Max Gillies
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Max Gillies AM (born November 16, 1941 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) is an Australian actor.
Gillies was a founding member of the experimental theatre company, the Australian Performing Group, which was active throughout the 1970s.
In 1984 and 1985 he hosted the television program The Gillies Report, on the ABC. This was followed in 1986 by Gillies Republic and in 1992 by Gillies and Company. He was famous for being able to dress up and parody mercilessly a wide range of political figures, both in these television series and in two live solo theatrical performances he delivered later - The Big Con, and You're Dreaming.
In July 2008 Gillies resurected his caricatures of Australia's former Prime Ministers in a in a live production of No Country for Old PMs: An Evening with Max Gillies at the Noosa Long Weekend festival.
He said in an interview with The Courier-Mail that he and co-writer Guy Rundle were also watching Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for a possible new caricature in a new production being developed.
"I'm watching him closely," he said.[1]
Gillies became a Member of the Order of Australia in 1990.
[edit] Caricatures
Max Gillies, through his television programmes or theatre performances, has caricatured these people:
- Australian Prime Ministers: Robert Menzies, William McMahon, Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Robert Hawke, John Howard.
- Other Australian politicians: Alexander Downer, Amanda Vanstone, Iain Sinclair, Philip Ruddock, Sir John Kerr, Don Chipp, Andrew Peacock, Fred Nile, Russ Hinze, Bob Santamaria, Gareth Evans.
- Australian Premiers: Neville Wran, Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
- Australian businessmen: Kerry Packer, Rupert Murdoch, Alan Bond, John Singleton, John Elliott.
- Australian writers: Phillip Adams, Bob Ellis, Geoffrey Blainey, Clive James.
- Foreign leaders: Ronald Reagan, Pik Botha, Margaret Thatcher, François Mitterrand, Yasuhiro Nakasone, Mikhail Gorbachev, David Lange, Queen Elizabeth II, George W. Bush, Pope John Paul II.
- Other persons: Tony Barber, Sir David Attenborough, Jonathon Shier, D.D. McNicoll, The Alien, in "As Time Goes By"a time travel sci fi movie, 1987.
[edit] Notes
- ^ "Max Gillies was delighted to discover videos of himself on YouTube", The Courier-Mail, May 31, 2008
[edit] External links
This article about an Australian film and tv actor or actress is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
