Robert James Ellis (10 May 1942 – 3 April 2016) was an Australian journalist, screenwriter, playwright, filmmaker, and political commentator.[1] He lived in Sydney with author and screenwriter Anne Brooksbank; they had three children.
Bob Ellis | |
|---|---|
| Born | Robert James Ellis 10 May 1942 Murwillumbah, New South Wales, Australia |
| Died | 3 April 2016 (aged 73) Palm Beach, New South Wales, Australia |
| Alma mater | University of Sydney |
| Occupations |
|
Political party | |
| Spouse | Anne Brooksbank |
| Writing career | |
| Notable awards | AFI Best Screenplay 1978 Newsfront 1982 Goodbye Paradise 1984 My First Wife |
Early years
editEllis was raised a Seventh-day Adventist. He says the "seminal moment" of his life happened when he was ten and his 22-year-old sister was killed while crossing the road.[2]
He attended Lismore High and then the University of Sydney on a Sir Robert Menzies scholarship, at the same time as other notable Australians including Clive James, Germaine Greer, Les Murray, John Bell, Robert Hughes and Mungo McCallum. After graduating he had a variety of jobs before being employed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.[3]
Writing career
editEllis was a regular contributor to the Nation Review in the 1970s and subsequently contributed to Fairfax Media newspapers and The National Times.[4]
Ellis became a popular playwright, usually working in collaboration. In 1970 he and Michael Boddy (1934–2014) co-wrote The Legend of King O'Malley, a musical play based on the life of King O'Malley. From 1975 to 1986 he and Brooksbank also owned the Stables Theatre in Kings Cross, Sydney, during which time it became home to the Griffin Theatre Company.[5] They sold it in 1986 for $200,000.[6]
Ellis wrote several film scripts, often in collaboration with others, notably Newsfront (1978), ...Maybe This Time (1980, with Anne Brooksbank), Fatty Finn (1980) Man of Flowers (1983, with Paul Cox), Goodbye Paradise (1983),[7] Where the Green Ants Dream (Wo die grünen Ameisen träumen) (1984, with Werner Herzog), My First Wife (1984, with Paul Cox), Cactus (1986, with Paul Cox) and The Nostradamus Kid (1992).
In 1980 Ellis signed a contract with the New South Wales Film Corporation to write ten feature film scripts over two years for $7,000 for each script, with a payment of $12,000 for the second draft if they wanted to make the movie. Ellis says he presented them with 33 ideas, they chose five and he chose five.[8]
Ellis also directed several films, including The Nostradamus Kid (1992), Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train (1988), Unfinished Business (1985) and Run Rabbit, Run (2007).[9][10]
Ellis's writing for television included the miniseries True Believers (with co-author Matt Carroll) and Infamous Victory: Ben Chifley's Battle for Coal (2008), with co-author Geoff Burton, made for Film Australia.[11]
Awards
edit| Year | Work | Award | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1978 | Newsfront | Australian Film Institute Awards | Best Screenplay (with Anne Brooksbank and Phillip Noyce) | Won[12] |
| 1982 | Goodbye Paradise | Australian Film Institute Awards | Best Screenplay (with Denny Lawrence) | Won[13] |
| 1984 | My First Wife | Australian Film Institute Awards | Best Screenplay (with Paul Cox) | Won[14] |
Politics
editEllis, a supporter of the Australian Labor Party, wrote speeches for a number of Labor leaders (such as Bob Carr, Paul Keating and Kim Beazley) and wrote extensively on Labor history.
