Phillip Adams

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Phillip Adams AO (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian broadcaster, film producer, writer, humanist, social commentator, satirist and left-wing pundit with the News Limited-owned newspaper, The Australian.

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[edit] Early years

Adams was born in Maryborough, Victoria, the only child of Congregational Church minister the Reverend Charles Adams.

His parents separated when he was young. He has written:

"Mother dumped [his father] in favour of a rather sleazy businessman... - a sociopath who tried to murder me... I spent my latter part of my childhood trying to protect my mother from this psycho."[1]

Of his education he has said: "I was forced to leave school before completing my secondary education and the only job I could get was working in advertising."[2]

Adams joined the Communist Party at age 16, whilst employed in advertising, but left at age 19. He has often compared dogmatic belief in Communism with dogmatic belief in Roman Catholicism.

[edit] Career

Adams began his advertising career with Foote Cone & Belding and later became a partner in Monahan Dayman Adams (now Publicis Mojo), which made him a millionaire. He developed such successful campaigns as "Life - Be In It"[3], "Slip, Slop, Slap"[4], "Break down the Barriers", "Guess whose mum has a Whirlpool" and "watch the big men fly for a Herbert Adams Pie", working with such talents as Fred Schepisi, Alex Stitt, Peter Best and Mimmo Cozzolino. He left the advertising industry in the 1980's.

He wrote regular columns for The Age and The Bulletin. He currently writes twice weekly for The Australian.

[edit] Broadcasting

[edit] 2UE

In the late 1980s and early 1990s Adams presented a late-night program on Sydney commercial radio station 2UE.

[edit] Late Night Live

Adams took over Late Night Live[5] on Radio National from Richard Ackland. Late Night Live is broadcast across Australia on ABC Radio National as well as on Radio Australia shortwave radio and the World Wide Web.

A serious discussion of world issues, the programme is tempered with Adams' gentle and ironic humour.

Frequent contributors include Bruce Shapiro[1] and Beatrix Campbell. At times, Adams refers tongue-in-cheek to his listeners as "the listener" or "Gladys", as though he had only one listener. Recently, Adams has begun introducing the show saying "Good evening Gladys and Poddies", in reference to the show's growing podcast listener base.

As of 2007, the current theme music is Elena Kats-Chernin's Russian Rags, which Adams renamed "Waltz of the Wombat".

The previous music was Bach's concerto for oboe, violin and orchestra in C Minor, BWV 1060: III. Allegro.

[edit] Criticism

Adams has been criticised as being an example of left-wing bias in the ABC.

The call to give equivalent broadcast time on the ABC to a "right wing Phillip Adams" began with John Hewson in 1993.

In July 1996 Prime Minister John Howard said in an interview with journalist Peter Cole-Adams: "I think one of the weaknesses of the ABC is that it doesn't have a right-wing Phillip Adams. I think that would be a good idea. It would make a lot of people feel things were better".[6]

Former ABC managing director Jonathan Shier is reported as saying:[7]

Shier: It is hard - it has been hard - when I've asked the people in charge of editorial to give me the example of the right-wing Phillip Adams.
Adams: Well, it was echoing a repeated statement of John Howard's.

Former ABC board member Michael Kroger asked (15 May 2002) "why [...] is it not possible 'for someone to hold down a presenter’s position who is clearly on the other side of Australian politics?'"[8]

Adams responded with a "Public Forum" programme on 9 May 2001, asking "Where is the Right-Wing Phillip Adams?"[9]

In July 2002 Imre Salusinszky wrote a satirical piece for Quadrant, "My Life as Phillip Adams: A Memoir".[10]

[edit] Film work

Adams played a key role in the revival of the Australian film industry during the 1970s.[11] He was the author of a 1969 report[12] which led to legislation by Prime Minister John Gorton in 1970 for an Australian Film and Television Development Corporation (later the Australian Film Commission) and the Experimental Film Fund.

Together with Barry Jones, Adams was a motive force behind the Australian Film Television and Radio School which was established under the Whitlam government.

He also played a key role in the South Australian Film Corporation,[13] which was created in 1972 and became a model for similar bodies in other Australian states.

Adams played a key role in the establishment of the Australia Council and the Australian Film Development Corporation, later known as the Australian Film Commission.

As head of delegation to the Cannes Film Festival he signed Australia's first co-production agreements with France and the UK. He was Chairman of the Australian Film Institute, the Film and Television Board of the Australia Council, the Australian Film Commission, and Film Australia. He helped establish the Australian Caption Service, which provides services for hearing impaired television viewers - and the Travelling Film Festival to take quality films into rural areas.

In the 1960s Adams wrote, produced and directed (as well as serving as cinematographer for) his first feature film "Jack And Jill: A Postscript" (1969); the first feature to win the Australian Film Institute Award, and the first Australian film to win the Grand Prix at an international festival.

Adams produced or co-produced other features including the critically-panned but hugely popular film adaptation of Barry Humphries' The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, directed by Bruce Beresford, which became the most successful Australian film ever made up to that time. Other films include "The Naked Bunyip", "Don's Party", "The Getting Of Wisdom", "Lonely Hearts", "We Of The Never Never", "Gendel Grendel Grendel", "Fighting Back" and "Hearts And Minds".

