Roger Simpson Roger Simpson i(A11832 works by)
Born: Established: 1944 Dunedin, Otago, South Island,
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New Zealand,
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Pacific Region,
;
Gender: Male
Arrived in Australia: 1971
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BiographyHistory

Roger Simpson completed a Bachelor of Laws at Auckland University in 1968, then practised law for three years in New Zealand.

After moving to Australia in the early 1970s, he became an award-winning film and television writer. As was common with script-writers in that era, his earliest scripts were for Crawford Productions: he wrote for Homicide (1972-1974) and Division Four (1972-1975). At the same time, he was writing scripts for New Zealand television, including the telemovie Richard Pearse and the historical children's television programs Hunter's Gold (1977) and Children of Fire Mountain (1979): the latter, for which Simpson was sole script-writer, won Feltext Television Awards for Best Drama and Best Script.

In Australia in the 1970s and 1980s, Simpson wrote a number of telemovies and mini-series, including The Trial of Ned Kelly (1977), Players in the Gallery (1980), I Can Jump Puddles (1981), Squizzy Taylor (1982), Sword of Honour (1986), Nancy Wake (1987), and Darlings of the Gods (1989).

He als contributed episodes to such television series as Power Without Glory (1976), Young Ramsay (1980), and Learned Friends (1983).

In 1989, Garry O'Connor published Darlings of the Gods: A Novel Based on Scripts by Roger Simpson and Graeme Farmer and on Garry O'Connor's 'Darlings of the Gods: One Year in the Lives of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh'.

His writing in the 1990s was weighted more towards television series than telemovies, with scripts for Skirts (1990), Snowy (1993), Halifax f.p. (1994-2000), Good Guys Bad Guys (1998), and Stingers (1998-2002). He also wrote the script for 'His Master's Ghost', an episode of the Australian Children's television Foundation's anthology series More Winners.

He also shifted into the role of producer in this decade, a role he would occupy successfully for some two decades. In 1992, he produced the Australian film The Nostradamus Kid, and for 25 years (to 2006), he co-produced with Roger Le Mesurier many successful Australian television dramas, including Halifax f.p., Good Guys Bad Guys, and Stingers.

Since 2000, Simpson has contributed scripts to such television programs as Something in the Air (2000), Silversun (2004), Satisfaction (2007-2009), and Bikie Wars: Brothers in Arms (2012), as well as writing the telemovies Big Reef (2004) and Life (2005), and the movie-length pilot for the ill-fated television series The Angel Files (2002), six episodes of which were produced but never aired after the disappointing ratings for the pilot.

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

2021 recipient AWGIE Awards Lifetime Achievement Award
2004 winner Australian Film Institute Awards Best Australian Drama Series For Stingers.
2001 winner Australian Film Institute Awards Best Episode in a Television Drama Series (long) (to producer) For 'That One Defining Moment', an episode of Something in the Air.

Awards for Works

form y separately published work icon Halifax : Retribution Australia : Beyond Lonehand , 2020 15409837 2020 series - publisher film/TV crime

'An eight-part series from Beyond Lonehand for the Nine Network that will star Rebecca Gibney as she reprises her role of forensic psychiatrist Jane Halifax. When Jane Halifax receives a letter threatening a terrible retribution against her family, she finds herself back in a world she thought she had left behind – profiling a diabolical killer.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 14/01/2019)

2020 nominated Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards Best Television Drama Series
form y separately published work icon Bikie Wars : Brothers in Arms ( dir. Peter Andrikidis ) 2012 Australia : Screentime Network Ten , 2012 Z1833118 2012 series - publisher film/TV

Based on the non-fiction book Brothers in Arms by Lindsay Simpson and Sandra Harvey, Bikie Wars is a dramatised account of the events leading up the 1984 Milperra massacre, a shoot-out between members of the outlaw motorcycle gang the Comancheros and the Bandidos, a group formed from a splinter group of former Comancheros: the massacre left 7 people dead and 28 wounded, and led to 63 murder convictions, 147 manslaughter convictions, and significant changes to NSW gun laws.

2013 nominated Logie Awards Most Outstanding Miniseries or Telemovie
form y separately published work icon Satisfaction ( dir. Paul Moloney et. al. )agent Melbourne : Lonehand Productions , 2007-2010 24548400 2007 series - publisher film/TV Follows the workers in a high-class brothel in Melbourne.
2008 nominated Logie Awards Most Outstanding Drama Series
Last amended 8 Dec 2021 07:57:10
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