Regarding Ellis's speech writing, Beazley said on the 7.30 Report that if he had used any of Ellis's speeches he would have been out of politics.[citation needed]
Ellis unsuccessfully contested the Federal seat of Mackellar as an independent candidate against the Liberal Party's Bronwyn Bishop in a by-election in 1994 as the ALP did not field a candidate in that by-election.[15][16]
Ellis's 2011 book Suddenly, Last Winter – An Election Diary created headlines for its criticism of the Labor Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and praise for the Liberal Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott. He described Gillard as "not well informed" and "sudden, firm and wrong" in everything she does. He also said "She has no power, no influence, no friends, no learning. There's not much there", while describing Abbott as having "good manners", being "formidable" and possessing a "first-class mind".[17]
Ellis wrote speeches for South Australian Premier Mike Rann for a number of years.[18]
Death
editOn 18 July 2015, Ellis reported on his blog that he would be attending hospital for what he called "ominous" tests on his liver. The next day he announced "The news is very bad", and that the tests had revealed he had advanced liver cancer with a prognosis that he had months, if not weeks, to live.[19]
Ellis died on 3 April 2016, at his home in Sydney's Northern Beaches.[20]
Controversy
editIn June 2018, Kate and Rozanna Lilley, daughters of celebrated playwright Dorothy Hewett, alleged that they had engaged in consensual sex at the ages of 15 and 14 with Ellis.[21] Ellis was castigated by feminists including Delaney and Maley.[22][23]
Writings
editEllis wrote two books, Goodbye Jerusalem and Goodbye Babylon, on his experiences of the Labor Party. The first edition of Goodbye Jerusalem was pulped following a successful defamation case brought by two Liberal cabinet ministers, Tony Abbott and Peter Costello, and their wives. At issue was the single sentence where Ellis quoted politician Rodney Cavalier as having said, "Abbott and Costello...they're both in the Right wing of the Labour [sic] Party till the one woman fucked both of them and married one of them and inducted them into the Young Liberals". The publisher, Random House, accepted that the disputed content was a falsehood and the book was removed from sale. ACT Supreme Court Justice Higgins awarded the two politicians and their wives a total of $277,000 damages. A new edition of the book was published three months later which omitted the defamatory passage.[24][25]
In 1998 Penguin Books Australia published Ellis's First Abolish the Customer – 202 Arguments Against Economic Rationalism, then Ellis's The Capitalism Delusion – How Global Economics Wrecked Everything and What To Do About It in 2009, One Hundred Days of Summer in 2010, and The Ellis Laws in 2014.
Bibliography
editTheatre
edit| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1970–2001 | The Legend of King O'Malley | Co-writer (with Michael Boddy) / lyricist | |
| 1971 | Big Brother Dragon | Co-writer (with Michael Boddy) | |
| 1971–1972 | Duke of Edinburgh Assassinated or The Vindication of Henry Parkes | Co-writer (with Dick Hall) | |
| 1973 | The Francis James Dossier | Playwright / lyricist | Musical about Francis James |
| 1975 | Whitlam Days | Writer | |
| 1975–1976 | Down Under | Co-writer (with Anne Brooksbank) | Also producer on 1975 Stables Theatre, Sydney production |
| 1980 | A Very Good Year | Writer | |
| 1990s | Man, the musical | Book and lyrics (with Denny Lawrence) | |
| 2001 | The City of the Plains | Writer | |
| 2004 | A Local Man: A Play about Ben Chifley | Co-writer (with Robin McLachlan) | |
| 2012 | Shakespeare in Italy | Co-writer (with Denny Lawrence) | |
| Intimate Strangers | Co-writer (with Denny Lawrence) | Unproduced |
Screenplays
edit| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1978 | Newsfront | Writer (with Anne Brooksbank) | Feature film |
| 1980 | Fatty Finn | Writer | Feature film |
| Maybe This Time | Writer (with Anne Brooksbank) | Feature film | |
| 1983 | Goodbye Paradise | Writer (with Denny Lawrence) | Feature film |
| Man of Flowers | Writer (with Paul Cox) | Feature film | |
| The Winds of Jarrah | Writer | Feature film | |
| 1984 | My First Wife | Writer (with Paul Cox) | Feature film |
| 1985 | Unfinished Business | Writer / director | Feature film |
| Top Kid | Writer (with John Hepworth) | TV series | |
| The Paper Boy | Writer (with John Hepworth) | TV | |
| 1986 | Cactus | Writer (with Paul Cox) | Feature film |
| The Gillies Republic | Writer | TV series | |
| 1987 | Bullseye | Writer | Feature film |
| Perhaps Love | Writer | TV movie | |
| 1988 | True Believers | Writer | Miniseries |
| Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train | Writer / director | Feature film | |
| 1992 | Gillies and Company | Writer | TV series |
| 1993 | Dreaming of Lords | Writer (with Ernie Dingo / director | Documentary film |
| The Nostradamus Kid | Writer / director | Feature film | |
| 1994 | Ebbtide | Writer | Direct-to-video film |
| 1998 | Wildside | Writer | TV series, episode 24 |
| Bastards from the Bush: A Journey with Bob Ellis and Les Murray | Writer | Documentary film | |
| 2008 | Infamous Victory: Ben Chifley's Battle for Coal | Writer | Documentary |
Unmade screenplays
edit| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | The Road to Gundagai | Writer | vehicle for Bert Newton and Gerard Kennedy as soldiers on latrine duty during the bombing of Darwin[27] |
| Adaptation of The Sentimental Bloke | Writer | For director Maurice Murphy starring Phillip Quast[28] | |
| c.1980 | Unnamed comedy script | Writer | About radio actors in the 1940s |
| Unnamed miniseries | Co-writer (with James Ricketson) | About Bea Miles | |
| Unnamed road film | Writer | About two girls going north to audition for a cabaret version of Brigadoon in Surfers Paradise | |
| These Remembrances | Writer | Set around the time of the Whitlam Dismissal | |
| The Girl from Kiev | Writer | About two 40-year-old divorced lawyers travelling near Chernobyl falling for a Russian girl[29] | |
| Adaptation of Homage to Catalonia | Writer | For director Hugh Hudson, starring Colin Firth and Kevin Spacey[30] | |
| 2011 | Shakespeare in Italy | Writer | |
| Paper Tigers | Writer | Miniseries about the Murdoch family |
Novels
edit| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1976 | Mad Dog Morgan | Co-author (with Anne Brooksbank) | Based on the Philippe Mora film Mad Dog Morgan |
| 1980 | Fatty Finn | Author | Based on his film script |
| 1985 | Top Kid | Co-author (with John Hepworth) | Novelisation of his film script |
| The Paper Boy | Co-author (with John Hepworth) | Novelisation of his film script | |
| 1993 | The Hewson Tapes : A Secret History, Perhaps, of Our Times | Author | Fiction presented as the diary of John Hewson |
| 1996 | The Season | Co-author with Roy Masters |
Non-fiction
edit| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Things We Did Last Summer: An Election Journal | Author | Account of the 1983 Australian federal election | |
| Two weeks in another country: a journal of the 1983 British election | Author | Account of the 1983 United Kingdom general election | |
| 1987 | Letters to the Future | Author | Collection of writings from 1969–1987 |
| 1992 | The Inessential Ellis | Author | Collection of writings |
| 1997 | Goodbye Jerusalem: night thoughts of a Labor outsider | Author | Writings centred on the history of the Australian Labor Party up to the 1996 Australian federal election |
| 1998 | First abolish the customer: 202 arguments against economic rationalism | Author | |
| 1999 | So it goes: essays, broadcasts, speeches 1987–1999 | Author | |
| 2002 | Goodbye Babylon: further journeys in time and politics | Author | |
| 2004 | Night thoughts in time of war | Author | |
| 2009 | And so it went: night thoughts in a year of change (2009) | Author | Events around the 2007 Australian federal election |
| The capitalism delusion: how global economics wrecked everything and what to do about it | Author | [31] | |
| 2010 | One hundred days of summer: how we got to where we are | Author | |
| Suddenly, last winter: an election diary | Author | Diary of the 2010 Australian federal election | |
| 2014 | The Ellis Laws | Author |
Music
edit| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 | Ned Kelly: The Rock Opera | Additional lyrics | Concept album by Patrick Flynn & Reg Livermore |
Acting credits
editFilm
edit| Year | Title | Role | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Man of Flowers | Psychiatrist | Feature film |
| 1985 | I Own the Racecourse | Renehan | Feature film |
Theatre
edit| Year | Title | Role | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | Wet Blankets | St Barnabas Church Hall, Sydney[26] | |
| 1995–1996 | The Human Behan | Mission Theatre, Newcastle, Bondi Pavilion, Sydney[26] | |
| 2000 | Waiting for Godot | Bridge Theatre, Sydney[26] |
References
edit- ↑ Koziol, Michael; Josh, Dye (3 April 2016). "Journalist Bob Ellis dies, aged 73". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 3 April 2016.
- ↑ Bob Ellis, "What I Know About Women" Archived 27 April 2018 at the Wayback Machine, Daily Life, 19 August 2012, accessed 23 October 2012.
- ↑ "Panellist: Bob Ellis". Q&A. ABC. Retrieved 3 April 2016.
- ↑ Bob Ellis (opeds by) at The National Times
- ↑ "Sydney Theatre History". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 3 April 2016.
