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:''For the professional wrestler known as Bob Ellis, see William Fletcher''
'Bob Ellis' ( born 1942, Lismore, New South Wales) is an Australian writer/journalist, film-maker, and political commentator.
He attended University of Sydney with Clive James, Germaine Greer, John Bell, Ken Horler, and Mungo McCallum.
A number of years ago, Ellis' house in Palm Beach, Sydney, was destroyed by fire. Ellis was reported to have claimed that his manuscript of the 'Great Australian Novel' was destroyed in the fire.
He lives in Sydney with the author and screenwriter Anne Brooksbank, they have three children.
He was a featured contributor in the ''Nation Review'' in the 1970s with Michael Leunig, Philip Adams, and Mungo MacCallum.
Currently his opinion column appears in an Australian newspaper, most notably ''The Sydney Morning Herald''.
His writing for the stage includes ''The Legend of King O'Malley'' (a musical play based on the life of King O'Malley (with Michael Boddy ) (1970) , Down Under (with Anne Brooksbank ) (1976) and ''A Local Man'', a play about Australian Prime Minister Ben Chifley (with Robin McLachlan) (2006).
His writing for television includes the miniseries ''The True Believers'' (with Matt Carroll).

Contents

Film

Screenwriting

Directing

Awards

Politics

References

External links

Film

Screenwriting

Ellis has written several films, notably ''The Nostradamus Kid'' (1992), ''My First Wife'' (1984) (with Paul Cox), ''Where the Green Ants Dream'' (''Wo die grünen Ameisen träumen'') (1984) film (with German film director Werner Herzog, ''Man of Flowers'' (1983) (with Paul Cox), ''Fatty Finn'' (1980), and ''Newsfront'' (1978).

Directing

He has also directed several films including ''The Nostradamus Kid'' (1992), Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train (1988) and Unfinished Business (1985).
His latest film is the documentary Run Rabbit, Run which will premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival. The film is a profile of Mike Rann in the lead up to the 2006 South Australian State Election. [1]

Awards

He won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Screenplay for ''Newsfront'' (1978) (with Anne Brooksbank and Phillip Noyce ) and for ''My First Wife'' (1984) (with Paul Cox).

Politics

Ellis, a supporter of the Australian Labor Party, has written speeches for a number of Labor leaders (such as Bob Carr and Paul Keating), and written extensively on Labor history. He has written two books, ''Goodbye Jerusalem'' and ''Goodbye Babylon'', on his experiences of the party.
Ellis' involvement in politics became more direct when he contested the Federal seat of Mackellar against Prime Ministerial aspirant Bronwyn Bishop in a by-election in 1993.
In 1998 Bill Hayden used the occasion of a defamation case involving Bob Ellis and two Liberal cabinet ministers, Tony Abbott and Peter Costello, and their wives, to deliberately publicise rumours about Paul Keating's personal life.

References

★ The dictionary of performing arts in Australia, Ann Atkinson, Linsay Knight, Margaret McPhee (Ed.), , , St Leonards, N.S.W. : Allen & Unwin, 1996, ISBN 1-86-448005-X

★ The Oxford companion to Australian film, Brian McFarlane, Geoff Mayer, Ina Bertrand (Ed.), , , Melbourne, Australia ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-19-553797-1

★ Companion to theatre in Australia, Philip Parsons, Victoria Chance (Ed.), , , Sydney : Currency Press in association with Cambridge University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-86-819357-7

★ Leser, David. The two of us: Bob Ellis & Anne Brooksbank. Sydney Morning Herald ''Good Weekend'' 16 August 1997 p. 12

★ . Arts news (arts community to help Bob Ellis, after recent house fire). Sydney Morning Herald 24 April 1993 p. 46

★ King, Noel. Abbott and Costello. View From The Couch. Sydney Morning Herald ''Good Weekend'' 21 November 1998 p. 94

External links

★ Interview with Bob Ellis

★ Personal site