
George Whaley
Acting
Biography
George Whaley (19 June 1934 – 6 August 2019) was an Australian actor, director and writer, known for his work across theatre and film. Whaley taught as Head of Acting at National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) from 1976 to 1981, where among other students, he taught Mel Gibson, Judy Davis, Colin Friels, Hugo Weaving, Philip Quast, Steve Bisley, Tom Burlinson, Linda Cropper, Penny Cook, Anne Tenney, Heather Mitchell and Di Smith.
Known For

The Flying Doctors is an Australian drama series produced by Crawford Productions that revolved around the everyday lifesaving efforts of the real Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. It was initially a 1985 mini-series based in the fictional outback town of Cooper's Crossing starring Andrew McFarlane as the newly arrived Dr. Tom Callaghan. The success of the mini series led to its return the following year as an on-going series with McFarlane being joined by a new doctor, Chris Randall, played by Liz Burch. McFarlane left during the first season and actor Robert Grubb came in as new doctor Geoff Standish. The series' episodes were mostly self-contained but also featured ongoing storylines, such as Dr. Standish's romance with Sister Kate Wellings. Other major characters included pilot Sam Patterson, mechanic Emma Plimpton, local policeman Sgt. Jack Carruthers and Vic and Nancy Buckley, who ran the local pub/hotel, The Majestic. Andrew McFarlane also later returned to the series, resuming his role as Dr. Callaghan. The popular series ran for nine seasons and was successfully screened internationally.
The Flying Doctors

Rafferty's Rules was an Australian television drama series which ran from 1987 to 1990 on the Seven Network. Rafferty's Rules was one of the first programs undertaken by the Seven Network's then new in-house drama unit, going into production in May 1985 as "a 15-part courtroom drama". The program had started out as a pilot episode, recorded in early 1984 with the actor Chris Haywood in the lead role. When the pilot episode was remounted later in 1984, Chris Haywood wasn't available and the lead role was re-cast to John Wood. This second recording was eventually broadcast as the program's first episode.
Rafferty's Rules

Dramatization of the 1932/33 Test cricket series between England and Australia. Played in Australia, the series gained notoriety in Australian and worldwide cricketing history for the fact that the English team (headed by captain Douglas Jardine) applied a bowling technique called "leg theory", or more commonly, Bodyline. This technique involved bowlers bowling the ball directly at the batsman's body, and resulted in many of the Australian team receiving numerous bruises and injuries, with batsman Bert Oldfield sustaining a cracked skull. The series generated much anger and resentment towards the English team within Australia and seriously damaged Anglo-Australian cricketing relations at the time.
Bodyline

Enter the dramatic and dangerous world of Australia's oldest and riskiest pursuit – mining. A mismatched team strive to save a struggling but proud Australian mining company, and in doing so, must overcome their own prejudice and fears while facing life-threatening situations – not only for themselves but also for the workers they employ.
Dirt Game

Reporter Judith Wilkes leaves her husband and two sons in Sydney and goes to Malaysia to cover the story of the Vietnamese boat people. She becomes romantically involved with Kanan, and strikes up a friendship with Lady Minou Hobday, who keeps a regular vigil at "Turtle Beach" where the refugees try to secretly land, in the hope that one day her own children will arrive. Accompanying Minou one night, Judith witnesses a brutal massacre by the Malaysians, which spurs her on to expose the horrors of the internment camps at Bidong.
Turtle Beach

Three women plot revenge against a drug dealer who scammed them into working in his operations.
Ring of Scorpio

A boy realizes there is more to being a clown than just clowning around.
Clowning Around

A white collector of Aboriginal art gets a shock when the Mimi sculpture she purchased comes to life.
Mimi

An advertising executive dies and goes to hell... except nothing changes. Well, his daughter is buying drugs with sexual favours from her brother, and the number of cancer-causing products is on the increase. But the notes he writes to himself to prove he hasn't gone insane are getting more disjointed, and he runs off with an ex-prostitute called Honey Barbera.
Bliss

Tired of local corruption and the harshness of his life a bushman demonstrates the true Aussie spirit and decides to run for parliament
Dad and Dave: On Our Selection

Host Scott Forrest presents a curated compilation of eight independent short films in this rapid-fire science-fiction feature. Genres collide, narratives twist, aesthetics clash, and even humor, both campy and dystopian, showcase the vast creative possibilities of each story's individual world, offering the viewer a brief glimpse into the lives of every character's attempt to survive the otherworldly chaos around them. Released in 2001, the selected shorts span original creation dates of 1997 to 2001; most of the featured filmmakers also appear as themselves in short video interviews to talk about their inspirations, creative process and motivations while working on their individual shorts.
Smash Cuts! Super Sci-Fi Shorts Fest

Stork is a gangly young man, a virgin with an overactive imagination who thinks he’s a revolutionary. Bored with a design job at General Motors Holden in Melbourne, he drops out and moves into a share house with his mate Westy. He daydreams his way through life, bungling job interviews, upsetting ‘respectable’ people, and getting drunk. The only girl in the house, Anna resists Stork’s advances, because she’s already involved with the other two resident males, Tony and Clyde. But when she becomes pregnant and Clyde and Anna decide to marry, Stork, Tony, Clyde and Westy are shocked when they realize that either one of the foursome could be the father. Then the fun begins....
Stork

Alvin is your average guy, except for the fact women find him irresistible and chase him everywhere. He tries to avoid them and get psychiatric help but gets used by the psychiatrists as a gigolo to treat other patients instead.
Alvin Purple

Sim, now a member of the Winter Circus in Paris, befriends Eve, another young clown. Drawn to an experimental style of clowning used by Circus Oz and Cirque du Soleil, the techniques get them both fired, but when Sim returns home to Australia, he finds that he is now the inheritor of a share in the Rathnow Circus.
Clowning Around 2

Follows a boy who realizes there is more to being a clown, than just clowning around.
Clowning Around

We first meet The Darcys, a poor, working class family of tough Irish stock through whose eyes we hear their story. A story that centres on the bittersweet first and last loves of Roie, who becomes a woman too quickly living among the tenement houses, razor gangs, brothels and sly-grog shops of inner city Sydney.
The Harp in the South

A struggling actress with an affinity for horses meets wealthy rock music promoter and stable owner Digby Olsen.
Daydream Believer

Like its predecessor The Harp In The South, Poor Man's Orange was also adapted for Australian television by the Ten Network in 1987. It continues the story of the Darcy family, living in the Surry Hills area of Sydney. Originally a novel by New Zealand-born Australian author Ruth Park, the book was published in 1949. The Darcys a poor, working class family of tough Irish stock - Mumma (Anne Phelan), dad Hughie (Martyn Sanderson), Roie (Anna Hruby) and the younger daughter Dolour (Kaarin Fairfax), through whose eyes we hear their story.
Poor Man's Orange

Three Aussie super-Sheilas and their Big Mack trucks embark on a mission to defend the Earth against the alien invasion.