who drowned off the coast of Crete when he was 25 while trying to rescue tourists in difficulty. She based a character in The Thorn Birds on him, before her tertiary education, McCullough earned a living as a teacher, librarian and journalist. In her first year of studies at the University of Sydney she suffered dermatitis from surgical soap and was told to abandon her dreams of becoming a medical doctor. Instead, she switched to neuroscience and worked at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney and she spent 10 years researching and teaching in the Department of Neurology at the Yale Medical School in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. While at Yale she wrote her first two books, one of these, The Thorn Birds, became an international best seller that in 1983 inspired one of the most-watched television miniseries of all time. Under his birth name Cedric Newton Ion-Robinson, he was a member of the Norfolk Legislative Assembly and he changed his name formally to Ric Newton Ion Robinson in 2002. McCulloughs 2008 novel, The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet engendered controversy with her reworking of characters from Jane Austens Pride, susannah Fullerton, the president of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, said she shuddered that Elizabeth Bennet was rewritten as weak, and Mr Darcy as savage. McCullough died on 29 January 2015, at the age of 77 and she had suffered from failing eyesight due to hemorrhagic macular degeneration, osteoporosis, trigeminal neuralgia, diabetes and uterine cancer, and was confined to a wheelchair. She was buried in a traditional Norfolk Island funeral ceremony at the Emily Bay cemetery on the island, in 1984, a portrait of McCullough, painted by Wesley Walters, was a finalist in the Archibald Prize. The prize is awarded for the best portrait painting preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters, the depth of historical research for the novels on ancient Rome led to her being awarded a Doctor of Letters degree by Macquarie University in 1993. It covers a 14-year period from the novel which was omitted from the first production, Mary Jean DeMarr, Colleen McCullough, A Critical Companion. Greenwood Publishing Group 1996, ISBN 0-313-29499-2
3.
Piper Laurie
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Piper Laurie is an American stage and screen actress known for her roles in the films The Hustler, Carrie and Children of a Lesser God, all of which brought her Academy Award nominations. She is also known for her performance as Catherine Martell in the television series Twin Peaks. Piper Laurie was born as Rosetta Jacobs on January 22,1932, in Detroit and she was the younger daughter of Charlotte Sadie and Alfred Jacobs, a furniture dealer. Her grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Poland on her fathers side and she was delivered, according to her 2011 autobiography Learning to Live Out Loud, where she lived in a one-bedroom walk-up on Tyler Street in Detroit. Alfred Jacobs moved the family to Los Angeles, California in 1938, to combat her shyness, her parents provided her with weekly elocution lessons, this eventually led to minor roles at nearby Universal Studios. For much of her childhood, her parents placed Laurie and her older sister in a childrens home. In 1949, Rosetta Jacobs signed a contract with Universal Studios, at Universal, she met other unfamiliar actors Julie Adams and Rock Hudson. Her breakout role was in Louisa, with Ronald Reagan whom she dated a few times before his marriage to Nancy Davis, in her autobiography she claimed that she lost her virginity to him. Several other roles followed, Francis Goes to the Races, Son of Ali Baba, to enhance her image, Universal Studios told gossip columnists that Laurie bathed in milk and ate flower petals to protect her luminous skin. Discouraged by the lack of film roles, she moved to New York to study acting and to seek work on the stage. She was again lured to Hollywood by the offer to co-star with Paul Newman in The Hustler and she played Newmans girlfriend, Sarah Packard, and for her performance she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Substantial movie roles did not come her way after The Hustler, so she and her husband moved to New York State. In 1964, she appeared in two medical dramas — as Alicia Carter in The Eleventh Hour episode My Door Is Locked and Bolted, in 1965, she starred in a Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie, opposite Maureen Stapleton, Pat Hingle and George Grizzard. Laurie did not appear in feature film until she accepted the role of Margaret White in the horror film Carrie. She received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in that role and her co-star, Sissy Spacek, praised her acting skill, She is a remarkable actress. She never does what you expect her to do—she always surprises you with her approach to a scene, in 1979, she appeared as Mary Horton in the Australian movie Tim opposite Mel Gibson. After her 1981 divorce, Laurie relocated to California and she received a third Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Mrs. Norman in Children of a Lesser God. That same year, she was awarded an Emmy for her performance in Promise, in 1990-91, she starred as the devious Catherine Martell in David Lynchs television series Twin Peaks
4.
