Forgotten Australian TV Writers: Ron McLean

by Stephen Vagg

One of my favourite old Australian TV series was Spyforce, a 1971 one-hour drama that Channel 9 would regularly repeat in the early hours of the morning. It was a gloriously over-the-top yet also surprisingly cynical series about the activities of a fictitious Australian special forces unit in World War Two that routinely carried out missions behind enemy lines. Spyforce was very much in the vein of Alistair MacLean guys-on-a-mission movies with our heroes constantly ducking up to various Pacific island locales not always convincingly recreated around Narrabeen Lake.

Starring Jack Thompson (in the early, svelte part of his career) and Peter Sumner, the show played fast and loose with history, not to mention geographic reality, but was constantly entertaining in a Boy’s Own adventure way, gleefully raiding Hollywood movies for inspiration. (The best account of the show is at Classic Australian Television here) It ran for 42 episodes, an amazing 35 of which came from the pen/typewriter/dictaphone of Ron McLean, the subject of today’s piece.

McLean is barely remembered today, but in his day (specifically, the 1970s), he was one of the busiest, if not the busiest, writers on Australian television. Cop shows, sitcoms, thrillers, horror, medical drama, action-adventure, soaps… if it had a pulse (and pay cheque) McLean wrote it, and usually quite quickly.

He was born on 22 July 1943. TV scriptwriters of his era tended to come from journalism, radio, acting and/or theatre, but McLean broke into the biz while running a women’s shoe shop in Double Bay, Sydney. He read an article in the Sydney Sun about a TV series being made in Australia, Riptide (1969), starring Ty “One of the models for Ric Dalton” Hardin. Riptide was mostly being written by Americans but McLean, thinking that being a screenwriter sounded like fun, sent the production company a couple of stories. They were well-received, and McLean was offered the chance to adapt the stories into screenplays.

“I stopped at a library and consulted a book about script writing,” he said in a 1974 interview. “It looked easy enough – you just made people talk and gave them directions. I’d gotten married and I really needed the money. They paid quite highly at the time, about $1400. When the scripts were accepted, I rang my wife, Elizabeth, and told her, ‘You know the budding businessman you married, well, he’s now a writer’.”

McLean’s timing was fortuitous. Australian drama had coughed and spluttered during the first decade of local television, hampered by a combination of cultural cringe and financial tightfistedness – it was cheaper and more culturally respectable to import shows from overseas. The introduction of local drama quotas in 1967 changed the landscape and McLean found himself busy churning out scripts for, well, anything going. After Riptide he wrote for Skippy, then worked on The Mavis Bramston Show in its final days before going on to Wobinda, Animal Hospital, which began what would be a long collaboration with producer Roger Mirams. McLean penned the links for a popular cooking show, The Galloping Gourmet, then did a sitcom, Good Morning Mr Doubleday, which McLean himself called “appalling”, and wound up writing a number of episodes of The Rovers in collaboration with Michael Wright, who died young in a car crash. There was also the inevitable episode of Homicide at Crawfords, plus Delta for the ABC.

Within two years, McLean had established himself as one of the leading TV writers in Australia. He had an instinctive knack for storytelling and was very quick and skilled at turning out budget-friendly scripts under tight deadlines. “Scriptwriting is like the blueprint of a building,” said McLean. “It’s the writer’s job to write within the money available. A novelist has a much easier job.”

McLean and Mirams teamed up for Spyforce, on which McLean also acted as an associate producer; the writer called it “a great adventure”, and said they devised Jack Thompson’s role specifically for that actor after working with him on Wobinda, Animal Doctor. The duo made a poor financial deal with Paramount and the series ended after two years; however, it sold around the world and almost fifty years later, still pops up on television.

McLean returned to freelance life, doing soaps (Number 96, Certain Women), horror anthologies (The Evil Touch), and more Crawfords (Division Four, Ryan). He wrote and produced a pilot, Odyssey, which McLean dubbed “Route 66 with water”; it did not go to series, but he and Mirams formed a company, South Pacific Films, and got up another show: Silent Number, about a police doctor (Grigor Taylor), with McLean again writing the bulk of episodes. South Pacific also produced three telemovies including Human Target with Jack Thompson, written by McLean, and Secret Doors with Gerard Kennedy. By 1974, McLean estimated that he had written over 80 hours of Australian drama “by working an 18-to 22-hour day, rarely getting enough sleep, often six to seven days a week.”

In 1975, McLean went to work for Grundy’s, a quiz show production company that had decided to get in on the drama game. Albert Moran, a leading academic who has written extensively on Grundy’s, told me the company “was in flux at the time. Plenty of money coming in through the quiz shows but the company a little uncertain how to expand further in TV and film. They tried film (Bazza McKenzie Holds His Own) but stepped back because it was riskier than they realised. They had imported Reg Watson to head up their venture into soap opera, a move that turned out to be marvellously successful. They had Ron for drama series and Roger Mirams who would follow up (most successfully) on children’s series.”

