{"id":53582,"date":"2026-07-19T07:11:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T07:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/53582\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T07:11:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T07:11:18","slug":"actor-terence-donovan-dies-aged-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/53582\/","title":{"rendered":"Actor Terence Donovan dies aged 90"},"content":{"rendered":"

Celebrated Australian actor, and Neighbours and Home and Away star, Terence Donovan has died in Melbourne aged 90.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Actor Terence Donovan had a decades-long career, with roles in numerous iconic Australian television shows. (Instagram: jdonofficial)<\/p>\n

His son, fellow actor Jason Donovan, announced the news on Sunday via social media, paying tribute to his beloved father as “larger than life” and “our world”.<\/p>\n

“It is with great sadness but also a sense of celebration of a long full life that myself and my brother Paul announce our father Terence died peacefully last night here in Melbourne,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

“Our dad was a huge character, larger than life.<\/p>\n

“We will desperately miss him but we take comfort knowing we were all here by his side in his final days.”<\/p>\n

Jason Donovan said his father lived “life to the max”.<\/p>\n

“He was our best friend \u2026 our world,” he said.<\/p>\n

“How lucky are we to have a Dad like you.”\"A<\/p>\n

In a birthday post for his father, Jason Donovan remembered family road trips to Sydney and boogie boarding with Terence Donovan at Bondi Beach. (Instagram: jdonofficial)<\/p>\n

Born in England in 1935, Terence Donovan moved to Australia with his family as a teenager.<\/p>\n

He was a singer and stage actor before launching what would be a decades-long career on Australian television with guest roles in Consider Your Verdict in 1961.<\/p>\n

His prolific portfolio featured television, movies and mini-series appearances, including playing Henry Craig in the 1982 movie The Man From Snowy River.<\/p>\n

He was best known for roles in Division 4, Cop Shop, Breaker Morant and Power Without Glory.<\/p>\n

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Terence Donovan in the 1976 mini-series Power Without Glory. (ABC archives)<\/p>\n

He had an uncredited role as a policeman in the 1968 movie Oliver! before landing roles in iconic 1980s Australian TV series such as Sons and Daughters, Prisoner, A Country Practice, The Flying Doctors and Blue Heelers.<\/p>\n

In 1986, he took on the role of Doug Willis in Neighbours and Al Simpson on Home and Away.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Terence Donovan on the set of Neighbours. (Instagram: jdonofficial)<\/p>\n

Donovan was a passionate advocate for Australian content on television.<\/p>\n

In 1961, just 1 per cent of drama on Australian television was Australian.<\/p>\n

Donovan was one of a number of actors from the series Homicide and Division 4 to march through the centre of Melbourne in 1970 demanding the federal government introduce local content quotas.<\/p>\n

He later addressed a crowd on behalf of the Make It Australian committee.<\/p>\n

“The facts cannot be ignored that almost all our newspapers, radios and television are controlled by about four men, who I believe have selfishly exploited their privileged position and avoided their responsibility to the Australian community, especially to children, and to the Australians employed in the entertainment community,” he said to loud applause.<\/p>\n

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Terence Donovan (second from left) was part of the Make It Australian committee and fought to boost local content on television. (Supplied: Make It Australian)<\/p>\n

In 2001, Jason Donovan was the subject of an Australian Story episode.<\/p>\n

He explained that he was mostly brought up by his father after his parents divorced when he was 5.<\/p>\n

“I felt I was in a better position to gain custody and so I got full custody of [Jason],” Terence Donovan told the program.<\/p>\n

Jason Donovan posted a tribute to his father on social media on his 90th birthday last year, describing him as his hero.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Jason Donovan described his father as his best friend. (Instagram: jdonofficial)<\/p>\n

He remembered boogie boarding with him at Bondi beach when he was a child and family road trips between Melbourne and Sydney in the 1970s playing the Beatles Abbey Road album in their car.<\/p>\n

“Dad you are complicated yet so simple, unique and limited edition,” Jason wrote.<\/p>\n

“You’ve always placed me higher than you, always wanted me to do better than you.<\/p>\n

“You’ve been a best friend, a wing man, biggest critic, a pain in the arse, a nightmare!<\/p>\n

“Outrageously outspoken .. and most of the time just outrageous.<\/p>\n

“I can’t begin to tell you how many times people say ‘god you look like your father’. I’ll take it !!”<\/p>\n

Jason thanked the staff at Cabrini Hospital Melbourne for looking after his father in his final days.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Terence Donovan appeared in 167 episodes of Cop Shop. (Supplied: Channel 7)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celebrated Australian actor, and Neighbours and Home and Away star, Terence Donovan has died in Melbourne aged 90.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[17318,44857,6315,260,28996,44856],"class_list":["post-53582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-actor","tag-home-and-away","tag-jason-donovan","tag-melbourne","tag-neighbours","tag-terence-donovan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}