Tommy Dysart
Tommy Dysart (24 December 1935 - 7 June 2022) was a Scottish-born actor, currently resident in Australia. Dysart has been a regular fixture on Australian television for several decades, frequently appearing in guest-starring roles in drama series and comedies, and in character roles in films and miniseries.
High-profile early roles included appearances in Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Phoenix Five, and several roles in the Crawford Productions police drama series Homicide, Division 4 and Matlock Police.
In the early 1980s he played what is perhaps his best-known acting role, that of vicious and corrupt prison officer Jock Stewart in Prisoner. In the storyline, after being fired from the prison service Stewart admitted to prisoner Judy Bryant that he was the one responsible for murdering her lesbian lover, fellow prisoner Sharon Gilmour. This revelation brought to a close a murder-mystery storyline in the series but launched a long-running story-arc where Bryant repeatedly escaped from prison in a succession of attempts to exact her revenge on Stewart.
After this Dysart continued in guest-starring television roles in drama series and situation comedies, and appeared in many feature films. His films included The Man from Snowy River (1982), Bliss (1985), Garbo (1992), and Flynn (1996). Television roles of the 1990s included appearances in All Together Now, The Games, State Coroner, Blue Heelers, Something in the Air and Neighbours. He also provided the voice for Captain Griswald in Anthony Lucas' animated short film The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello (2005).
Starting in the 1990s he appeared in a series of well remembered advertisements for the Yellow Pages where he calls a series of mechanics about his problematic Goggomobil. He was also known for playing a recurring character of a Mafia-boss like butcher in advertisements for Don's Smallgoods.
In the early 2000s he continued his Goggomobil persona advertising Shannons Insurance. The concept played on the role of a person searching for the car parts as any car enthusiast would. Telstra challenged this in the Supreme Court and Shannons withdrew the advertisements, but continued with Dysart and the accent (which Dysart insisted was his own and could not change). The adverts continue and Shannons Insurance also owns several of the Goggomobil cars which feature regularly in their shows.
Tommy has enjoyed a long friendship and working relationship with director/writer Frank Howson in the movies Backstage, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, What The Moon Saw, Flynn, Crime Time, The Final Stage, The Lucky Country, and their most recent collaboration is the award winning film Remembering Nigel, which also stars Tommy's wife Joan and son Kole.
He was married to Australian actress Joan Brockenshire.
| Known For | Acting |
|---|---|
| Most Rating | 0.1575 |
| Birthday | 1935-12-24 |
| Place of Birth | Glasgow, Scotland, UK |
| Also Known As | Tom Dysaght, Tom Dysart, Thomas Dysart, |
1982
The Man from Snowy River
6.962/159
Jim Craig has lived his first 18 years in the mountains of Australia on his father's farm. The death of his father forces him to go to the lowlands to...
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The Man from Snowy River
2005
The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello
7.1/45
Set in a world of iron dirigibles and steam powered computers, this gothic horror mystery tells the story of Jasper Morello, a disgraced aerial naviga...
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The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello
1986
Sky Pirates
5.033/15
Air force Lieutenant Harris starts for a flight to Boa Boa, on board Reverend Mitchell with a box containing a part of a top-secret extraterrestrial k...
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Sky Pirates
2001
Four Jacks
5.333/3
Four guys plot revenge on the businessman who ripped them off.
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Four Jacks
1985
I Live With Me Dad
8/1
Peter Hehir plays full-time loser Sid McCall, professional vagrant and alcoholic on the skids. Haydon Samuels is his young son Christopher who lives w...
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I Live With Me Dad
1990
What the Moon Saw
10/1
Steven Wilson is sent to Melbourne from the outback to spend his holidays with his Grandmother, an old time Tivoli showgirl/dancer. He becomes drawn i...
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What the Moon Saw
1997
River Street
4/2
Ben, an arrogant, hustling property developer is wrongly arrested and things from bad to worse when he accidentally punches a policeman at the station...
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River Street
1965
The Big Killing
0/0
Peter Ashbury is a young man who lives on Palm Beach, Sydney, with an expensive wife Mary and house he cannot afford. Their neighbours and close frien...
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The Big Killing
1982
Next of Kin
6.238/122
After Linda inherits a retirement home, she witnesses a series of strange events which seem connected to a dark and unspeakable evil.
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Next of Kin
1994
Metal Skin
5.611/9
Psycho Joe loves one thing: fast cars! When he gets a job at a local supermarket, Joe meets fellow "petrol head" Dazey, who quickly becomes his idol a...
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Metal Skin
1994
Body Melt
5.118/114
Residents of peaceful Pebbles Court, Homesville, are being used unknowingly as test experiments for a new 'Body Drug' that causes rapid body decomposi...
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Body Melt
1985
Bliss
6.405/21
An advertising executive dies and goes to hell... except nothing changes. Well, his daughter is buying drugs with sexual favours from her brother, and...
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Bliss
1992
Garbo
7/1
Comedy about two Australian garbage collectors starring Los Trios Ringbarkus.
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Garbo
1990
Friday on My Mind
9/1
Debut film appearance of Guy Pearce
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Friday on My Mind
1983
The Clinic
4.75/8
A comedic, dramatic day in the lives of employees and patients at a venereal disease clinic.
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The Clinic
2000
Strange Fits of Passion
4.286/7
The hilarious tale of one young woman's quest to lose her virginity. She is a sexually curious, romantically frustrated bookstore clerk on a mission....
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