Kenneth G. Ross
Encyclopedia
- For other persons named Kenneth Ross, see Kenneth Ross (disambiguation)Kenneth Ross (disambiguation)Kenneth Ross may refer to:*Kenneth Ross , Scottish-American screenwriter* Kenneth Bruce Ross , American inventor and business man* Kenneth G. Ross , Australian playwright and screenwriter*Ken Ross...
.
Kenneth Graham Ross (born 4 June 1941) is an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
best known for writing the 1978 stage play Breaker Morant
Breaker Morant (play)
Breaker Morant: A Play in Two Acts is a significant Australian play written by Kenneth Ross, centred on the court-martial and the last days of Lieutenant Harry "Breaker" Morant of the Bushveldt Carbineers , that was first performed at the Athenaeum Theatre, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, on...
, that was based on the life of Australian soldier Harry "Breaker" Morant
Breaker Morant
Harry 'Breaker' Harbord Morant was an Anglo-Australian drover, horseman, poet, soldier and convicted war criminal whose skill with horses earned him the nickname "The Breaker"...
.
With the support of the South Australian Film Corporation
South Australian Film Corporation
South Australian Film Corporation is a South Australian Government statutory corporation established in 1972. Former State Premier Don Dunstan played an instrumental role in the foundation of the Corporation and its early film production activities....
this play was later adapted by Ross into a film of the same name
Breaker Morant (film)
Breaker Morant is a 1980 Australian film about the court martial of Breaker Morant, directed by Bruce Beresford and starring British actor Edward Woodward as Harry "Breaker" Morant...
in 1980.
The film was nominated for the 1980 Academy Award for the screenplay adapted from another source.
Early life
Ross was born on 4 June 1941 in East Brunswick, VictoriaBrunswick East, Victoria
Brunswick East is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 6 km north from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Moreland. At the 2006 Census, Brunswick East had a population of 7,410....
.
His great-grandparents were Hugh Ross (who arrived in Australia, as a free settler, at Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...
in 1837) and Barbara Ross (née McKenzie), and George Beckton and Eliza Beckton (née Peirson, born in Mansfield, Victoria
Mansfield, Victoria
Mansfield is a small town in the foothills of the Victorian part of the Australian Alps. It is approximately 180 km north-east of Melbourne...
). His grandparents were John Ross (born at Kilmore, Victoria
Kilmore, Victoria
Kilmore is a town in the Australian state of Victoria. Located north of Melbourne, it is contentiously claimed as Victoria's oldest inland settled town...
) and Adelaide Elizabeth Ross (née Beckton, born in Jamieson, Victoria
Jamieson, Victoria
Jamieson is a small town in Victoria, Australia. It is located at the junction of the Goulburn River and Jamieson River, north-east of Melbourne. The name is believed to have been derived from George Jamieson, a shepherd who grazed sheep in the area in the 1850s...
). His parents were Kenneth McKenzie Ross (born in Mansfield, Victoria) and Alma Ross (née Graham, born in Mansfield, Victoria). He has three children: Kendal, Kimberly, and Ian.
Ross attended Caulfield Grammar School
Caulfield Grammar School
Caulfield Grammar School is an independent, co-educational, Anglican, day and boarding school, located in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1881 as a boys' school, Caulfield began admitting girls exactly one hundred years later...
in East St Kilda, Victoria
St Kilda East, Victoria
St Kilda East is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 6 km south-east of Melbourne's central business district. It is located within the Local Government Areas of the City of Glen Eira and the City of Port Phillip. At the 2006 Census, it had a population of 12,188.St Kilda East is one...
, where one of his teachers recognized and strongly encouraged his creative writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
talents. He also displayed strong debating skills whilst at school.
Ross was a tenacious and courageous Australian rules football
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
er who played well above his weight, and was a superb middle distance runner
Middle distance track event
Middle distance running events are track races longer than sprints, up to 3000 metres. The standard middle distances are the 800 metres, 1500 metres and mile run, although the 3000 metres may also be classified as a middle distance event. The 880 yard run, or half mile, was the forebear to the...
, excelling at the 880 yards (or half-mile
Mile
A mile is a unit of length, most commonly 5,280 feet . The mile of 5,280 feet is sometimes called the statute mile or land mile to distinguish it from the nautical mile...