[edit] Other work

Adams chaired the Commission for the Future, established by the Hawke Government to build bridges between science and the community. In 1988 the Commission won a major United Nations award for educating Australia on the issue of greenhouse and climate change.

He chaired the National Australia Day Council. Its principal task was to choose the Australian of the Year. He also chairs the Advisory Board for the Centre of the Mind at the University of Sydney and the Australia National University in Canberra, and has been a board member of Greenpeace, CARE Australia, the National Museum of Australia, Adelaide's Festival of Ideas and Brisbane's Ideas at the Brisbane Powerhouse.

Adams is the author or editor of over 20 books, including The Unspeakable Adams, Adams Versus God, The Penguin Book of Australian Jokes, Retreat from Tolerance, Talkback and A Billion Voices, Adams Ark (published in 2004) and (with Lee Burton) "Emperors of the Air" (Allen & Unwin).

Robert Manne has described Adams as "the emblematic figurehead of the pro-Labor left intelligentsia". [2] Adams had a close relationship with every Labor leader from Gough Whitlam to Kim Beazley, advising on public relations, advertising and policy issues. However, on July 19, 2006 he was reported as saying of the Labor Party:

"They hate me," he says. "I think Kim Beazley is a serious error. I think the party's been going downhill federally ever since Keating left... The Labor Party's hardly worth feeding federally."[3]

Adams' life and extra-curricular activities have made him a source of interest to fans and foes of all persuasions for many years. Australia's security intelligence organisation kept an extensive ASIO File on Adams. The file began at about the time he turned 16 years of age. A work in itself, if a resume of this type can be considered autobiographical in any way.[14]

[edit] Personal life

Adams' partner is Patrice Newell. He has four daughters, three to his first wife, and one to Ms Newell.

He lives on Elmswood, a cattle property near Gundy in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales. He also has a home in Paddington, an inner suburb of Sydney. Adams is a collector of rare antiques, including Egyptian, Roman and Greek sculptures and artifacts.

He has written "I'd been an atheist since I was five" [4] and has an interest in spiritual matters, particularly life after death.

In 1979 a portrait of Phillip Adams by artist Wes Walters won the Archibald Prize.

[edit] Honours and awards

[edit] Bibliography

  • The Unspeakable Adams
  • The Uncensored Adams
  • Classic Columns
  • Adams Versus God
  • Harrold Cazneaux: The Quiet Observer
  • Talkback: Emperors of the Air
  • Retreat from Tolerance
  • Conversations
  • A Billion Voices
  • Adams Ark (2004)
  • The Inflammable Adams
  • More Unspeakable Adams
  • Adams with Added Enzymes
  • The Big Questions (with Professor Paul Davies)
  • More Big Questions (with Professor Paul Davies)

With his partner Patrice Newell, he is the author of several joke books:

  • The Penguin Book of Australian Jokes (1994)
  • The Penguin Book of Jokes from Cyberspace (1995)
  • The Penguin Book of More Australian Jokes (1996)
  • The Penguin Book of Schoolyard Jokes (1997)

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Film

[edit] Television

  • Adams' Australia (part of BBC TV's contribution to Australia's celebrations for its bicentenary).
  • The Big Questions with Professor Paul Davies
  • Death and Destiny filmed in Egypt with Paul Cox.
  • More Big Questions with Professor Paul Davies
  • Face The Press SBS
  • Short Cuts ABC
  • Four Corners
  • This Day Tonight
  • Parkinson
  • 7:30 Report
  • Clive James
  • Will Be Back After This Break (7 Network)
  • Two Shot series 1 and 2 (ABC)
  • Short and Sweet (2 6-part series, ABC)
  • Talking Heads
  • Compass
  • This Day Tonight
  • 7.30 Report
  • Sunday
  • A Current Affair
  • Sixty Minutes
  • Australian Story
  • Counterpoint with William F. Buckley Jr
  • We'll Be Back After This Break (series, Seven)
  • CNNN
  • The Chaser's War on Everything
  • Compere, Australian Film Institute Awards Telecast
  • Co-presenter, the Australian Bicentennial Celebration

[edit] References

  1. ^ Broadcaster Phillip Adams
  2. ^ Phillip Adams
  3. ^ 2003/81/3 Animation cel, original artwork, featuring 'Norm' from the 'Life. Be in it' campaigns, acetate / paper / cardboard, drawn by Alexander Stitt, South Yarra, Victoria, Australia, 1993 - 1994 - Powerhouse Museum Collection
  4. ^ Campaigns and advertising - SunSmart (Victoria)
  5. ^ ABC Radio National - Late Night Live - Home Page
  6. ^ ABC staff are directing the culture wars - Gerard Henderson - www.smh.com.au
  7. ^ Dimensions Media - Transcripts
  8. ^ Quadrant Magazine
  9. ^ Gerard Henderson's Speeches, Essays and Correspondence | The Sydney Institute
  10. ^ My Life as Phillip Adams: A Memoir - Imre Salusinszky - Quadrant Magazine
  11. ^ http://www.theage.com.au/articles/200v3/03/06/1046826480126.html?oneclick=true
  12. ^ Australian Horror Films: Appendix
  13. ^ SAFC
  14. ^ "Weekend Australian Magazine" Phillip Adams Jul 16, 2005.

[edit] External links

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