Cirrus@Austlit

A multi-award winning television/film producer and screenwriter, John Edwards has been noted for television productions that have won 18 Logie Awards, 25 AFI Awards, four People's Choice Awards, eight ASTRA Awards, as well as more than a dozen other related awards, including Writers' Guild, NSW Premier's Literary Award, ARIAs, APRA, Screen Composers' Guild and Cinematographers' Society. He has also been awarded a number of prestigious international awards, notably an Umbriafiction award (Italy), two New York Festival awards and the only Australian television nominations for the Golden Globe Awards. Specialising in one-hour drama series, Edwards produced and created the only two Australian series ever commissioned for primetime in the UK, these being Police Rescue for BBC1 (and the ABC, Australia) and The Secret Life of Us for Channel 4 (and Network Ten, Australia). His career has seen him produce more than 30 television drama series, one-off movies and mini-series, and as a writer he has collaborated on various episodes for around six series.

Edwards's career path was initially as a history teacher. He had been educated at the Northern Beaches Secondary College and Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Years 11 and 12), before undertaking tertiary studies at Sydney University and Jacksonville State University, Alabama (USA). In 1981, after three years of teaching in Sydney's West, he turned to the film and television industry as a researcher then writer at Film Australia. Among his early screenplays are: Out of Time, Out of Place, The Bounty Experiment and The Weekly's War.

In 1985 Edwards co-produced (with Tim Read) the feature film The Empty Beach) , starring Bryan Brown). This was followed by the telemovie I Own the Racecourse, 1986), the mini-series Cyclone Tracy (1986) and the TV series Stringer (1988). Between 1991 and 1996, in partnership with Sandra Levy at Southern Star, he produced Police Rescue, and six television movies based on the character Cody (played by Gary Sweet). The Police Rescue series won Most Popular Drama at the Logies in 1994 and 1996, along with a number of acting Logies, five AFI Awards, and a number of international awards. He went on to make Big Sky (1997-1999) with Levy, which he followed independently with the mini-series On the Beach (2000), starring Armand Assante, Rachel Ward and Bryan Brown. On the Beach won two AFI Awards and two Golden Globe nominations.

Between 2001 and 2005 Edwards co-produced (with Amanda Higgs) The Secret Life of Us. The series went on to win a total of six Logies. During that period he also produced the ABC mini-series Marking Time which won a record seven AFI Awards, along with several other awards including NSW Premier's Literary Award and an AWGIE Award. Among the other productions he is associated with are: Children of the Dragon (1991), Big Sky (1997-1999), Do or Die (2001), Fireflies (2004), Love My Way (2004-2007), The Surgeon (2005), The Alice (2005-2006), Dangerous (2007), Rush (2008-2009), Out of the Blue (2008), Tangle (2009) and Spirited (2010).

John Edwards's writing credits include the telemovie I Own the Racecourse (1986), Police Rescue: The Movie (1994), and episodes for The Secret Life of Us, Dangerous, Love My Way and Rush.