McLean had been personally recommended to Reg Grundy and fitted in perfectly at the organisation: he wrote efficient, shootable scripts that could be filmed for a low price but remained watchable – all things part of the Grundy’s drama formula that eventually conquered the world. For the company, McLean created, wrote and produced four drama series, as well as helping develop the hit soap The Young Doctors (for which McLean says he repurposed material from an older project of his, City Hospital). King’s Men [pictured]was a cop show based on the life of Bumper O’Farrell, which McLean called “a disaster” because Reg Grundy asked at the last minute for it to be changed into a Mod Squad style show. Case for the Defence was a legal drama starring John Hamblin, the first 90-minute drama series produced for Australian television; McLean was very proud of it, but it did not rate. Glenview High was a one-hour high school drama with Grigor (Silent Number) Taylor and Rebecca Gilling that lasted 39 episodes. Bellamy was a one-hour Sweeney–style cop show starring John Stanton that was the subject of an entire book by Albert Moran. While researching the latter, Moran spent a lot of time with McLean and recalls him as one of his two favourite writer-producers from that era (the other being Ian Jones). Moran told me he liked McLean “because he was such a buccaneer, cheerfully telling me about all the different story plots that he had plagiarised, with many acute observations about TV in between.”

McLean wrote for other Grundy’s shows like The Young Doctors, Prisoner, Chopper Squad and The Secret Valley, and penned TV movies like Two Way Mirror (a pilot for a TV series that did not eventuate), Night Nurse, and Island Trader. Of these, I’ve seen Night Nurse which is quite a fun Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? rip off… indeed, a lot of McLean scripts were, shall we say, inspired by famous movies. (McLean told Moran that he used Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on at least five different occasions for story material.) In fairness, McLean also drew heavily on newspaper stories for story ideas.

Some episodes of Bellamy were written by Rick Maier, later head of drama at Channel Ten. I asked Maier about Ron McLean and he told me:

“My lasting memory is Ron on his back in [Grundy producer] Don Battye’s office in Grundy House, with his legs up and on a chair because he’d had a mishap in a shower. He was pitching a story to Don.  Ron dictated all his scripts – I’ve no idea how his brain managed it – from start to finish – including all the dialogue. I’m not sure if this was just his bad back, or he hated typing. In any event Ron was prolific. He also had a very specific moral story compass. If a guest character was misbehaving in the first act, usually an affair of some description, odds were that character would not be required much longer. Ron’s scripted body count went up in proportion to the degree of the sin. Though my working relationship was limited to Bellamy, I think Ron could possibly have turned his talent to any genre. He was sharp, he was fast, and he was very very good. It was a privilege to see him in action.”

McLean told Moran that he was on a six-figure salary at Grundy’s, which made him among the ten most highly paid writers in the world. However, his association with the company ended after Bellamy became a notorious ratings flop. Albert Moran called this “the end of Ron’s dream run. It was the numbskulls at the Ten Network who wanted Bellamy to be the way it was. A very costly mistake leaving Ron with little future prospects with Grundy. Hence his attempt to get something up in the US.”

In hindsight, McLean may have lasted longer with Grundy’s if he’d been more of a serial drama writer – his inclination was more towards procedural drama, a genre in which the company was less successful. In his memoirs, Reg Grundy suggested McLean’s work lacked the warmth of Reg Watson’s; I think it was more that inexpensive production methods – the secret to the success of Grundy’s – matter less in half-hour serials and children’s drama than in one-hour dramas.

McLean promptly set up his own company, Ron McLean Productions, which made three low-budget films in the early 1980s in collaboration with Colin Eggleston (an old Crawford and Grundy’s colleague) all of which McLean wrote. Airhawk was based on the popular comic book of the same name, with Eric Oldfield in the title role battling terrorists on the Gold Coast (I’m not making that up). The Little Fella was a psycho lady thriller about Sally Conabere being obsessed with Steve Bisley, despite him being married to Conabere’s friend (Lorna Lesley); the little fella of the title, Bisley’s on-screen child, was played by McLean’s own son Stephen, who looks genuinely frightened when tormented by Conabere in the final sequence. Outbreak of Hostilities was a sort of rip-off of The Sullivans about a sensitive young man (Scott Burgess) having a fling with an older woman (Cornelia Frances!) on the eve of World War Two. Airhawk and The Little Fella were shot in Queensland, among the first projects financed by the then-new Queensland Film Corporation. Outbreak of Hostilities was filmed in Toowoon Bay at the holiday resort ‘Kim’s Camp’, still operating on the same site as Kim’s Resort. The films of Ron McLean Productions were not widely seen – though all screened on television – and the company went into liquidation in 1982.

Eggleston later went on to direct a cult slasher film based on a McLean script, Innocent Prey (originally titled Voyeur) (1984). An American-Australian co-production, it starred PJ Soles as a woman who flees her psychotic husband (Kit Taylor) from Dallas to Sydney. (McLean liked using psychopaths in stories; most of his scripts for Bellamy revolved around psychopathic villains.)

