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Tommy Lewis - Biography

Tommy Lewis (sometimes credited as Tom E. Lewis) was born in Ngukurr (Roper River), Northern Territory, Australia on 25^th August 1958.

 Lewis had no aspirations to be a film actor as he grew up and was working as an assistant mechanic at the Roper River settlement near Darwin when he traveled to Melbourne to try and win an apprenticeship.   He was spotted at Tullamarine Airport by director Fred Schepisi, who eventually cast him in the title role of the internationally acclaimed 1978 film, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith.

The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith was the first Australian film to compete at the Cannes Film Festival, but it failed to live up to the media hype surrounding it.   Despite winning the Best New Talent award at 1978’s Australian Film & TV Awards, Lewis was initially disillusioned by his experiences and, reluctant to continue as an actor, he turned down a number of roles.   However, in 1981 he appeared in the TV mini-series A Town Like Alice opposite Helen Morse and Bryan Brown, and has worked steadily in Australian film and television since.

Lewis’s life has not been without difficulty.   A one-time heavy drinker, he confided in a TV interview that he curtailed his drinking after nearly dying: ‘The lowest point in my life is when I used to drink. Alcohol really crippled me up...inside. I was drinking whisky and beer and everything. And then I went outside and I conked out in a little laneway. And a car missed me, my head, about that much. It splashed water in my face. And my spirits were looking at me maybe that night.’

In 2007, following the death of former Senator Bob Collins, it came to light that Lewis had been a childhood victim of the Officer of the Order of Australia, who was facing an impending committal hearing over sex charges.   Lewis revealed that Collins had taken him home for sex in Darwin when he was just 13 or 14-years-old.   Lewis told the Bulletin newspaper, ‘He humbugged me (had sex) there, then let me have a shower,’ and, comparing Collins to a spider in a web, described how he kept a photograph album of young boys in sarongs.

Lewis is also an accomplished musician, playing clarinet, didgeridoo, flute and guitar, and toured throughout Europe, Asia and Australia as part of the acclaimed jazz duo Lewis & Young in the nineties.

In 2005, Lewis was awarded the Bob Maza Fellowship by the Australian Film Commission for co-writing the film Yellow Fella, a documentary about his experiences as a man of mixed-race.   In December the following year he received the Australia Council Red Ochre award, which is given to an indigenous artist who has made outstanding contributions to the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts, at both national and international levels, throughout their lifetime.

Lewis now lives in the remote town of Beswick in South Arnhem Land with his partner Fleur Parry and their family.   Since moving there in 2001 he has established the Djilpin Arts Aboriginal Corporation, a cultural organization which stages the annual ‘Walking with the Spirits’ festival.

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