Obituaries
Events director was creative genius at Mardi Gras, Vivid and Olympics
Jimmy & the Boys was an act so outrageous that Joh Bjelke-Petersen sought to have them banned from Queensland.
- by Glenn A Baker
Latest
Historian who put colonial frontier violence on the map dies at 81
Professor Lyndall Ryan was a leading historian who showed that rather than being rare, massacres were a key tool of colonisation in Australia.
- by James Bennett
Main defence witness in trial of Michael and Lindy Chamberlain dies
Scientist Barry Boettcher said tests on the Chamberlains’ car showed the presence of copper dust – not blood.
- by Malcolm Brown
‘Teenage Rage’ producer who unleashed Wild Thing and managed The Kinks
Larry Page was at the controls for a classic rock moment that “was either going to number one or have us laughed out of the business.”
- by Glenn A. Baker
Titanic and Lord of the Rings actor dies at 79
With a stout frame, bushy whiskers and a weathered visage, Bernard Hill embodied men of authority facing down danger with weary stoicism.
- by Alex Traub
Journalist was held hostage in Lebanon for nearly seven years
Anderson had just dropped his tennis partner when men armed with pistols yanked open his car door and shoved him into a Mercedes-Benz.
Bomber Command president taught pilots Luftwaffe attack manoeuvres
DFC citation said Houghton ‘displayed the upmost courage, fortitude and devotion to duty’.
- by Tim Barlass
Published widely in the field of labour economics
Renowned labour economist Peter Riach has died in London on International Women’s Day, at the age of almost 87.
Obituaries
Medicine
‘Doctor’s cardiologist’ helped transform patient treatment
Dr David Hunt had a long and exemplary career in the public health sector as assistant director, and then director of cardiology at Royal Melbourne Hospital.
- by Tony Walker
Australia’s ‘great parliamentarian’ who sat in Britain’s House of Lords
The late Trixie Gardner was the first Australian woman to be elevated to the peerage in Britain.
- by Amy Ripley
How forbidden love blossomed between Czech, US gold medallists at Melbourne Olympics
Despite a Soviet-bloc diktat forbidding competitors from fraternising with Americans, Olga Fikotova and Hal Connolly fell in love.