), now the 800 metres
800 metres
The 800 meter race is a common track running event. It is the shortest common middle distance track event. The 800 meter is run over two laps of the track and has always been an Olympic event. During indoor track season the event is usually run on a 200 meter track, therefore requiring four laps...
.
Ken, Kenneth, or Kenneth G. Ross?
Ross, known as "Ken Ross" at school, began writing under the nom de guerre of "Kenneth Ross" in order to set himself apart from various other well-known creative Australians known as "Ken Ross".More recently, however, Ross has written under the name of "Kenneth G. Ross" in order to avoid confusion with the Scottish/American Kenneth Ross who wrote the screenplays for the movies The Day of the Jackal
The Day of the Jackal (film)
The Day of the Jackal is a 1973 Anglo-French film, set in August 1963 and based on the novel of the same name by Frederick Forsyth. Directed by Fred Zinnemann, it stars Edward Fox as the assassin known only as "the Jackal" who is hired to assassinate Charles de Gaulle.- Synopsis :The film opens...
and The Odessa File
The Odessa File
The Odessa File is a thriller by Frederick Forsyth, first published in 1972, about the adventures of a young German reporter attempting to discover the location of a former SS concentration-camp commander....
.
Legal action against Angus & Robertson
Ross's play, Breaker Morant: A Play in Two Acts, was first performed in 1978. The play was such a commercial and artistic success, that work started immediately to convert the script of the play into a screenplay.Ross worked on the film as a scriptwiter, and the film was entirely based on Ross's play. The film was a top performer at the 1980 Australian Film Institute
Australian Film Institute
The Australian Film Institute was founded in 1958 as a non-profit organisation devoted to developing an active film culture in Australia and fostering engagement between the general public and the Australian film industry...
awards, with ten wins. It was also nominated for the 1980 Academy Award for the Best Writing (Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium)
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
.
Once it became known that Ross's film was near release, the Australian publisher Angus & Robertson
Angus & Robertson
Angus & Robertson is a bookstore chain in Australia. Its first bookstore was opened in 110½ Market Street, Sydney by Scotsman David Angus in 1884; it sold second-hand books. In 1886, he went into partnership with fellow Scot, George Robertson with whom he had worked earlier.- Bookselling history...
re-issued an out-of-print and not widely known 1973 novel, The Breaker, that had been written by Kit Denton
Kit Denton
Arnold Christopher "Kit" Denton was a British-born Australian writer, soldier and broadcaster. He was also the father of comedian and television presenter Andrew Denton.-Early life:...
.
It was issued with great gusto, with the original 1973 front cover, plus the factually incorrect announcement overlaid across one corner of the cover: "Soon to be made into a major film".
This announcement was incorrect for two reasons:
- it was Ross's play, not Denton's book, that was being made into a movie, and
- Denton's book was never used to create any part of the film script (a script for which Ross had been one of the writing team from start to finish).
In 1980, Ross took legal action against Angus & Robertson in the Supreme Court of South Australia
Supreme Court of South Australia
The Supreme Court of South Australia is the superior court for the Australian State of South Australia. It has unlimited jurisdiction within the state in civil matters, and hears the most serious criminal matters. The Supreme Court is the highest South Australian court in the Australian court...
for re-issuing the 1973 book with the factually incorrect announcement on the cover. With the support of crucial evidence provided by the film's director Bruce Beresford
Bruce Beresford
Bruce Beresford is an Australian film director who has made more than 30 feature films over a 40-year career.-Early life:...
, Ross won his case. Angus & Robertson withdrew the 1979 version of Denton's book from sale, and trashed all the remaining copies.
Another, "revised" version of Denton's book (minus the cover announcement, and with a picture of actor Edward Woodward
Edward Woodward
Edward Albert Arthur Woodward, OBE was an English stage and screen actor and singer. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art , Woodward began his career on stage, and throughout his career he appeared in productions in both the West End in London and on Broadway in New York...
on the cover) was issued by Angus & Robertson in 1980, which sold considerably more copies than his earlier, 1973 version.
Ross's emphatic legal victory did not receive a lot of publicity at the time; and many people today still labour under the misapprehension that it was Kit Denton's 1973 book that was the source for the movie.
