VALE – December 2023 – Australian Media Oral History Group

PATRICIA BARRACLOUGH

ABC television & radio producer

5 Sept, 1951 – 21 Nov 2023

In a career that stretched over 40 years, Patricia Barraclough – who died in Canberra last month – elevated the quality and intelligence of some of ABC television’s most successful current affairs programs from This Day Tonight to Lateline, from Australian Story to Stateline. (ABC News)
Yesterday Former Queensland Senator Cheryl Kernot posted on X, “My dear friend @PMBarraclough died yesterday. ‘Many of you appreciated her photography on here. She spent the last few days in a Canberra hospice with beautiful views of the lake & late spring greenery embracing her. I will miss her humour & wisdom enormously.” (TVTonight)

Television drama director, writer, script editor and producer

21 Feb 1933 – 18 November 2023

James Davern was born in Belgrave, Victoria, Australia. He was a producer and writer, known for A Country Practice (1981), Bellbird (1967) and Patrol Boat (1979). He was married to Philippa Haesler. (IMDB)
He was my friend and mentor for nearly sixty years, and I will miss him greatly. As will his beloved family and so many, many others. Larger than life, that was Jim. Renaissance man, that was him too. Writer, producer, sailor, winemaker, patron of the arts, amateur astronomer and mentor to many. (Judith Colquhoun in Australian Writers Guild)
James was an avid yachtsman and sailed regularly with the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club. He competed in multiple Sydney To Hobart Yacht Races. (Wikipedia)
Oral History held by NFSA (3, by Andrew Mercado, Albert Moran, and Pamela Willis burden)

Actor

9 January 1933 – 20 October 2023[

Dayman played Sergeant George Sullivan in E Street from 1989 – 1993, head of the Westside police force and described as the backbone of the community, fighting for justice and love of Martha’s (Cecily Polson) life.(TV tonight)
He was the backbone of the E Street community, fighting for justice and determined that good would overcome evil. He was George Sullivan, head of the Westside police force and love of Martha’s life. Les Dayman, the actor behind Sgt Sullivan stayed with E Street from its beginning to its end and took the time to share some memories with us…(interview with EdenStreet.net)
Dayman started his career in theatre in 1955, but was best known as a staple of the small screen in numerous serial roles, (Wikipedia)
Screen credits in IMDB
Oral History held by NFSA (by Nigel Giles)

Film & television animation director

2 March 1936 – 27 Nov 2023

Ford’s international animation career spanned several decades and included the Beatles film Yellow Submarine (1968), Hanna-Barbera cartoons, an episode of the Steven Spielberg-produced series Amazing Stories and on Australia’s first animated feature film, Marco Polo Junior Versus the Red Dragon (1972). (Canberra Times – 2018)
Cam Ford is known for Yellow Submarine (1968), Super Friends (1973) and Ginger Meggs (1982). (IMDB)
“I had a Charlotte Edith COX hiding in plain sight in my large family tree; but only recently did the penny drop that she was also Lottie LYELL, the famous heroine of Australian silent movies!” (Cam Ford post in AMOHG Facebook group)
Oral Histories held by NFSA (2, by Ray Edmonson and by Stuart Golver)

Film editor, ABC-TV; archivist, Foxtel

? – 5 Dec 2023

She was a film editor at Gore Hill and went on to work as an archivist at Foxtel many years later (See ABC Gore Hill FB, 8 Dec 2023
She worked on several feature films in the editing department in the 1970s. See IMDB.
Shirley Kennard’s own profile page on Facebook

SBS-TV World News senior producer

? – 22 Nov 2023

Prior to joining SBS World News in July 2017, Ms Munro was a producer at SKY News and undertook an internship at both Nine News and 10 News. (Vale in TVTonight)
‘Hard to fathom’: SBS producer Bridget Munro dead following ‘massive seizure’ com.au
Bridget leaves behind her loving husband Adrian, and their two daughters Gracie (3 years) and Margot (7 months). (gofundme appeal)
Obituary in Early Memorials

Actor

8 March 1988 – 10 November 2023

Born in Perth in 1988, Ruffo first came to the public’s attention as a contestant on the musical reality show The X Factor, coming third in the 2011 competition. (The Guardian)
A moving moment caught on camera by Johnny Ruffo has been released, just weeks after his death. (Link to video clip on 7News.com.au)
In 2017, with his career taking off and the world seemingly at his feet, Ruffo was diagnosed with aggressive brain cancer and underwent surgery to remove a 7cm tumour. He was just 29. (The West Australian)
“He was a very talented, charming and sometimes cheeky boy. Johnny was very determined and had a strong will. He battled all the way to the end and fought as hard as he could. (TVTonight)

Film exhibition and distribution executive, advertising executive, bookseller, farmer

19 Nov 1927 – 4 Nov 2023

The son of film executive Ernest Turnbull (who himself was managing director of Hoyts Theatres Ltd and chairman of 20th Century-Fox’s Australian interests) and grandson of documentary filmmaker Charles Herschell, Dale entered the film business in 1949 as an office boy in Hoyts’ Sydney office. (Obituary by Graham Shirley in AMOHG’s FB group – which starts:
“Most oral histories I’ve recorded have run no more than a single session. Occasionally they’ve run to three but only one has ever run to as many as seven sessions totalling 32 hours. That interview was with Dale Turnbull, who had quite a story to tell and was a born storyteller with a prodigious memory for detail.”
Former media executive Michael Donovan recalls Turnbull on a number of occasions in his own memoir “Just famous enough not to be noticed”
Oral History held by NFSA (,by Graham Shirley – approx 32 hours)

Radio broadcaster

1925 – 6 Oct 2023

director of early ABC-TV live broadcasts, and ABC Radio executive – See AMOHG FB page, 15 Oct;
He was one of the last veterans of Australian broadcasting from the pre-television era, as well as a pioneer in television in the 1950s, and an innovator who oversaw the introduction of the youth station 2JJ (now Triple J) with funding from the Whitlam government. (7News)
Although he began his 38-year career with the ABC in 1947 as a radio announcer and newsreader with the obligatory BBC-inflected voice, he declared he would not hire anyone who sounded like him. (TVTonight).
As a lifelong fan of The Goon Show, he had some Goonish moments of his own when one young announcer put a metal garbage bin over the head of another at the microphone, or poured a watering can over his head as he read the weather, to which the response was simply to raise an umbrella. (RadioInfo)