Mel Gibson
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Mel Colmcille Gerard Gibson AO is an American actor and filmmaker. He was born in Peekskill, New York, and moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia and he studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art. During the 1980s, he founded Icon Entertainment, a company which independent film director Atom Egoyan has called. Director Peter Weir cast him as one of the leads in the critically acclaimed World War I drama Gallipoli, the film also helped to earn Gibson the reputation of a serious, versatile actor. He later directed and produced the successful and controversial, biblical drama film The Passion of the Christ. He received further critical notice for his work of the action-adventure film Apocalypto. Gibson was born in Peekskill, New York, the sixth of eleven children, and the son of Hutton Gibson, a writer. One of Gibsons younger brothers, Donal, is also an actor, because of his mother, Gibson retains dual Irish and American citizenship. Mel was twelve years old at the time, Gibson was educated by members of the Congregation of Christian Brothers at St Leos Catholic College in Wahroonga, New South Wales, during his high school years. Gibson gained very favorable notices from critics when he first entered the cinematic scene. In 1982, Vincent Canby wrote that Mr. Gibson recalls the young Steve McQueen, I cant define star quality, but whatever it is, Mr. Gibson has it. Gibson has also likened to a combination Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart. Gibsons roles in the Mad Max series of films, Peter Weirs Gallipoli, later, Gibson expanded into a variety of acting projects including human dramas such as Hamlet, and comedic roles such as those in Maverick and What Women Want. He expanded beyond acting into directing and producing, with, The Man Without a Face, in 1993, Braveheart, in 1995, The Passion of the Christ, in 2004, jess Cagle of Time compared Gibson with Cary Grant, Sean Connery, and Robert Redford. Connery once suggested Gibson should play the next James Bond to Connerys M. Gibson turned down the role, Gibson studied at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney. The students at NIDA were classically trained in the British-theater tradition rather than in preparation for screen acting. As students, Gibson and actress Judy Davis played the leads in Romeo and Juliet, and Gibson played the role of Queen Titania in an experimental production of A Midsummer Nights Dream. After graduation in 1977, Gibson immediately began work on the filming of Mad Max, but continued to work as a stage actor, and joined the State Theatre Company of South Australia in Adelaide
5.
Alwyn Kurts
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Alwyn Cecil Kurts was an Australian drama and comedy actor best remembered for his role as gruff Inspector Colin Fox in the TV series Homicide. Kurts originally worked as a war correspondent, before moving onto radio with his program Raising a Husband on radio station 3XY and he came to prominence in Homicide, followed by the comedy The Last of the Australians. In 1982 he appeared in the Australian TV drama Cop Shop, for a brief time, he was the Beast in the Australian version of the television panel show Beauty and the Beast. Kurts also appeared in the 1979 movie Tim with Mel Gibson, Piper Laurie, Kurts supported the 1972 campaign for the election of Gough Whitlam and the Labor Party. Alwyn Kurts died on 4 May 2000, aged 84 in Melbourne, Australia, in 1979, Kurts won the Australian Film Institute Award for AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his role as the father of Mel Gibsons character in the film Tim. Alwyn Kurts at the Internet Movie Database
6.
Australian Film Commission
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The Australian Film Commission was an Australian government agency with a mandate to promote the creation and distribution of films in Australia as well as to preserve the countrys film history. It also had a production arm responsible for production and commissioning of films for the Australian Government and it was established by the Whitlam Government in 1975 as the successor to the Australian Film Development Corporation set up by the Gorton Government. The AFC had offices in Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney, the AFC was funded in part by the national government and in part from its return on investments in film production as well as interest on film development loans. A Film Australia feature film for children, Let the Balloon Go, was released in 1976, Film Australia became a separate entity. Screen Australia started operating in July 2008, the AFC was established on 7 July 1975. In the first year of its existence its budget was $6.5 million, in 1979-80 its budget was $10 million, and it received $2.5 million from its investments. Cinema of Australia Culture of Australia Australian Film Commission at the Internet Movie Database
7.
