Eliott was born in Eltham, South Taranaki, New Zealand on 25 March 1935.[1] His mother died when he was one and he was brought up by aunts and grandparents until he joined his father in England after the war where he went to public schools in Bath and Bristol. He returned to New Zealand in 1950.
He became an actor by accident when in 1955 he accompanied a colleague to auditions for Nola Millar's production of Richard II with the Thespians company and ended up being cast as Bolingbroke in which he was very well received.[2] He went on to appear as Worthy in Virtue in Danger for the New Zealand Players and Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger for Unity Theatre as well as appearing in radio drama and commercials.
In 1964, Eliott was one of the founders of Downstage TheatreinWellington, and acted in, designed and directed many of the early productions.[3]
He emigrated to Australia in 1968 where, in concurrent productions for the Old Tote Theatre Company in 1969, he played Hamlet in Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and Guildenstern in Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" before going on to a fruitful acting career in television and film and as a voice-over artist. (In the mid 1970s he had a continuing role as a sports reporter in the Crawford Productions series The Box
He returned briefly to New Zealand in 1983 to play Colonel Elliot in Utu directed by Geoff Murphy.
