Tony Cavanaugh Tony Cavanaugh i(A2821 works by)
Gender: Male
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

BiographyHistory

Television script-writer, script editor, and producer.

Tony Cavanaugh began his career with Crawford Productions as a teenager, working on a film crew. After reaching the position of camera assistant/focus puller, he moved into the script department as an editor, where he edited and wrote episodes of such programs as The Sullivans, Carson's Law, Zoo Family, and The Flying Doctors.

In the late 1980s, Cavanaugh left Crawford Productions in favour of Barron Entertainment. Here, he co-wrote both series of Clowning Around, based on the novel Clowning Sim by David Martin: series one (1991) was co-written with Shane Brennan and series two (1993) with John Coulter.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Cavanaugh worked widely as a script-writer and script editor, including writing episodes of G.P. and contributing to the Australian Children's Television Foundation's series Lift Off.

In 1991, Cavanaugh formed Liberty Films with Simone North. Cavanaugh continued to write scripts for such series as Neighbours (1992) and Secrets (1993), as well as the feature film Father (1990), in which a woman must come to terms with her father's past as a war criminal.

Liberty Films's first production was Fire (1995), a thirteen-part series set in a Brisbane fire station, written by Cavanaugh, Deborah Cox, and Everett De Roche and directed by Geoff Bennett, Peter Fisk, and Megan Simpson Huberman. It was followed by second thirteen-part series in 1996, written by Cavanaugh, de Roche, Graham Hartley, and Peter Schreck and directed by Bennett, Fisk, Ross McGregor, and Geoffrey Nottage.

After the second series of Fire, Liberty Films formed a co-venture company, Liberty & Beyond, with the Beyond Group: Liberty & Beyond produced, as their first venture, Medivac (1996-1998), for which Cavanaugh was both producer and supervising writer. He followed this with two scripts in 2000 and 2001: The Love of Lionel's Life (co-written with Des Power and directed by John Ruane) and Finding Hope (co-written with John Misto and Jackie McKimmie and directed by Geoffrey Nottage).

In 2001, Cavanaugh and Simone created and produced Day of the Roses, a mini-series focusing on Australia's worst train disaster. Among their awards for the series were an AFI Award (Best Mini-Series or Telefeature) and a Logie Award (Most Outstanding Telemovie/Mini-Series).

Since then, Cavanaugh has written and produced the telemovie Through My Eyes (based on the story of Lindy Chamberlain), directed by Di Drew for Beyond Distribution, and produced I Am You (also known as In Her Skin), written and directed by long-time collaborator Simone North.

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

form y separately published work icon Through My Eyes : Lindy Chamberlain : An Autobiography Through My Eyes : The True Story of Lindy Chamberlain ( dir. Di Drew ) Australia : Seven Network Liberty and Beyond , 2004 Z1654888 2004 single work film/TV crime

'In the heart of the Australian outback, a baby vanished into the night. A nation and the world became fascinated by the mystery, curious that the mother claimed a dingo took her baby, intrigued that perhaps she was in fact a murderer. The story that unfolded has captivated people like no other event. Lindy Chamberlain found herself swept up in a wave of overwhelming odds as she was accused of murder, found guilty and put in jail for life with hard labour.'

Source: Libraries Australia. (Sighted 09/12/2009).

2005 nominated Logie Awards Most Outstanding Miniseries or Telemovie
2005 nominated Australian Film Institute Awards Best Telefeature or Mini Series
form y separately published work icon Neighbours 1985 Australia : Reg Grundy Enterprises FremantleMedia Australia , 1985-2022 Z1367509 1985 series - publisher film/TV

A daily television drama series set in the fictional Melbourne suburb of Erinsborough, Neighbours chronicles the lives of the residents of Ramsay Street. The series initially revolved around three families: the Ramsays (at number 24 Ramsay Street), the Robinsons (at number 26), and the Clarkes (at number 28). The scope of the series has since broadened to include new Ramsay Street familes.

1990 winner Logie Awards Most Popular Series
1989 winner Logie Awards Most Popular Series
1988 winner Logie Awards Most Popular Drama Program
1987 winner Logie Awards Most Popular Drama Program
2019 nominated Logie Awards Most Outstanding Drama Series
2019 nominated Logie Awards Most Popular Drama Program
form y separately published work icon The Sullivans 1976 Melbourne Australia : Crawford Productions Nine Network , 1976-1983 Z1632899 1976 series - publisher film/TV historical fiction war literature

Set in the Melbourne suburb of Camberwell during World War Two, The Sullivans follows the lives of Dave and Grace Sullivan and their children John, Tom, Dave, and Kitty. However, the storylines reach beyond the immediate Sullivan family, allowing viewers to see their extended family, friends, and neighbours also struggle through everyday war-time life.

The series also featured war-action sequences involving various characters. Arguably the most dramatic moment, and the event that effectively became a turning point in the series, was the death of Grace Sullivan in a London air raid. The series finished after a seven-year run, by which point most of the original cast had left the series and the remaining characters had settled into a new life in the post-war era.

1981 winner Logie Awards Special Logie for Sustained Excellence
1980 winner Logie Awards Most Popular Drama Program
1979 winner Logie Awards Most Popular Drama Program
1978 winner Logie Awards Most Popular Drama Program
1977 winner Logie Awards Best New Drama
Last amended 13 Nov 2012 17:05:03
Other mentions of "" in AustLit:
    X