Australian actor, playwright, and scholar of film history
Frank Bren
Born
Frank Bren
(1943-09-07)September 7, 1943
Died
April 14, 2018(2018-04-14) (aged 74)
Occupations
Actor
playwright
author
scholar
Years active
as actor - 1967-2013
Frank Bren (7 September 1943 – 14 April 2018) was an Australian actor, playwright/dramatist, director, translator and author, who was a scholar of international film history. He has written books (on the histories of Polish and Hong Kong cinema), written plays, and acted in Australian film and television roles.
Frank Bren was a scholar of Polish cinema and Chinese cinema film history. His book World Cinema 1: Poland (University of Illinois Press, 1989) is one of the premier resources on the history of Polish cinema.[1][2]
His book (with Law Kar), Hong Kong Cinema: A Cross-Cultural View (The Scarecrow Press, 2004) is one of the few books to thoroughly document the very early history of Hong Kong cinema, dating back to its beginnings in the 19th century.[3][4]
Bren was writing a biography of French filmmaker and comedian, Pierre Étaix.[5]
Frank Bren played Colin "The Snake" Adder in Mark Savage's film Sensitive New Age Killer,[7] and co-starred in the Craig Addison movie Betel Nut Girl.[7][8] He also played two recurring roles, as twin brothers Colin Taylor and Alf Taylor, in the popular Australian TV series Neighbours during the 1990s.[7] In addition, he played "Mr. Nicholson" in the film Hating Alison Ashley.[7] He was preparing a biopic of Chinese-American film director Esther Eng.[9]
Frank Bren[10] wrote and starred in the play A History of Motion Pictures, which ran at La Mama Theatre (Melbourne).[11][12] He has also written and starred in about a dozen plays since 1967, with runs in London, Amsterdam, and Melbourne.[13] Some of the other plays he both wrote and starred in are The Rise and Fall of Archie Jones (1968),[14]Have You Noticed Your Leg Is Missing? (1969),[15]Odyssey of a Bald Man (1970),[16]Larceny Makes No Noise (1988),[17][18]Muckrake (1989),[19]Honest! (1993),[20] and Flashback (1997).[21]
^Review by The Bookwatch, Nov. 2004, published by The Midwest Book Review [1]Archived 13 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine
^Review of "Hong Kong Cinema: A Cross-Cultural View" by China Quarterly, reproduced by The Scarecrow Press[2]Archived 12 October 2004 at the Wayback Machine
^"A Crime Thriller Comedy" by Jason Romney, The Age, Entertainment Guide section, 30 September 1988, p. 7 (available hereArchived 29 November 2021 at the Wayback Machine via Google News Archive, retrieved on 6 February 2014).
