Posie Graeme-Evans

Posie Graeme-Evans (b. Rosemary Graeme-Evans^[1] in Nottingham, England) spent her childhood travelling between Europe, Asia and Australia.^[2] Having worked extensively in the Australian film and television industries as an editor, director, writer and producer/executive producer, Posie is now a full-time novelist (see below).

Early life

Graeme-Evans is the daughter of a novelist, Eleanor, and an RAF pilot. As a child, she travelled with her parents, to Egypt during the Suez Crisis and spent three years in 1960s Cyprus during Turkish-Greek Cypriot conflicts.^[1] She was educated at many schools including The Fahan School in Hobart, Tasmania, and the Wilderness School in Adelaide, South Australia. Whilst at Wilderness, Posie topped the State in South Australia in Ancient History in the Leaving Certificate.^[3] She married her first husband, Tim Jacobs, in 1971 and had her first daughter, Emma in 1972 while studying at Flinders university for her BA, awarded in 1973.^[1]

Career

Her first job, at age 25, was with New Zealand TV props department^[1] and she went on to work at the Tasmanian Film Corporation as an assistant editor and then editor. Credits there include assistant editor (sound and picture) on Manganinie and Fatty and George, plus editing a number of documentaries. Work at the ABC followed including directing on 1982 Commonwealth Games, directing football and basketball and, also, field and gallery director for "Nationwide", the forerunner of the 7.30 report. Selected to be part of a course run by Alan Bateman to identify the ABC's next generation of Executive Producers – one of eight of the hundreds who applied nationally – she topped the course. Fellow attendees included Kris Noble, later Director of Drama, Nine Network and EP of Big Brother; Graham Thorburn, formerly Head of Film and Television, Australian Film, Television and Radio School; Helena Harris, who, with Posie, later co-created Hi-5 and Ric Pellizari, long-time producer of Blue Heelers in its glory days and later, EP of Neighbours.^[4]

In 1983, Graeme-Evans moved to Sydney to direct episodes of ABC-TV music drama series Sweet and Sour (1984).^[5] "I was the worst of the five directors... I was over-confident and thought I had the material under control. I didn't... it was our first Christmas here; we had no friends, no family and I was distraught."^[1] Posie later went on to produce "Sons and Daughters" for Grundy, and "Raffertys Rules" for the Seven Network.

Posie married her second husband Andrew Blaxland in 1990, the same year she and Andrew co-founded their production company Millennium Pictures.^[1]

Over her long career, Graeme-Evans has established herself as one of the pre-eminent Independent creator-producers in the Australian film and television industry. Her first success under the Millennium banner was as producer of the two AFI nominated children's series The Miraculous Mellops (1991–92). Then in the mid '90's came Mirror, Mirror co produced with Dave Gibson of the Wellington based Gibson Group. "MIrror Mirror" was also nominated for best children's drama in both New Zealand and Australia. It secured an AFI for best new talent in Petra Yared and won Best Children's Drama in the annual Listener awards in New Zealand. Posie then went on to co-create and co-produce the many times Logie winning, and Daytime Emmy nominated, Hi-5" seen now in more than 80 countries worldwide. In 1997, Posie produced Doom Runners. Starring Tim Curry and commissioned by Nickelodeon and Showtime, this was a made-for-TV film about a group of children in a post-apocalyptic Earth trying to reach the last unpolluted place on Earth, New Eden. She was also creator and producer of the high-rating, much loved and many times awarded Australian drama series McLeod's Daughters (2000–08). Posie also produced the 1996 pilot TV movie of the same name starring Jack Thompson as Jack McLeod. Shown on mothers day 1996 the pilot became the highest rating Australian TV movie of all time. Her husband, Andrew Blaxland also worked on McLeod's Daughters as Executive in Charge of Production. During this period, Posie also co-wrote three best selling CDs of "Songs from the Series" of McLeods Daughters with composer and long-time collaborator, multiple Aria winner, Chris Harriott.

In 2001, the Screen Producers of Australia awarded Posie its inaugural Independent Producer of the Year award for her body of work and in late 2002, she was named alongside Meryl Streep by Variety Magazine as "one of 20 Significant woman working in film and television" in its annual worldwide survey.

In December 2002, Posie became Director of Drama for the Nine Network. Also, between October 2002 and June 2006 her first three novels were published worldwide. "The Innocent" ISBN 0-7318-1120-8, "The Exiled" ISBN 0-7318-1121-6 and "The Beloved" ISBN 0-7318-1122-4 (in the US, "The Uncrowned Queen") are a trilogy set in 15th-century England during the tumultuous Wars of The Roses. In November 2005 and resigned from Nine to take up a new multi-book international deal from her publishers, Simon and Schuster in New York. In October 2010 "The Dressmaker" ISBN 978-0-7318-1472-5, Posie's fourth book, was again published nationally and internationally by Simon and Schuster. At the time of writing "The Island House", Posie's fifth book, is being redied for publication in early 2012

Selling out their interest in Hi-5 in 2008, Posie Graeme-Evans and Andrew Blaxland now divide their time between Tasmania and Sydney. At the current time, Posie is concentrating on her career as a novelist.

References

External links

• Official website
• Posie Graeme-Evans at the Internet Movie Database
• Posie Jacobs at the Internet Movie Database