From Peter Beilby's book. p 137
"The directors in those days were great cinema enthusiasts, always going to the pictures then sitting round and analysing them. There was generally a strong feeling of co operation because when you went to air live you really had to be a very cohesive group of people: a weak link would break the whole thing up.
Producers were very temperamental. They had to call up camera shots and keep an eye on everything that was going on, and the camera calling would sometimes get quite frenzied. This was because we would occasionally compete with each other to have as many shots as possible in an hour. It was a pretty silly thing to do, but there was tremendous competition due to our very public reputations.
The ABC used to buy space in the papers to publicise one-off dramas. We producers had a buzz around us wherever we went but we also faced a lot of criticism. I thought 60 percent of what I did was okay and 40 per cent I thought was dreadful.
I recall doing several one act plays by Australians but nothing memorable. There as no firm commitment to local material and we felt it was fascinating for viewers to see things like Chekhov and some of the world's best drama.
The first ten years of TV were full of problems that concerned and required resilience. It was very much a matter of whether you could survive, whether you could actually stagger up those stairs one more time to face it again.
When videotape came along I considered that I had left a rather fine, almost monastic existence to be put on a conveyor belt. Second chances meant less tension, smaller, sets, less emphasis on camera movement, less emphasis on the product itself and more on the mechanics and the schedule. That early training made us able to work at a furious pace and I always felt that nothing gets as critical nowadays."
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| p 137 Beilby |
John Croyston in an interview with Graham Shirley called Muir a "genuine aesthete" with "long hair, duffle coat, all that"... who was unsuccessful as head of drama. He said the staff would ignore and/or bully him. (2nd last tape)
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| Listener in 12-18 April 1958 p 7 |
ABC head of drama acquainted with Humphries, Fraser and Greer
May 2, 2022 — 4.43pm
CHRISTOPHER MUIR, 1931-2022
The passing of Christopher Muir sees the loss of one of the last direct links to the advent of television broadcasting in Australia and programming that viewers of fast-paced contemporary TV could scarcely imagine. As a producer, director and ultimately head of ABC drama, he considered it his remit to inspire, educate and provoke — not merely to entertain or meet budgets.
Christopher Muir at home in Sydney in December 2017.
Christopher Muir at home in Sydney in December 2017.
Born in Melbourne in 1931, a chaotic early childhood would prove surprisingly beneficial by opening his eyes to cultures he would not otherwise have seen so young.
His father, John Marco, was a master mariner who sailed off, never to be seen again, when Christopher was not yet two. Christopher’s shocked mother, Moyra, promptly sought sanctuary with her sister, Madge, and parents, Anne and William Tivey, who were living in Juan-les-Pins on the French Riviera. The family remained in France until the outbreak of World War II.
With shadows looming, they fled, boarding the SS President Roosevelt from Bordeaux to New York. Christopher spent six months at school in the US before finally returning to Melbourne in 1940. More French than Australian at this point, he remained a Francophile for life.
Moyra remarried Alan ‘Bonnie’ Muir, a stockbroker and, remarkably, a renowned wrestler who played the hangman in Mick Jagger’s Ned Kelly. He proved a fine stepfather.
Christopher enrolled in Melbourne Grammar. Contemporaries there included Barry Humphries and Malcolm Fraser, both of whom would resurface in Christopher’s professional life.
After he won the sixth form English prize, the headmaster, Joseph Sutcliffe, summoned Christopher to his office and suggested he consider a career at the ABC. Radio was a proven medium, while this thing called television might also suit Christopher if and when it reached Australian shores. Christopher took Sutcliffe’s advice.
He joined the ABC in 1949 as a messenger boy, soon became a general trainee, and by 1954 he was a radio announcer. In 1955 the ABC seconded him to Paris to study television. He returned to Melbourne for the inauguration of ABC television in 1956.
Christopher Muir and Elke Neidhardt at their wedding in 1967.
Christopher Muir and Elke Neidhardt at their wedding in 1967.
This launched years of frenzied creative output for Christopher, who was given carte blanche to pioneer a new medium and mould an audience in a process of self-discovery.
At that time, the future fixation on reality television, cooking and sports would have been regarded with dismay. Instead, audiences would settle down at prime time to watch fully staged, live-to-air plays, dance or operas, shot on two to four cameras.
These performances were reviewed in depth the next day in newspapers. Christopher took particular interest whenever productions he directed were scrutinised by the acid pen of actor and critic Frank Thring. Today it is difficult to imagine a major segment of television viewers being even remotely interested in watching Albert Herring, Antony and Cleopatra or The Bartered Bride at 7.30pm.
Christopher’s knowledge of film, literature and music was vast, occasionally esoteric and, for some, eccentric. One woman he invited home for tea departed wordlessly when he dimmed the lights and played a recording of Tibetan horns.
