Ron Haddrick

Ronald Norman Haddrick AM MBE, (born 9 April 1929) is a former Australian cricketer and Australian theatre, television, film and voice actor. In 2012 he received an Equity Lifetime Achievement Award for his long and distinguished career in those media.^[1]

Family

Haddrick was born in Adelaide, Australia, the only son of Olive May (née Gibson) and Alexander Norman Haddrick.^[2] Haddrick's wife, Lorraine, received the Australian Sports Medal in 2000 for her "outstanding dedication to athletics as a volunteer official for 32 years".^[3] They have two children: NIDA graduate Lynette Haddrick^[4] and screenwriter and producer Greg Haddrick.

Cricket

As a sportsman, Haddrick played First Class Cricket during the 1950s and went on to represent South Australia on three occasions in the Sheffield Shield competition.^[5]

Career

Haddrick first appeared on the stage in 1946 at the Adelaide Tivoli Theatre. Later, He was invited to join the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (now the Royal Shakespeare Company). On his return to Sydney, roles followed with the Trust Players, and when the Old Tote Theatre Company formed, Haddrick played in over forty productions.

Haddrick has worked extensively in radio and TV throughout his career, notably for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He made an early television appearance in the 1960 television play Close to the Roof. He had his first starring TV role as the alien "Adam Suisse" in G K Saunders' pioneering children's science fiction series The Stranger, broadcast on the ABC in 1964-65. In 1969, he voiced Ebenezer Scrooge for an Australian produced A Christmas Carol, giving way to more work along the same lines in the Australian animation field in 1977 with a shorter version of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth.

He has also narrated six audio books of the British children's TV series Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends released by ABC For Kids which were written by Christopher Awdry and illustrated by Ken Stott.

Other stage work in the '70s and ‘80s included major roles for Sydney Theatre Company, State Theatre Company of South Australia and Queensland Theatre Company in classics and new Australian plays, including extensive seasons of the Nimrod Theatre Company production of The Club. Haddrick received two of the now defunct "Sydney Theatre Critics Circle Awards" for his performances in Long Day's Journey into Night and I'm Not Rappaport. The '90s saw him in many roles for Marian Street Theatre and the STC including his King Lear and his much loved Wacka Dawson in The One Day of the Year. Haddrick has appeared in Australian-made television from Certain Women and Heartbreak High to Farscape and in numerous feature films. Haddrick also played on the The Lost Islands playing the tyrant "Q", a 200-year-old ruler. On radio, he has performed in hundreds of dramas, documentaries, special features and is frequently heard reading poetry for the ABC.^[6]

Honours

• Member of the Order of Australia (In the General Division) – For significant service to the performing arts as an actor and narrator (2013)^[7]
• Member of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) – for services to the Arts (1974)^[8]
• Equity Lifetime Achievement Award - for a lifetime combining a phenomenal career with generous leadership and selfless mentorship presented by Actors Equity Australia, part of the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (2012)^[9]

References