Denton's 1984 account
In a 1984 interview conducted by Barry Renfrew, the Sydney bureau chief for Associated PressAssociated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, Denton directly addressed the issue of whether the screenplay of Beresford's movie had been based, in any way, upon his earlier work.
The British-born Denton was most emphatic that in the process of his research in England for the project that eventually culminated in the publication of his novel, The Breaker, in 1973, he had met so much resistance from War Office officials to all of his attempts to identify, isolate, and view the pertinent official records that were associated with Morant, the charges laid against him, his trial, and his execution, that “after weeks of futile waiting, he [Denton] decided British officials were concealing the facts and he began to accept Australian claims that Morant had been sacrificed as a colonial subject”.
In despair, Denton returned to Australia, and began to work on a screenplay about Morant.
No-one displayed any interest of any kind in his developing screenplay. However, the Sydney publisher, Angus & Robertson
Angus & Robertson
Angus & Robertson is a bookstore chain in Australia. Its first bookstore was opened in 110½ Market Street, Sydney by Scotsman David Angus in 1884; it sold second-hand books. In 1886, he went into partnership with fellow Scot, George Robertson with whom he had worked earlier.- Bookselling history...
, suggested that some of his effort might be rescued if he was able to re-work his screenplay into a novel. Denton substantially re-worked his screenplay into the book that was published in 1973.
In the 1984 interview, Denton was most emphatic that he himself, his earlier draft screenplay, and his later novel “[were] not involved with the film [of Beresford in any way]”.
Drama
- Don't Piddle Against the Wind, Mate (1977); directed by John Tasker.
- Sound Of Silence (1978)
- Breaker Morant: A Play in Two ActsBreaker Morant (play)Breaker Morant: A Play in Two Acts is a significant Australian play written by Kenneth Ross, centred on the court-martial and the last days of Lieutenant Harry "Breaker" Morant of the Bushveldt Carbineers , that was first performed at the Athenaeum Theatre, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, on...
(1978) - The Death Of Danko (1980)
- The Right Man; or, The Political Elevation Of Harold (1982); directed by Gary Baxter.
- The World Of Mr Gibney
Screenplays (film)
- Breaker MorantBreaker Morant (film)Breaker Morant is a 1980 Australian film about the court martial of Breaker Morant, directed by Bruce Beresford and starring British actor Edward Woodward as Harry "Breaker" Morant...
(1980) (directed by Bruce BeresfordBruce BeresfordBruce Beresford is an Australian film director who has made more than 30 feature films over a 40-year career.-Early life:...
) - Out of the Body (1989) (directed by Brian Trenchard-SmithBrian Trenchard-SmithBrian Trenchard-Smith is an English film and television director, producer, writer, consultant and actor who is notable for his contributions to the horror and action genre during the 1970s and 1980s in Australia. Most of his work has been in television, and the majority of his films have been...
) - Dancing on Glass (1999) http://www.afc.gov.au/filmsandawards/filmdbsearch.aspx?view=title&title=DANCGL (directed by Kenneth G. Ross)
Other
- A Note from the Playwright (1979)
- "Breaker" Morant — Posh Larrikin(1990)
- The Truth about Harry (2002)
See also
- Breaker Morant (play)Breaker Morant (play)Breaker Morant: A Play in Two Acts is a significant Australian play written by Kenneth Ross, centred on the court-martial and the last days of Lieutenant Harry "Breaker" Morant of the Bushveldt Carbineers , that was first performed at the Athenaeum Theatre, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, on...
- Breaker Morant (film)Breaker Morant (film)Breaker Morant is a 1980 Australian film about the court martial of Breaker Morant, directed by Bruce Beresford and starring British actor Edward Woodward as Harry "Breaker" Morant...
- Breaker MorantBreaker MorantHarry 'Breaker' Harbord Morant was an Anglo-Australian drover, horseman, poet, soldier and convicted war criminal whose skill with horses earned him the nickname "The Breaker"...
- Court martial of Breaker MorantCourt martial of Breaker MorantThe court-martial of six officers of the Bushveldt Carbineers , an irregular British force in the Boer War, was based on charges asserting that, between July and September 1901, a Lieutenant Harry Morant had incited the co-accused, Lts Handcock, Witton and others under his command to murder some...
External links
- IMDB entry
- http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsR/RossKennethG.htm