Raymond Menmuir

Raymond Edward "Ray" Menmuir (10 September 1930 - 26 March 2016) was a British-Australian director and producer. His career included producing 44 episodes of The Professionals and directing 12 episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs. He also produced an Australian version of The Professionals called Special Squad for the Ten Network in 1984.

Menmuir was born in Perth, Western Australia, as the eldest of four children to Edward Menmuir and his wife Dorothy (née Williams). His father ensured Menmuir had a good education, at Wesley College.

His first employment was as a reporter at the Perth Daily News, but he then transferred to the Australian Broadcasting Commission as a radio producer.

He was deeply impressed by European culture, by seeing various films at the 1953 Festival of the Arts in Perth, and then took artistic inspiration from various films including Marcel Pagnol's Cesar, Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thieves, and Mikhail Kalatozov's The Cranes are Flying. This came out when he was soon directing dramas at the ABC's television drama department in Sydney. He directed the second play to be televised, J.B. Priestly's The Rose and Crown written specifically for television, and the first play from the new (1958) Gore Hill complex, Barbara Vernon's The Multi-Coloured Umbrella.

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