Terence Donovan (actor)

Terence Donovan (born 28 October 1942), also known as Terry Donovan, is a British-born Australian actor and the father of fellow actor and entertainer Jason Donovan. He has had major roles in many Australian TV drama series, including Division 4, Cop Shop, Prisoner, Sons and Daughters, E Street, Home and Away and Neighbours.

Television roles

Donovan had minor early acting roles in episodes of the court-room drama series Consider Your Verdict, several ABC drama plays, and the children's series "The Magic Boomerang". Moving back to the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s saw guest roles in series including The Champions, Man in a Suitcase, and The Prisoner. After returning to Australia and appearing in guest roles in the Crawford Productions series Homicide and Hunter in 1968, he was placed on contract, going on to play the role of Detective Mick Peters in Crawford's police series Division 4, from 1969 to 1975. In 1976, he played in a popular mini series adaptation of the novel Power Without Glory by Frank Hardy. From 1979 to 1981, he starred as Detective Sergeant Vic Cameron in Cop Shop.

Between 1981 and 1984, he had minor roles in Australian television programs, and acted in the film The Man from Snowy River in 1982, playing Henry Craig. In 1985, he had roles in Prisoner and Sons and Daughters. From 1986 to 1990, he had more minor television roles including the 1989 pilot episode of E Street as Ken Swanson which was followed by guest roles in The Flying Doctors and G.P. He then played Al Simpson, the father of original character Bobby Simpson in Home and Away, which went to air in early 1990 and followed this immediately with the role of Doug Willis in Neighbours, a character he played regularly until 1994, and made a brief appearance in 2005, when he reprised his role for the show's 20th anniversary special.^[1] He returned in that role again in 2014. Donovan appeared in a documentary special celebrating Neighbours' 30th anniversary titled Neighbours 30th: The Stars Reunite, which aired in Australia and the UK in March 2015.^[2][3]

Stage roles

He played the title role of Harry 'Breaker' Morant in the first public performance of Kenneth G. Ross's Australian play Breaker Morant: A Play in Two Acts, presented by the Melbourne Theatre Company at the Athenaeum Theatre, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, on 2 February 1978. In the UK in the mid-1990s Donovan played Captain Hook in a tour of a musical version of Peter Pan alongside co-stars Nicola Stapleton, famous for her role in EastEnders, and a young Laurence Mark Wythe (who has since become a composer and lyricist in musical theatre). In 2007 Donovan performed the role of Boswell in the Magnormos production of Mary Bryant. He also played the part of the slick, dishonest lawyer, Billy Flynn, in the STC production of Kander and Ebb's Chicago.

References

External links

• Interview with Terence Donovan at classicaustraliantv.com
• Terence Donovan at the Internet Movie Database
• Screenshots of Donovan on Neighbours