VALE GEORGE OGILVIE

The Australian arts community is today mourning the passing of George Ogilvie, one of its most beloved elder statesmen. A masterful director and creative collaborator across theatre, film and television disciplines, Ogilvie mentored a generation of young actors with a commitment to his art and craft that was unparalleled.

One of twin sons born in Goulburn to Scottish immigrants, Ogilvie grew up in Canberra and was drawn to the theatre from a young age, exhibiting acting prowess and musical skills in his early teens. At 20, he moved to London and studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and with the iconic Jimmy James Company, where he performed works by Agatha Christie, Tennessee Williams, Terence Rattigan and Noel Coward, amongst many others.

Ogilvie returned to Australia in 1954 and, under the professional guidance of theatrical greats Walt Cherry and John Sumner, began to explore directing; his early work included landmark productions of Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey, Federico Garcia Lorca’s Blood Wedding and Ann Jellicoe’s The Knack. He would travel and work extensively in Europe, studying with the great mime Jacques Lecoq in Paris and forging a reputation upon his return to to London as one of the industry’s finest directors of actors.

It was John Sumner who encouraged his protégé to return to Australia to take up the role of Artistic Director at the Melbourne Theatre Company, a six year engagement during which he directed 23 plays, winning the Melbourne Theatre Critic’s award for Best Director on three occasions. Over the subsequent decades, George Ogilvie became one of the most influential figures in Australian live theatre.

He oversaw the South Australian Theatre Company as Artistic Director from 1972-1975; worked with the Sydney Theatre Company, directing Nick Enright's The Man With Five Children, starring Steve Bisley and Proof, starring Jacqueline McKenzie and Barry Otto; staged now legendary productions for the Australian Ballet (most famously, ‘Coppelia’, in 1979 and again in 2006) and Australian Opera ('Il Seraglio'; 'Falstaf'; 'Lucretia Borgia'; 'Don Giovanni'); and, taught extensively at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, Actor’s Centre Australia and The Eora Centre.

George Ogilvie turned to television at the height of the mini-series heyday to launch the next phase of his directing career. He made his debut helming an instalment of the true-life political saga The Dismissal in 1983, which he followed with a multi-episode arc behind the cameras on the historical sports drama Bodyline, both for producers George Miller and Byron Kennedy.

He would work steadily in television for the next twenty years, directing Bryan Brown in The Shiralee (1987); Claudia Karvan in Princess Kate (1988); Angie Milliken in two made-for-TV procedurals, The Feds (both 1993); Gary Sweet and Jacqueline McKenzie in The Battlers (1994); Richard Roxburgh in The Last of The Ryans (1997); and, eleven episodes of the hit series, Blue Heelers (from 2002-06).

His affiliation with the Kennedy Miller production outfit led to one of the most high-profile feature film directing debuts in Australian industry history. Ogilvie earned co-director honours alongside franchise founder George Miller (pictured, above; from left, Miller, star Tina Turner and Ogilvie, in red) on the highly-anticipated sequel Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in 1985; while Miller invested time and energy in the films kinetic action sequences, Ogilvie was employed to guide the cast (many of them child actors) through the dialogue and drama. The director had proven his worth with the film’s prickly leading man previously; Ogilvie had directed Mel Gibson for the Nimrod Theatre Company’s acclaimed 1982 staging of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.

He parlayed his profile into two smaller-scale but potent workds – Short Changed (1986), an inter-racial custody drama, nominated for five AFI Awards, that pits a white woman against an Aboriginal man for the custody of their son; and, The Place at The Coast (1987; pictured, right), a Bergman-esque drama set in a remote seaside community that tackles both environmental issues and father-daughter dynamics with Ogilvie’s trademark intelligence and sensitivity. (Pictured, below; Bryan Browm and Rebecca Smart in The Shiralee)

His final big-screen effort was The Crossing in 1990, the film that launched the leading-man career of a young actor named Russell Crowe. "Oh, I just loved him," Ogilvie told The Sydney Morning Herald in a 2016 interview. "He was a force. He worked hard but he did expect everyone around him to work hard as well. None of the crew liked him, thought he was an arrogant little pisspot." The coming-of-age period drama, co-starring Danielle Spencer (pictured, below; with Crowe) and Robert Mammone, earned Crowe his first AFI Award nomination; it would win the highest industry honour for Jeff Darling’s cinematography. Twenty-four years later, Ogilvie returned to acting briefly as a favour for his friend, with a small part in Crowe's directing debut, The Water Diviner (2014).   

In 1983, George Ogilvie was cited in the Queens Birthday Honours List when he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for services to theatre and the performing arts. Despite never earning a directing nomination for his film and television work, he was recognised by the Australian Film Institute in 1988, when he received the prestigious Byron Kennedy Award, an accolade that honours “innovation, vision and the relentless pursuit of excellence.” In 2006, he published his memoirs, entitled Simple Gifts: A Life in the Theatre.

A deeply spiritual man who practised Siddha Yoga for many years, travelling to the Ganeshpuri ashram in India to meditate, George Ogilvie devoted his later life to inner peace and understanding; in an interview for ABC Radio National in 2006, he recounted camping by the Sea of Galilee, reading the Bible as he walked its banks. A private man whose legacy is a body of work unmatched in the Australian entertainment industry, Ogilvie spent his final years in his home in Sydney’s Potts Point, with his dogs and close friends. He was 89.