- ↑ "Retired doctor has cure for what ails theatre". The Sydney Morning Herald. 18 November 1986. p. 7.
- ↑ Vagg, Stephen (10 June 2025). "It's time to say hello again to Goodbye Paradise". InReview. Retrieved 10 June 2025.
- ↑ Richard Brennan, "Bob Ellis", Cinema Papers, Oct–Nov 1980 pp. 314–316.
- ↑ George, Sandy (16 July 2007). "Ellis zoomed in when Rann made run". The Australian. Retrieved 7 December 2007.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link) - ↑ Kerr C The Curse of Bob Ellis (review) at Crikey.com.au, 27 August 2007
- ↑ Infamous Victory – Ben Chifley's Battle for Coal at ABC Commercial
- ↑ "Winners & Nominees 1978". aacta.org. AACTA Awards. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
- ↑ "Winners & Nominees 1982". aacta.org. AACTA Awards. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
- ↑ "Winners & Nominees 1984". aacta.org. AACTA Awards. Retrieved 7 June 2023.
- ↑ "Mackellar 1994 by-election". Australian Electoral Commission.
- ↑ Leser, David (20 July 2015). "When Bob Ellis vowed to unseat Bronwyn Bishop". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 3 April 2016.
- ↑ "Julia Gillard's 'Mouse Pack' and other dumb stuff". The Sydney Morning Herald. 10 January 2011.
- ↑ 'Bob Ellis fought release of fee information for fear of sales hit' by Christian Kerr, The Australian 30 November 2011 accessed 16 December 2011
- ↑ Dumas, Daisy (20 July 2015). "Bob Ellis reveals he has weeks to live". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
- ↑ "Bob Ellis dies of cancer after 40-year career spanning journalism, politics, play writing and film". ABC News. 3 April 2016. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
- ↑ Mum’s men used us for under-age sex, say Dorothy Hewett’s daughters, The Australian, June 9, 2018
- ↑ Delaney, Brigid (13 June 2018). "Bob Ellis: what do you do when a literary hero is accused of sexual abuse?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 21 January 2024.
- ↑ Maley, Jacqueline (15 June 2018). "When 'great men' abuse artistic licence to act on grubby impulses". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 21 January 2024.
- ↑ Dalley, Helen (22 November 1998). "The inimitable Bob Ellis". Sunday (TV program) : Cover stories. Nine Network. Archived from the original on 6 January 2008. Retrieved 2007-12-07.
- ↑ "Defamation profile: offline cases 3 (1998 to 2007)". Caslon Analytics. 2007. Archived from the original on 6 December 2006. Retrieved 7 December 2006. "Defamation – sticks and stones". Law Spot. Lawscape Communications. 1998. Archived from the original on 5 September 2007. Retrieved 7 December 2007.
- 1 2 3 4 "Bob Ellis theatre credits". AusStage.
- ↑ Richard Brennan, 'Bob Ellis, Cinema Papers, Oct–Nov 1980 p 386
- ↑ David Stratton, The Avocado Plantation: Boom and Bust in the Australian Film Industry, Pan MacMillan, 1990 p186
- ↑ Andrew L. Urban, "Bob Ellis' The Nostradamus Kid", Cinema Papers, January 1992 p15
- ↑ McClintock, Pamela; Hopewell, John (18 May 2009). "Firth, Spacey to star in 'Catalonia'". Variety. Retrieved 4 March 2025.
- ↑ Ellis, Bob (Autumn 2009). "Muscular timidity". Overland. 194: 7–12.
Further reading
edit- Ann Atkinson, Linsay Knight, Margaret McPhee (Ed.) (1996). The dictionary of performing arts in Australia. St Leonards, N.S.W. : Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1-86448-005-X.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Brian McFarlane, Geoff Mayer, Ina Bertrand (Ed.) (1999). The Oxford companion to Australian film. Melbourne; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-553797-1.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Philip Parsons, Victoria Chance (Ed.) (1995). Companion to theatre in Australia. Sydney: Currency Press in association with Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-86819-357-7.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link) - Leser, David "The two of us: Bob Ellis & Anne Brooksbank" The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Weekend) 16 August 1997 p. 12
- Arts news "Arts community to help Bob Ellis, after recent house fire" The Sydney Morning Herald 24 April 1993 p. 46
- King, Noel "Abbott and Costello. View From The Couch" The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Weekend) 21 November 1998 p. 94