David Stevens (22 December 1940 – 17 July 2018) was an Australian writer and director, best known for his work on ''

Breaker Morant Harry "The Breaker" Harbord Morant (born Edwin Henry Murrant, 9 December 1864 – 27 February 1902), more popularly known as Breaker Morant, was an Anglo-Australian drover, horseman, bush poet, military officer, and war criminal who was con ...

'', '' A Town Like Alice'', and ''

The Sum of Us The Sum of Us can refer to: *'' The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together'', a 2021 best-selling political book by Heather McGhee. *'' The Sum of Us (play)'', a 1990 play by Australian writer and director David Stev ...

''.

Biography

Stevens was born in 1940, in

Tiberias Tiberias ( ; he, טְבֶרְיָה, ; ar, طبريا, Ṭabariyyā) is an Israeli city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's F ...

, Palestine where his father was an aircraft engineer working on flying boats. In 1960, he left to emigrate to Australia, however his ship was diverted to New Zealand where he remained, until moving to Australia in the early 1970s. Stevens co-wrote ''Breaker Morant'' with

Bruce Beresford Bruce Beresford (; born 16 August 1940) is an Australian film director who has made more than 30 feature films over a 50-year career, both locally and internationally in the United States. Beresford's notable films he has directed include '' B ...

and Jonathan Hardy, earning an Oscar nomination. He wrote the play ''

'', which ran in New York for a year and won the

Outer Critics Circle Award The Outer Critics Circle Awards are presented annually for theatrical achievements both on Broadway and Off-Broadway. They are presented by the Outer Critics Circle (OCC), the official organization of New York theater writers for out-of-town newsp ...

. He adapted it into a feature film, featuring Russell Crowe and Jack Thompson, which won an

Australian Film Institute The Australian Film Institute (AFI) was founded in 1958 as a non-profit organisation devoted to developing an active film culture in Australia and fostering engagement between the general public and the Australian film industry. It is responsi ...

Award for Best Screenplay. ''The Sum of Us'' is the third play in Stevens' "A Currency Trilogy". The first play is ''The Inn at the Beginning of the World''. The second is ''The Beast and the Beauty'', which had its world premiere at the Old Mill Theatre, South Perth, on 22 June 2012. Stevens directed the

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

-winning mini-series '' A Town Like Alice'' and wrote three novels – ''The Waters of Babylon'', and two in collaboration with Alex Haley: ''

Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

'' and ''

Mama Flora's Family ''Mama Flora's Family'' is a 1997 historical fiction novel by Alex Haley and David Stevens. The story spans from the 1920s to the 1970s as it follows Flora, a daughter of poor black Mississippi sharecroppers, and her descendants. Haley died bef ...

'', which he then adapted into TV miniseries. These are ''

Alex Haley's Queen ''Alex Haley's Queen'' (also known as ''Queen'') is a 1993 American television miniseries that aired in three installments on February 14, 16, and 18 on CBS. The miniseries is an adaptation of the 1993 novel '' Queen: The Story of an American ...

'' (1993) for which he wrote the teleplay and ''Mama Flora's Family'' (1998).IMDb
/ref>David Stratton, ''The Avocado Plantation: Boom and Bust in the Australian Film Industry'', Pan MacMillan, 1990 p38 For his work with Haley, Stevens received an Image Award from the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

. He lived in Tutukaka Coast,

Northland Northland may refer to: Corporations * Northland Organic Foods Corporation, headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota * Northland Resources, a mining business * Northland Communications, an American cable television, telephone and internet service ...

, New Zealand, and was an active member of the aviation website Airliners.net. Stevens died in Whangarei, New Zealand on 18 July 2018 at the age of 77. He was openly gay and survived by his partner Loren Boothby.

Selected credits

*'' A Town Like Alice'' (1981) (mini-series) *''The Clinic'' (1983) *'' A Thousand Skies'' (1985)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Stevens, David 1940 births 2018 deaths Australian screenwriters Australian people of Palestinian descent Australian gay writers People from Tiberias People from the Northland Region 21st-century LGBT people