Nine Network
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The Nine Network is one of three main free-to-air commercial networks in Australia. The Nine Network is one of the two highest-rating television networks in Australia, along with the Seven Network and ahead of Network Ten, ABC, and SBS. The Nine Network was overtaken in the ratings in 2007 by its rival, the Seven Network, as a result, Nines slogan Still the One was discontinued. Since 2009, the slogan has been Welcome Home. After a few years in decline, with a period plagued by mass sackings, programme cancellations, and budget cuts. TCN-9 launched on 16 September 1956, john Godson introduced the station and Bruce Gyngell presented the first programme, This Is Television. Before its formation, TCN-9 was then affiliated with HSV-7, by the late 1960s, the network had begun unofficially calling itself the National Nine Network, and became simply the Nine Network in 1989. In 1967, the New South Wales Rugby Football League grand final became the first football final of any code to be televised live in Australia. The Nine Network paid $5,000 for the broadcasting rights, in the late 1980s, STW-9 Perth, which opened in 1965, became a Nine Network owned-and-operated station when Bond Media purchased the network. In 2011 GTV9 Melbourne moved from 22 Bendigo Street, Richmond, to 717 Bourke Street,22 Bendigo Street started out as the Wertheim Piano Factory, then became the Heinz Soup Factory, then GTV9. The building in Bendigo Street still stands, now as luxury apartments, Nine began using the slogan Let Us Be The One in 1977 and became the number-one free-to-air network in Australia, its National Nine News became the most-watched news service. In 1978, Nine switched its slogan to Still the One, during the 1980s, Nines ratings peaked. From 1999 to 2001, the network began losing ground to the Seven network in news and entertainment, the death of CEO Kerry Packer in 2005 triggered more problems for the network. Digital terrestrial television was introduced on 1 January 2001, Nine stayed strong throughout 2004, but was hit hard when Seven introduced a new line-up in 2005, though Nine finished ahead of Seven that year. Meanwhile, National Nine News was overtaken by Seven News, while Today was beaten by Sevens Sunrise, in 2006, Nine continued on its downward trend, losing most news weeks to Seven News and just winning the year thanks to its coverage of the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. To try to revitalise the network in its 50th anniversary, Nine adopted a new, but critically received, logo removed the nine dots. In May 2007, Nine partially reintroduced the Nine dots, which resulted in the square logo changing into a cube that rotates. After a period of declining ratings, David Gyngell returned to the job of executive officer in October 2007
8.
Event Cinemas
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The Event Cinemas cinema chain has greatly impacted the Australian culture and film industry and has a history of mergers and acquisitions and liquidations that span over a century. From 1906 to 1911, during the silent era, Australia was the most prolific producer of films in the world. This creative and fertile period in Australian film history was created by competition between Wests Pictures, Spencers Pictures and Amalgamated Pictures. On 4 May 1912 the three joined to form The General Film Company of Australasia, the Combine monopoly was highly influential on the early twentieth century Australian film industry. However, it came under criticism for its low interest in producing Australian films, its preference for imported cinema. Historians have traced the decline of the Australian film industry in 1913 to the repercussions of these series of takeovers and mergers. James Sabine has said that the stranglehold of the forced a decline in local production. The Combine continued to grow into the 1920s during the genesis of the Hollywood era with its focus on exhibiting American films, the Great Depression saw Union Theatres being liquidated in 1931 and its assets purchased by newly formed Greater Union Theatres. Due to The Depression, Greater Union Theatres merged into the General Film Corporation with Hoyts, in 1937 Norman Rydge became managing director and removed the company from the previous merger. In 1945 there was a box office boom and the British Rank Organisation purchased a share in Greater Union Theatres. In 1980 billionaire Alan Rydge was appointed Chairman of AHL to become the youngest chairman of an Australian public company, in 1984 AHL regained control over the now defunct Rank Organisations half share, meaning that it once again became fully Australian owned. In 1987 GUO merged with Village Roadshow to form the distribution company Roadshow Film Distributors, in 1991 GUO acquired Birch, Carroll & Coyle. In 2003 AHL and Village Roadshow combined to form Australian Theatres, since 2009 a number of movie theatres have been renamed from Greater Union Cinemas to Event Cinemas. On 22 December 2015 AHL was renamed Event Hospitality and Entertainment, Event Cinemas have over fifty movie theatre venues around Australia, many located in large shopping centres. The cinema complexes comprise multiple screens, in 2005 Event Cinemas banned people from bringing their own food and drink into the cinema. After negative public attention and a threat of investigation by the Fair Trading Commission they were forced to revoke the rule, people complained that Event Cinemas food cost more than double the price in supermarket stores and had less variety. In 2012 Australian journalist Tim Burrowes attended a screening of Skyfall at an Event Cinema, there were various technical difficulties which resulted in the audience being asked to leave and a manager threatening Burrowes for filming the crowds reactions. In the lead up to the 2016 Australian Federal Election Chairman Alan Rydge was reported to have donated to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbulls controversial political fund the Wentworth Forum