Sometimes the eccentricity could really get the better of him. A UFO prank perpetrated by Christopher and a journalist friend in their early 20s brought agents with Geiger counters, RAAF officers, mentions in parliament, world headlines and a panicked call from Aunt Madge in Monaco, who was now lady-in-waiting to Princess Grace. The wheel came full circle decades later, when Christopher swore he was buzzed one night by three genuine UFOs while on a boat on the Indian Ocean.
Christopher found innumerable friends among the Eastern European immigrants who settled in Australia in the aftermath of the war. His work also enabled him to share friendships with many fascinating personalities of the era. While visiting Melbourne in 1968, Arthur Koestler came to dinner at his home and compared Christopher’s salad to grass. Other memorable figures included June and Helmut Newton, Athol Shmith, Mirka Mora, Paul Cox, John B. Murray, Tim Burstall and Germaine Greer.
On set at the ABC with German lyric baritone Hermann Prey in 1966.
On set at the ABC with German lyric baritone Hermann Prey in 1966.
Christopher actually braved a relationship with Greer, then a student. He remembered her rather fondly as a charismatic woman with a shock of hair, living in a garret dominated by a bed that smelled strongly of cigarettes. She would pop her head out the garret window and shout, “Is that you, Muir?” before letting him up.
According to his version, the liaison concluded abruptly when, waiting at a light on Punt Road, Greer declared, “Muir, I can’t stand the way you drive.” She leapt out of his convertible without opening the door and disappeared. What impact, if any, his driving had upon her future writing remains unknown.
Greer was not the last powerhouse woman in Christopher’s life. In 1965 he literally bumped into Elke Neidhardt when both were rounding a corner at Bavaria Film Studios in Munich. Neidhardt, enjoying a flourishing career as an actress, was persuaded to come to Australia, apparently on the understanding that the couple would ultimately move to Paris.
They married in Melbourne in 1967. A son, Fabian, was born, at which point Neidhardt sensed she was in Australia for the long haul. Disgruntled at first, she eventually came to embrace and appreciate her new country as she forged a new career in opera.
In 1976 divorce clouds gathered when Neidhardt fell in love with actor and musician Norman Kaye, Christopher’s closest friend for 20 years. Christopher had given him all his early roles, beginning with extras work before moving onto speaking parts on television and at St Martin’s Theatre. That friendship now ended. There was a sense that Christopher never fully let go of Neidhardt.
He helped many other future luminaries professionally, also through his role as chair of Swinburne Film and Television. Among those he supported early in their careers are Jan Chapman, Jana Wendt, Jane Campion, David Williamson, Hal Porter, Fred Schepisi, Robyn Nevin and Jack Thompson.
In the second half of the 1970s and into the 1980s, Christopher’s work moved increasingly towards documentary filmmaking and contemporary issues. He had a special fondness for the music series Music Around Us.
Assigned in 1976 to meet and greet Malcolm Fraser before an ABC talk show, his former schoolmate glided straight past without a word. Tamie Fraser drew Christopher aside, saying, “Sorry, Malcolm knows exactly who you are and likes you, but he feels he needs to act this way.”
Muir in Munich with Academy Award nominee director Franz Peter Wirth (left) and writer/director Hans Gottschalk in 1970.
Muir in Munich with Academy Award nominee director Franz Peter Wirth (left) and writer/director Hans Gottschalk in 1970.
In 1982, Christopher received an offer to head ABC Drama. Someone who preferred the production side, he accepted reluctantly. He was nevertheless pleased to move to Sydney, where Fabian and Neidhardt lived.
This management role proved stimulating yet frustrating for him. The creative freedoms of the ABC’s earlier days were fading, while systemic shifts were afoot –some long overdue, some more problematic.
He identified a turning point in the week he spent in 1983 with a boyish management consultant sitting in his office, who knew nothing of television even while he noted down Christopher’s every action for an assessment.
US-style corporate speak began permeating the organisation. Christopher saw no reason for the expression “going forward” to supplant “in future”. Decisions were now made around targets, quotas and revenue. It seemed to him that merit and quality were no longer the primary considerations when it came to casting, funding or appointments. Frequently, he felt attacked for choices he had made solely for the betterment of a production. In this environment, he felt himself a shibboleth.
Meanwhile, Bob Ellis lay down and slept across Christopher’s office door for a week, believing this might get his project proposal over the line.
With a heavy heart, Christopher decided to leave the ABC, after a profound contribution spanning 38 years. SBS could or should perhaps have beckoned, but didn’t.
In retirement Christopher became a passionate observer of the arts and world affairs, now at his fingertips on the internet. His humour and thirst for knowledge never diminished. Friends who saw him in later years appreciated how his rich insight, anecdotes and wit offered a valuable and absorbing window on a temps perdu.
Christopher Muir is survived by his son Fabian and granddaughter Zamina.
Fabian Muir
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