| John Edwards | |
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John Edwards in 2009. |
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| Born | John Edwards 4 March 1953 Manly, Sydney, Australia |
| Occupation | television producer |
John Edwards (born 4 March 1953) is a television drama producer.
His series credits include Rush (Network Ten), Love My Way (Foxtel), The Secret Life of Us (Network Ten, Channel 4 UK), Police Rescue (ABC, BBC), The Surgeon (Network Ten), Fireflies (ABC), Big Sky (Network Ten) and Stringer (ABC).
His mini-series include Marking Time (ABC), On The Beach (Seven Network, Showtime USA), Do or Die (Network Seven, BSkyB) and Cyclone Tracy (Nine Network).
His telemovies include six Cody telemovies (Network Seven), pilots for Police Rescue, The Secret Life of Us, Hard Knox (New Line), Fireflies and the children's telemovie I Own The Racecourse (Network Seven).
In all, John Edwards' productions have won 16 Logie Awards, 25 Australian Film Institute Awards, four People's Choice Awards (Australia), five ASTRA Awards and more than a dozen Australian craft awards. Furthermore, On The Beach is the only Australian production to have received two Golden Globe Award nominations.
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John Edwards was born in Sydney Australia and has lived most of his life in the beachside suburb of Manly. He attended high school at Balgowlah Boys Campus, which turned out numerous other film and television identities including Academy Award winning cinematographer John Seale, actors Rick Carter and Callan Mulvey, director Ian Barry, writer Tim Pye and comedian Phillip Scott. His spent his final two high school years at The Shore School, before attending Sydney University and Jacksonville State University, Alabama.
He was a History teacher in Sydney’s West for three years before breaking into the film and television industry as a researcher then writer at Film Australia in 1981. He wrote a number of productions including Out of Time, Out of Place, The Bounty Experiment and co-writing the two-part telemovie, The Weekly’s War.
After starting his career researching and writing at Film Australia, Edwards began producing, partnered with Tim Read, with the feature film The Empty Beach, starring Bryan Brown, followed by the telemovie I Own the Racecourse (1985) and the mini-series Cyclone Tracy (1986).
He followed this with the TV series Stringer in 1988 and then, partnering with Sandra Levy at Southern Star, the successful action crime drama Police Rescue from 1991-1996 which won Most Popular Drama at the Logies in 1994 and 1996, a swag of acting Logies, 5 AFI and a number of international awards. He went on to make Big Sky (1997–1999) with Levy but then the two separated. John went on to produce Russell Mulcahy’s mini-series On The Beach (2000), starring Armand Assante, Rachel Ward and Bryan Brown, and which won two AFI Awards and two Golden Globe nominations.
Then came the breakthrough series The Secret Life of Us (2001–2005), a 20-somethings drama series produced with Amanda Higgs which won six Logies, and the ABC mini-series Marking Time which won a record seven AFI Awards.
Edwards is perhaps best known for his award-winning drama series Love My Way (2004–2007), developed and produced specifically for pay television with actor Claudia Karvan and written with Jacqueline Perske, which won eight AFI Awards. Love My Way was a tipping point for Australian TV not only in its bold portrayal of the complexities of contemporary adult life but its pioneering application of the HBO model of creating quality drama specifically for television. It won both the AFI Awards for Best Television Series three years running and the Silver Logie Award for Most Outstanding Drama Series three years running.
2008 saw the first season of the Channel 10 series Rush. 2009 saw a second series of Rush, the launch of new pay television series Tangle (Showcase) and the shooting of Spirited (W), the latter again collaborating with Claudia Karvan and Jacqueline Perske.
A number of important and influential actors, directors and writersare linked with John Edwards. The following list is limited to AFI Awards, Logie and/or AWGIE Awards winners.
Actors: Claudia Karvan Ben Mendelsohn Joel Edgerton Deborah Mailman Samuel Johnson Gary Sweet Catherine McClements Kat Stewart
Directors: Cherie Nowlan Jessica Hobbs Stuart McDonald Matthew Saville
Writers: Jacqueline Perske Judi McCrossin Christopher Lee