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Vale: Bob Ellis

Writer Bob Ellis, who wrote for stage, screen, literature & politics, has died.

2016-04-03_2215

Writer Bob Ellis, who wrote for stage, screen, literature & politics, has died, aged 73.

He died at his home in Sydney’s Palm Beach, following a battle with cancer.

Ellis was a writer, journalist, filmmaker and supporter of the Labor Party, who wrote speeches for Labor leaders including Bob Carr, Paul Keating and Kim Beazley.

He won the AFI Award for Best Screenplay for Newsfront and for My First Wife (with Paul Cox). He directed and wrote The Nostradamus Kid and Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train and penned screenplays for Cactus, Where the Green Ants Dream, Man of Flowers, Goodbye Paradise, …Maybe This Time and Fatty Finn.

His television credits included Dynasty (Australia), Number 96, Boney, Glenview High, Winners, Archer, The Gillies Report, True Believers and Wildside.

He also acted in several titles including Pizza, Water Rats, Winners and The Nostradamus Kid.

Source: Guardian

9 Responses

  1. I still have my Bob Ellis Fatty Finn book from when I was 10 with a picture of Bert Newton and a young Ben Oxenbould on the cover. I’m 46 now but can’t part with it. One of my favourite stories as a kid. Loved the movie too.

  2. He came to speak to our film studies class at Mitchell College, Bathurst years ago and while slow to start he provided many anecdotes amid the gloom and doom. Presented with a bottle of scotch afterwards.

  3. I must say…. as a young writer I heard him speak at a young playwrights event and he was so cynical it very nearly turned me off pursuing writing. Thankfully I came to appreciate his rascal personality was part of his voice, but not until I was considerably older.

    1. Yes, very jaded and cynical but incredibly insightful.
      You definitely would not want to be on the receiving end of one of his verbose sprays !
      A really charismatic “loose cannon.”

  4. Yes. Definitely a very unique and colourful character who was highly intelligent.
    To say Bob really had it in for the Liberal Party is an understatement.
    Often abrasive and not afraid to tell it like it is – the consummate agitator.

  5. He played the Prime Minister in Pizza and made a much better job of it than then Prime Minister Howard. He also did a wild interview in the extras on the Pure S… DVD. RIP

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