Tributes - 2006

Robert Caswell

Born Rockhampton, 1946. Died Sydney, October 29, 2006.

For Australian television writers, Scales of Justice (1983) was a promising sign. For years, while the most respected British and American writers had become almost as famous for their TV work as the actors, their Australian counterparts had suffered in obscurity. Scales of Justice, however, was unquestionably “a Robert Caswell series”.

            This was no surprise. Though conceived by producer Michael Carson, well-acted (by Bill Hunter, John Hargreaves and others), and directed by Michael Jenkins with a gritty, fly-on-wall style (which would later become all-too-familiar on TV drama), most of its awards and critical acclaim – and controversy – were reserved for Caswell’s scripts. The three-part mini-series told dark stories of institutionalised corruption, from the lower levels of the police force to the higher echelons of state politics, with no happy endings. (The state, in which the sordid events took place, was never identified. “It’s a comment on all state governments in Australia,” said Caswell.)

            In the days before the Fitzgerald Inquiry (not to mention later crime dramas like Blue Murder and Wildside), it naturally won criticism from police – and others. “The ABC should not be censored by any outside authority,” said a reviewer for The Australian. “But it ought to at least give the police the chance to reply to the outrageous allegations it has so irresponsibly made against them.” Other reviews were kinder. “Australia films too many soft-focus, self-congratulatory films and TV programs,” wrote Phillip Adams in The Bulletin. “It’s good to see the ABC making something confronting.” Milton Cockburn in the Sydney Morning Herald called it “the best Australian television drama yet” – a view that is shared by many.

            Caswell, a professional writer since age 21, had broken into television writing for the mid-1960s game show Everybody’s Talking, hosted by Reg Grundy. This led to a career writing, in his words, “whatever was made on television in those days”: Number 96, Certain Women, Bluey, The Sullivans. He co-wrote the comedy script for Lasse Hallström’s documentary ABBA: The Movie (1977), and wrote Jimmy Dancer (1980), an acclaimed play from the ABC’s Spring and Fall anthology, starring Garry McDonald as a jokey radio announcer who is diagnosed with cancer. After countless scripts, Caswell considered this his first important work.

            Following the critical and ratings success of Scales of Justice, he was hired by Kennedy-Miller to write their mini-series Bodyline (1984), but due to creative differences with producer George Miller, he was sacked after four months. As Caswell was the screenwriter of the moment, his dismissal was a shock within the industry. Writer-director Bob Ellis (who believed that Caswell “could make just about anything excellent”) sent a telegram: “To Kennedy-Miller. Understand you sacked Robert Caswell… What an idiot you’d be, Ellis.”

            In a bid for more creative control, Caswell formed his own production company, Glasshouse Pictures, with some idealistic notions. “We want to talk about what’s really happening,” he explained, “the sort of things that people pretend aren’t happening here.” The popular mini-series Shout! The Story of Johnny O'Keefe (1985) was one of his first projects – and one of the few to see the light of day.

            Going back to basics, his next major screenplay retold Australia’s most famous crime story of the time: Evil Angels (1988), starring Meryl Streep as Lindy Chamberlain. It won five AFI Awards, including best film and adapted screenplay (for Caswell and director Fred Schepisi), and was an international box-office success.

            This prompted Caswell to move to Hollywood, writing the screenplays for The Doctor (1991), A Far Off Place (1993), and many others that were contracted, but – to his frustration – never produced. He was also artistic director for the Sundance Lab, working with emerging screenwriters. Jamie Mayer, one of the lesser-known alumni, described his sessions as “part story notes, part psychoanalysis, and part encounter with Buddha. He radiates an eerie calm …”

            After 10 years of unproduced screenplays, Caswell’s comeback was the HBO telemovie Something the Lord Made (2004), about black and white heart surgeons Vivien Thomas (Mos Def) and Alfred Blalock (Alan Rickman), who overcame social mores to work together in the 1930s. It won Caswell almost as many awards as Scales of Justice, including a Christopher Award, for a work that “affirms the highest values of the human spirit.” Perhaps it is a happy accident that the last produced screenplay from Caswell, who wrote so much about misery and injustice, told an inspiring story.

            He soon returned to Australia, where was writing a project about another bleak topic: the Bali bombings. At the same time, he was working on Sony’s Return From the Dead, based on another true story about a paediatrician who, after one experience, becomes a believer in the afterlife.

            Caswell is survived by his father Cas, wife Liz, daughters Louise, Mary Jane and Rebecca, grandchildren Liam, Holly and Emily, and brother Don.