I‘ve seen all four Eggleston-McLean movies. The quality is variable, to put it mildly: some of it is effective, some of it is poor. You do keep watching, but you’re always wishing the scripts could be better (I felt the same way about Spyforce). I wonder how good a writer McLean could have been with a few more drafts as part of his creative process; just because a person can write a script in a day, as McLean could and regularly would, doesn’t mean they should. I am not sure taking more time was in his DNA, though: he seems to have been more a “get it out get it out” kind of writer. Nothing wrong with that. Maurice Francis was apparently a similar type in the old days of Sydney radio. So too was David Phillips, a phenomenally productive TV writer from the ‘70s to noughties. “I’m a commercial writer, a good hack writer,” McLean told Moran. “I won’t break a format.”

Ron McLean died of a heart attack in Sydney on July 31, 1983. He was survived by his wife Elizabeth, and four children, Sara, Sallie, Samantha and Steven.

Albert Moran said, “I think that it was Tony Morphett who later told me that Ron’s funeral was one of the saddest events of that kind that he ever attended. The girls were still so young.”

Peter Pinne, a Grundy’s colleague, said McLean and Roger Mirams “used to like a drink, especially Ron, and that when he died, Roger put a bottle of whiskey in the coffin.” Indeed, when Reg Grundy wrote his memoirs, one of the chapters was titled “Ron McLean and a Bottle of Scotch”. The drinking may not have been conducive to a healthy, long-lasting lifestyle but it didn’t stop his productivity: McLean told Albert Moran in 1980 that he’d written more than 450 hours of Australian drama. By the time the writer took his final bow, that amount probably clocked more than 500 hours. It was a short life, far too short, but he certainly packed a lot in.

I got in contact with McLean’s daughters, Sam, Sallie and Sara, and they were kind enough to offer photos and corrections. Sara McLean also penned the following for me:

Ron McLean – a perspective from a once-smaller human that he co-produced… or as he would refer to me, Sara, his eldest unmarried (even though I was only 11).

THE HOME

Growing up in our family home with Dad and Mum at the helm was an absolute treat. Or as Mum would say in later years (reflecting on life with Dad) – it was “sheer, utter, madness”.

Dad was an amazing man: kind, generous, intelligent, funny and passionate. He loved a good old-fashioned mentoring – helping people break into his wonderful world of writing, through to providing a caring shoulder and guidance to friends and family with issues, any issue, it didn’t matter what. He was always available. Without judgement. He had an innate drive to do the bloody best he could.

Our home was one with a perpetually open door, always. A reflection of dad and mum’s generosity and warmth saw our house full on weekends, bursting at the seams with love and energy, brought to us from meaningful encounters with life-long, new and industry friends. The buzz of chatter, the sound of laughter, the smell of delicious meals cooked by dad combined to a sensory brilliance that I recall more than fondly.

THE FEASTS

“What’s for dinner Dad? “

“Dead ferret’s bums…”

A better response to the continual chant of kidlets, I am yet to find – in fact, I have used it many times with my wee-ones when asked the mandatory query regarding that night’s menu…

When he wasn’t busy preparing the first Christmas ‘multibird’ in the late ‘70s, or other culinary feasts, he was cooking for a tribe of kids. He’d turn boring sausages, mash and green beans into ‘Double decker buses (snags) with red roofs (sauce) driving down a concrete path (mash) in a green field (beans… we’d still avoid those ;)). He once even attempted an Opera House version – though I am sad to advise, that ended in a major engineering fail… Regardless to say, the many kids on site were happy either way, as this meant it was now McDonald’s for dinner!

THE FUN

At one lunch with Roger Mirams and others at his home in Mackerel Beach, the kids were sent off to the beach to play (or to bugger off and give the grown-ups some peace). The younger generation, feeling rightly miffed, set-up a faux ‘treasure’ find. We dragged dad down to the beach (a suitable hike from the house) to view our ‘treasure’ (actually buried items taken from a council clean-up on the wharf…). Dad thought it was a brilliant prank – and ran with it. He then convinced Roger and his guests that the kids had actually found priceless treasure, and they should all abandon their grown-up shenanigans, and view this miracle…

THE LEGACY

Looking at myself and my siblings (Sallie, Sam and Steve), I see dad and mum in us all every day. 

I am eternally grateful to have experienced a life with such an outstanding human as my dad. He made me realise that nothing is impossible, family and friendships are more precious than gold, and laughter and compassion make life worth living.

After Dad’s awfully early departure from this plane soon after his 40th birthday (I was just 13), I found a postcard he had sent to me as a sub-two year old that mum had kept safe. It captures a beautiful side of Ron the man, and provides me with comfort and a feeling of love to this day.

“The grass grows green that I’m not there to see,

But no more dear than you will be to me,

The stranger that you never knew to miss,

My child I love you, with a distant kiss.”

The author would like to thank the following for their help with this article: Albert Moran, Peter Pinne, Rick Maier and especially McLean’s daughters, Sam, Sallie and Sara. I also drew heavily on Albert Moran’s oral history with McLean at the NFSA, his book on Bellamy, and the invaluable Classic Australian Television website. Unless a quote is directly attributed to someone, all opinions are my own and I take responsibility for any errors.

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