Jonathan Dawson

Jonathan Dawson (24 November 1941 – 10 August 2013) was an Australian academic, filmmaker, film and literary critic and broadcaster.

Jonathan Dawson was born in Melbourne. At Melbourne University he graduated in English Honours and won awards for acting and two One Act Playwriting Competitions (The World Record Club Award). Published many poems and short stories and, later, as a poetry performer.was often accompanied by guitarist Glen Tomassetti at La Mama. His play, A Cup of Tea with Mrs Groom was performed at La Mama directed by Graeme Blundell. He also created two of the most successful university revues of the decade (1960s).After graduating, Dawson joined the Australian Broadcasting Commission as a Trainee Radio and TV Producer/Director and directed many radio dramas and education programmes as well as dramas and documentaries. He left the ABC to join Crawford Productions as a writer director on Homicide and later Division 4. He then went on to Channel 9 in Sydney to direct The Link Men and write for other series including Rush and The Box.

He continued to publish poetry and short stories, but left the full-time film industry to set up the new media studies department and screenwriting courses at the University of Canberra, leaving there to help set up Griffith University's Foundation Year in 1975 where he worked to create the then new screen studies and production courses now internationally acknowledged, a series of pioneering new degree and postgraduate programmes that have produced and mentored many of the leading film scholars and film makers in international screen studies today.

Jonathan Dawson had two children: Patrick (born 1 February 1971) and Olivia (born 8 October 1972). He lived and wrote full-time in Hobart, Tasmania with his wife, fashion designer and writer, Felicity Dawson. On 10 August 2013, Dawson died after a long battle with illness.

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