Terry Norris was a familiar face on Australian television in the 1960s and 1970s before turning to state politics. His acting career continued into his 90s.
He had a recurring role in the Jack Irish series and continued acting into his 80s and 90s, with his final role coming in the 2022 film The King's Daughter. "I was originally considered rather English, then there was a sort of a transition and I was being cast as Australians," he told the ABC in 2008." Norris returned to acting in the mid 1990s and starred alongside his wife in the 2000 film Innocence. In his maiden speech to parliament, he noted that his 30-year career as an actor was not an ideal preparation for life as a politician. He learnt his craft at Melbourne's Tivoli Theatre before following in the footsteps of many of his contemporaries and moving to Britain. Norris was born in Richmond to working class parents and had intentions of becoming a boilermaker when he caught the acting bug.
Veteran Australian character actor Terry Norris, best known for Cop Shop, Bellbird and Jack Irish, has died.
“I had the biggest ethnic group in the state and the biggest unemployment and drug problem. “We’ve struck a chord with a lot of viewers. In 1982 he detoured from acting to a 10 year term as a member of the Victorian Labor government, which he says emerged from union work for Actors Equity. “We did a radio play from Melbourne every week, so that was a little bit of jam on the bread, and at that same time you were doing a stage show or theatre restaurant, and two long-running soap operas. Condolences to Julia and his family and many friends. All I’ve got to do is sit there and say the words! “A lot of performers you worked with in those days spent their entire lives in ‘rep’ and I didn’t want to finish up in a bloody bed sitting-room somewhere, down on my bean end, never going to get any further. I can never ever remember a moment in that show when anyone showed any temperament.” “It was a show that never took itself seriously. We got married between a matinee & evening performance of the show we were doing. I was never, ever out of work. England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, even the bloody Channel Islands I played,” he said in one of his
Norris was one of Australia's most experienced actors with nearly 80 screen credits to his name, in addition to a ten-year term in the Victorian Labor ...
Condolences to Julia and his family and many friends. Actor, reformer, gentlemen and Member of Parliament for SE Melbourne,' he wrote. (Pictured in Sydney on December 13, 2000)
Legendary Australian character actor Terry Norris has died aged 92. Mr Norris was known for his roles in such television shows as Cop Shop and Jack Irish, ...
by Cam Lucadou-Wells. Tributes have flowed for the late former state Labor MP and actor Terry Norris. The 92-year-old former MP for Noble Park (1982-'85) ...
“It was challenging but nevertheless interesting. “He was among the first to call me when I was first pre-selected for the seat of Dandenong – to offer congratulations, advice and support. Dandenong MP Gabrielle Williams paid tribute to “a kind man, a decent man” a “brilliant” MP and “a great loss for Victorian Labor and Melbourne’s South East community”.
Norris was born in Richmond to working class parents and had intentions of becoming a boilermaker when he caught the acting bug.
Norris returned to acting in the mid 1990s and starred alongside his wife in the 2000 film Innocence. Norris made an unlikely career change in 1982 and began a stint in Victorian state politics as the Labor member for Noble Park and then Dandenong. Norris was born in Richmond to working class parents and had intentions of becoming a boilermaker when he caught the acting bug.
Norris, who has died aged 92, played many small parts with outsized impact, imbuing spiky, stoic characters with gravitas and warmth.
He played Tom – an over-the-hill detective hired by two parents (Radha Mitchell and Richard Roxburgh) to look for their missing daughter (Odessa Young). In an early scene, Dylan visits George at a nursing home and asks him for advice on how to fly planes. Norris’ most memorable role in recent years was as an adorably crusty barfly in the Jack Irish TV movies and series, playing one of a small group that Guy Pearce’s titular gumshoe affectionately refers to as “the Fitzroy youth club”. Former Labor politician Martin Foley [tweeted](https://twitter.com/Martin__Foley/status/1637778362298155008) that Norris was “a great mentor to all those who followed him” and his death was “a sad loss”. [TV Tonight](https://tvtonight.com.au/2018/07/terry-norris-ive-had-such-a-bloody-charmed-life.html) in 2018 that he had “20 years with the longest run of luck of any actor on the face of the Earth” and “was never, ever out of work”. But his impact was large, and he made his scenes resonate.