Cast Mates: Australian Actors in Hollywood and at Home

Cast Mates is a group biography of Australian acting giants across the ages. Australia has a long cinema history – starting with the world’ s first feature film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, made in Melbourne and released in 1906. Today, much of Australia’ s film talent goes to the United States, looking for bigger and more lucrative opportunities overseas. But what does this mean for Australian film industry? The larger-than-life personalities that form the heart of book ¬ ¬ – Errol Flynn, Peter Finch, David Dhalatnghu Gulpilil, and Nicole Kidman ¬ – have dominated cinema screens both locally and internationally, and star in some of the biggest films of their eras – from The Adventures of Robin Hood, Network to Crocodile Dundee and Eyes Wide Shut among others. From the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1930s, until the streaming wars and Marvel domination of screens today, the lives of these four actors, and their many cast mates, tell a story about the progress of cinema, as well as the future of homegrown stars since the advent of sound.