Tommy Dysart

Born: 1935-12-24

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.


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The Man from Snowy River

as Mountain Man
Released: 1982-03-25

Jim Craig has lived his first 18 years in the mountains of Australia on his father's farm. The...

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Next of Kin

as Harry
Released: 1982-04-30

After Linda inherits a retirement home, she witnesses a series of strange events which seem...

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The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello

as Captain Griswald (voice)
Released: 2005-01-19

Set in a world of iron dirigibles and steam powered computers, this gothic horror mystery tells...

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Body Melt

as Sergeant
Released: 1994-10-28

Residents of peaceful Pebbles Court, Homesville, are being used unknowingly as test experiments...

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Sky Pirates

as Bartender
Released: 1986-01-16

Air force Lieutenant Harris starts for a flight to Boa Boa, on board Reverend Mitchell with a...

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Metal Skin

as Mr. Graham
Released: 1994-02-21

Psycho Joe loves one thing: fast cars! When he gets a job at a local supermarket, Joe meets...

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Bliss

as De Vere
Released: 1985-10-04

An advertising executive dies and goes to hell... except nothing changes. Well, his daughter is...

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What the Moon Saw

as Skip
Released: 1990-12-26

Steven Wilson is sent to Melbourne from the outback to spend his holidays with his Grandmother,...

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I Live With Me Dad

as Griffin
Released: 1985-01-01

Peter Hehir plays full-time loser Sid McCall, professional vagrant and alcoholic on the skids....

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River Street

as Sergeant
Released: 1997-07-17

Ben, an arrogant, hustling property developer is wrongly arrested and things from bad to worse...

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The Big Killing

as Sgt. Basset
Released: 1965-04-21

Peter Ashbury is a young man who lives on Palm Beach, Sydney, with an expensive wife Mary and...

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Four Jacks

as uncredited
Released: 2001-08-07

Four guys plot revenge on the businessman who ripped them off.

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Prisoner: Cell Block H

as Jock Stewart
First aired: 1979-02-27

Prisoner is an Australian soap opera that is set in the Wentworth Detention Centre, a fictional...

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Blue Heelers

as uncredited
First aired: 1993-09-10

Blue Heelers was one of Australia's longest running weekly television drama series. Blue...

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The Flying Doctors

as Inspector Day
First aired: 1986-05-15

The Flying Doctors is an Australian drama series produced by Crawford Productions that revolved...

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The Flying Doctors

as Simpson
First aired: 1986-05-15

The Flying Doctors is an Australian drama series produced by Crawford Productions that revolved...

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The Man from Snowy River

as Mr. Couch
First aired: 1994-09-23

The Man from Snowy River is an Australian television series based on Banjo Paterson's poem "The...

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Homicide

as Nicolo Rogowski
First aired: 1964-10-20

Homicide was an Australian television police drama series The series dealt with the homicide...

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Skippy the Bush Kangaroo

as Andrews
First aired: 1968-02-05

Skippy the Bush Kangaroo is an Australian television series telling the adventures of a young...

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Zoo Family

as McGregor
First aired: 1985-07-28

Follows a family who live at Melbourne Zoo in Victoria, Australia. Doctor David Mitchell is the...

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The Games

as Taxi Driver
First aired: 1998-08-17

The Games was an Australian mockumentary television series about the 2000 Summer Olympics in...

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Water Under the Bridge

as Hamish
First aired: 1980-09-25

Water Under the Bridge is a 1980 mini series based on the 1977 novel by Sumner Locke Elliott.

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The Last Outlaw

as Superintendant
First aired: 1980-10-20

An unmistakable Australian icon - a smoking revolver, two piercing eyes behind a makeshift mask...

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Good Guys, Bad Guys

as Athol Amoroso
First aired: 1997-03-30

Good Guys, Bad Guys was an Australian crime TV series that screened on the Nine Network between...

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Women of the Sun

as Joe
First aired: 1982-07-05

Follows the lives and struggles of four generations Australian Aboriginal women from the 1820s...

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Eureka Stockade

as Tom Kennedy
First aired: 1984-03-27

Eureka Stockade is a 1984 Australian miniseries based on the battle of Eureka Stockade. It...

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