VALE HUGH KEAYS-BYRNE: SUPERB ACTOR, CHERISHED FRIEND
May 18 1947 - December 2 2020
Hugh was born in Srinagar, Kashmir, where his father was a colonel in the British Indian Army. He was still a baby when the British were expelled from India and after a three day train trip across India, under attack from the Thuggee, his family returned to England.
He grew up in Surrey, England and had an idyllic life, until he went to boarding school, where he developed a rebellious attitude to authority, which saw him expelled. After a short stint at a local comprehensive school, an observant teacher noticed his flair for drama and introduced him to acting.
He was 16 when he got his first job working with a touring Theatre in Education troupe and for the next few years, honed his craft in repertory theatre before being mentored by Sir Bernard Miles and performing at the Mermaid Theatre.
In 1968 he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company where he performed in productions including As You Like It, The Balcony, King Lear, Hamlet, The Tempest, Doctor Faustus, The Man of Mode, Troilus and Cressida, Enemies, The Revenger’s Tragedy and Bartholomew Fair.
He was a member of Peter Brook’s Royal Shakespeare Company world tour production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that finished in Sydney in 1973. Hugh stayed on and made Australia home.
He played Lenny in Of Mice and Men and Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar Named Desire, both in the Drama Theatre at the Sydney Opera House, and The Marsh King’s Daughter, Curse of The Starving Class and Treasure Island for Nimrod Theatre.
For the next 30 years he worked exclusively in film and TV. He won a Logie and a Sammy for Best Individual Performance by An Actor, for an episode of the ABC’s Rush and became a Farscape favourite as Grunchlk in the Sci-fi TV series and mini-series.
While Hugh is best known for his iconic Mad Max roles, Toecutter in Mad Max and Immortan Joe in Mad Max: Fury Road, he played in films as diverse as Ginger Meggs, Where the Green Ants Dream, Blue Fin, Burke & Wills, Kangaroo, Snapshot, For Love Alone, Stone, Man From Hong Kong, Resistance (also co-director) and Salute To The Jugger, but his favourite film was Strikebound, playing the communist union official, Idris Williams.
Hugh always supported collaboration, working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. For 20 years he lived with a group of fellow actors and artists in Centennial Park. They became The Macau Light Company. As The Macau Light Collective, they wrote the script for the film Resistance which Hugh co-directed and, under that banner in 1980, Hugh was co-producer of Stages: Peter Brook & CICT in Australia, a film which introduced the Centre for International Theatre Creations, a multi-racial theatre company with aims to create a theatre transcending cultural and racial barriers, to tribal Aboriginal performers from Central Australia.
Hugh was a staunch supporter of Aboriginal rights, proposing if you weren’t Aboriginal, you were an immigrant.
Hugh was a member of Actors Equity in England from 1963 and Actors Equity in Australia from 1973. He stayed a member of both unions until his death.
In 2009, in his only return to the stage, he played Otto Fallon in Neil Armfield’s production of Gethsemane for Belvoir Street Theatre.
Amongst the many tributes from around the world from his friends and colleagues were those from:
Charlize Theron: “RIP Hugh Keays-Byrne. It’s amazing you were able to play an evil warlord so well cause you were such a kind, beautiful soul. You will be deeply missed my friend”.
Nicholas Hoult: “RIP Hugh Keays-Byrne, I feel so fortunate to have shared time with you. It’s special to have learned from such a wonderful, kind person & immensely talented actor. Love to you always.”
George Miller: “The truth is he is a warm and sweet person and so embracing of everybody. I learned acting from him, probably more than anybody else that I worked with. The stature, the demeanour and the voice. Hugh embodied all that. If he was with you right now, you would feel that natural charisma that he had. People tended to come around to him in some way. To think that presence is no longer available to the world is sad.”
Neil Armfield: “What a wonderful, beautiful man”
Brian Trenchard-Smith (Filmmaker and Hugh’s close friend of 46 years): “A superb actor and cherished friend. As audiences would experience from his turn as Toad in ‘Stone’ and in subsequent roles, Hugh delivered menace, rage and bat shit craziness with conviction, yet he was the sweetest natured, most generous, humble bloke you would ever meet.”
Luke Buckmaster: (The Guardian, December 2020): “Keays-Byrne will be remembered for his gnarly performances as Toecutter and Immortan Joe, but every role he took was a revelation. The actor had his own style as well as his own gravitational pull. You didn’t so much watch him as experience him. Many people spoke of Keays-Byrne as a generous and gentle spirit; I lost count of how many times I heard words to that effect while researching my book.”
Hugh is survived by his partner of 47 years, Christina, his brother, Shaun, and his many in-laws, nephews and niece and we all adored and admired him.
Obituary by Kate Buchanan.
