Tommy Dysart

Tommy Dysart 24 December 1935 7 June 2022 was a Scottishborn actor currently resident in Australia Dysart has been a regular fixture on Australian television for several decades frequently appearing in gueststarring roles in drama series and comedies and in character roles in films and miniseries Highprofile early roles included appearances in Skippy the Bush Kangaroo Phoenix Five and several roles in the Crawford Productions police drama series Homicide Division 4 and Matlock Police In the early 1980s he played what is perhaps his bestknown acting role that of vicious and corrupt prison officer Jock Stewart in Prisoner In the storyline after being fired from the prison service Stewart admitted to prisoner Judy Bryant that he was the one responsible for murdering her lesbian lover fellow prisoner Sharon Gilmour This revelation brought to a close a murdermystery storyline in the series but launched a longrunning storyarc where Bryant repeatedly escaped from prison in a succession of attempts to exact her revenge on Stewart After this Dysart continued in gueststarring television roles in drama series and situation comedies and appeared in many feature films His films included The Man from Snowy River 1982 Bliss 1985 Garbo 1992 and Flynn 1996 Television roles of the 1990s included appearances in All Together Now The Games State Coroner Blue Heelers Something in the Air and Neighbours He also provided the voice for Captain Griswald in Anthony Lucas animated short film The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello 2005 Starting in the 1990s he appeared in a series of well remembered advertisements for the Yellow Pages where he calls a series of mechanics about his problematic Goggomobil He was also known for playing a recurring character of a Mafiaboss like butcher in advertisements for Dons Smallgoods In the early 2000s he continued his Goggomobil persona advertising Shannons Insurance The concept played on the role of a person searching for the car parts as any car enthusiast would Telstra challenged this in the Supreme Court and Shannons withdrew the advertisements but continued with Dysart and the accent which Dysart insisted was his own and could not change The adverts continue and Shannons Insurance also owns several of the Goggomobil cars which feature regularly in their shows Tommy has enjoyed a long friendship and working relationship with directorwriter Frank Howson in the movies Backstage Boulevard of Broken Dreams What The Moon Saw Flynn Crime Time The Final Stage The Lucky Country and their most recent collaboration is the award winning film Remembering Nigel which also stars Tommys wife Joan and son Kole He was married to Australian actress Joan Brockenshire