Drew Forsythe (born 23 August 1949) is an Australian actor, singer, writer, and comedian. He has appeared on film, stage, and television, as well as in satirical sketch comedy television programs.
Born in New South Wales to newsagent parents,[1] Forsythe attended Atherton Primary School, far north Queensland. [citation needed]. He caught the acting bug when The Young Elizabethan Players performed Hamlet (featuring Kirrily Nolan as Ophelia) at his Charters Towers high school.[2] Forsythe went on to study acting at National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), graduating in 1969.[3]
The title roles of the heroic Tonino and the foolish Zanetto in the Nick Enright/Terence Clarke musical, The Venetian Twins, were written for Forsythe. He originated these dual roles for Nimrod Theatre Company in the first Sydney Theatre Company season in 1979, and subsequently in two revivals.
Playwright David Williamson wrote Flatfoot for Forsythe, in which he played eleven different characters and a parrot.[3]
Together with Jonathan Biggins and Phillip Scott, Forsythe was a creator, writer and performer of Three Men and a Baby Grand which started at the Tilbury Hotel in Woolloomooloo. It went on to tour Australia-wide, at the Edinburgh Festival, and with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and was also adapted as a television series for the ABC. The same team went on to create the Wharf Revue for the Sydney Theatre Company.[4]
Other stage appearances include the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas H.M.S. Pinafore and The Mikado for Essgee Entertainment, receiving a Melbourne Green Room Award as Ko-Ko in The Mikado in 1995.
Forsythe appeared in the films Stone, Caddie, Newsfront, Annie's Coming Out, Ginger Meggs, Burke & Wills, Travelling North and Billy's Holiday. He featured as the narrator in the film Ned, which was written and directed by and starred his son, Abe Forsythe.
He received the 1976 Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, for his role in Caddie.
Forsythe has featured in television roles on The Miraculous Mellops, The Dingo Principle and Hotel Bordemer. He has also made guest appearances on a number of popular television series, including Cop Shop, A Country Practice, G.P., BackBerner, All Saints, and Packed to the Rafters.
He provided the anonymous, uncredited voice of David Tench, an animated host on Network Ten's short-lived comedy talk show David Tench Tonight. He also voiced several characters on the Australian award-winning animated series I Got a Rocket,[5]as well as characters on Fairy Tale Police Department and The Adventures of Blinky Bill.
Forsythe is credited with singing the theme song for the ABC's long-running Sunday morning radio program, Australia All Over, hosted by Ian McNamara. For more than thirty years when over 2 million listeners spanning every corner of Australia tune in from 5.30 am on Sunday mornings to listen to 'Macca' they are greeted by Forsythe singing - "Macca on a Sunday Morning".
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Forsythe's son, Abe Forsythe, is an actor and director.