Terence Donovan, Neighbours star and Australian TV pioneer, dies at 90

Terence Donovan died peacefully on Saturday night in Melbourne, his son Jason announced on social media. The British-Australian actor was 90.

Donovan arrived in Australia as a teenager and spent six decades building a career that would help define the country's television landscape. He began as a singer before making his screen debut in the early 1960s, but it was the police dramas of the following decade that made him a household name. In Division 4, he played Detective Mick Peters; later, in Cop Shop, he became Detective Senior Sergeant Vic Cameron. Both shows aired through the 1970s and 1980s, when Australian television was still finding its footing against the tide of American and British imports flooding the market.

By the 1990s, Donovan had joined Neighbours as Doug Willis, stepping into the soap opera just as his son Jason was leaving it. He also appeared on Home and Away as Al Simpson. His film work included roles in The Man from Snowy River and Breaker Morant, and he maintained a presence on stage throughout his career. But what set him apart was not just the roles he played—it was the fight he waged off-screen.

In the early 1970s, when American and British television content dominated Australian airwaves, Donovan used his public profile to push for something radical: Australian stories told by Australian people on Australian screens. He marched through the streets of Melbourne under a banner reading "T.V. MAKE IT AUSTRALIA NOW," part of a campaign that would eventually force commercial television broadcasters to meet quotas for local content. The result was tangible. The obligation to broadcast Australian stories created space for an industry to grow, and that growth produced the films that would later win international acclaim—Picnic at Hanging Rock, Priscilla, Muriel's Wedding, Crocodile Dundee, Strictly Ballroom.

Jason Donovan, writing alongside his brother Paul, described their father as "a huge character, larger than life." In their tribute, they emphasized that he "lived life to the max," quoting a philosophy their father seemed to embody: "in life it's either a daring adventure or nothing at all." They noted that they had all been at his side in his final days, and that they would take comfort in knowing he had squeezed everything from the time he had. "How lucky are we to have a Dad like you," they wrote.

Terence Donovan's death marks the end of an era in Australian television—not just because of the shows he appeared in, but because of the industry he helped will into existence. Without advocates like him, the landscape of Australian film and television might have looked entirely different. The shows that followed, the stories that got told, the filmmakers who found their voice—all of it traces back partly to a man who believed Australian audiences deserved to see themselves on screen.