BORN TO ACT
From joining a marching band in Yorkshire through touring with the RSC to a career on Australian stage and screen, Ralph Cotterill’s love of performing always shone through.
Veteran English-Australian actor Ralph Cotterill, who was born in Yorkshire on March 26, 1932, passed away peacefully on May 7 in Cairns. Raised in the city of Doncaster, he became involved with music at an early age and joined the Boys’ Brigade Marching Band. He started work as an apprentice mechanic but was greatly distracted by the amateur dramatic society.
Ralph was bitten early in life by the travel bug and luckily got a job as a travel agent that funded both his acting dream and the desire to roam. Around this time, he met the love of his life, Annette Grant, and they eloped to Dumfries in Scotland.
Ralph trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic and Drama Centre London. He enlisted twice in the RAF, while all the time dreaming of the theatre. After leaving the RAF, he successfully auditioned for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
He toured the world with Peter Brook as a member of the company, where he met Hugh Keays-Byrne who was to become a life-long friend. In 1973, Brook’s groundbreaking production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream came to Australia. Hugh and Ralph decided that this was a good place to be and ended up living at 16 Lang Road Centennial Park Sydney, for 20 years it was a hub and home for many creative projects under the umbrella of the Macau Light Company. The bike gang in Mad Max were cast around the Lang Road kitchen table.
Ralph lived for acting, working prolifically in theatre, film and television. No roles were too small. He immersed himself in all his characters and the list of his credits is amazing, from King Lear to A Country Practice.
Working with Steven Berkoff as the insect in Metamorphosis gave Ralph a platform to explore the physical performance he enjoyed. He also loved his time with Company B, working with Neil Armfield and all the fantastic, gifted actors on many memorable theatre projects.
His other great love was Thailand, and he spent months every year mentoring acting students there and in Myanmar. He was involved in the creation of, and worked with, The New Yangon Theatre Institute putting on productions in Myanmar and Thailand.
In his later years, Ralph moved to Cairns, from where he continued to travel and work all around Australia. His last notable film role was as Gatsby’s long-lost father in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. The scenes didn’t make the edit but in the director’s notes Baz described Ralph as one of Australia’s finest actors. He toured Australia as the grandfather in Kate Mulvany’s The Seed. His final work was in local community theatre taking leading roles in productions of Julius Caesar and A Man for All Seasons.
Ralph Cotterill gave himself wholeheartedly to his craft. He will be missed immensely by his family, friends, students, and all those who remember him fondly.
Obituary by Lawrence Woodward
