Gordon Maitland Chater AM (6 April 1922 – 12 December 1999) was an English Australian comedian and actor, and recipient of the Gold Logie, he appeared in revue, theatre, radio, television and film, with a career spanning almost 50 years.
Chater was born in North Kensington, London, Middlesex to Maitland Charter, a chartered accountant and Evelyn Eleanor Riach, and attended Cottesmore School. His mother had been born in Shanghai. He attended Cambridge University to study medicine but did not finish his degree. He did, however, take part in many student revues.
Arriving in Australia after World War II, Chater came to prominence as a stage and radio actor. He appeared in numerous radio shows and series, including Looking at Life (1951), a comedy series which dramatised everyday events and in which he starred alongside Gwen Plumb, Queenie Ashton and Ruth Cracknell. He was also cast in serious theatrical roles; including Yepikhodov in the 1963 Sydney season of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard alongside Owen Weingott and Ron Haddrick. This critically lauded production was the debut of the Old Tote Theatre Company, the precursor to the Sydney Theatre Company. Within a few months of The Cherry Orchard he was once again performing original satirical comedy, such as the Phillip Street Theatre revues Do You Mind! with Jill Perryman, Judi Farr and Robina Beard.
Chater appeared in TV movies and series. He became a national star when he was cast with Carol Raye and Barry Creyton in the Australian satirical television series The Mavis Bramston Show, for which he won the 1966 Gold Logie Award for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television. He cemented his popularity with the title role in the popular sitcom My Name's McGooley, What's Yours?, playing the elderly live-in father of a young married couple, played by John Meillon and Judi Farr. He appeared in many other television comedy series, including Snake Gully with Dad 'n' Dave (1972) with Garry McDonald, Marion Edward and Diane Craig and Mac and Merle (1973), which reunited him with Gwen Plumb.
Chater was critical of early Australian television direction which he characterised as too often "'feet, knees and in the distance pictures'. People watching TV are interested in people and close ups in Australia were hard to come by in the early days of Australian television."
Amongst work in many other shows, Chater appeared in The Rocky Horror Show in Brisbane in 1988, the Sydney Theatre Company production of The Importance of Being Earnest as both "Lane" and "Merriman" in 1990, and Lady Bracknell's Confinement at the Playhouse, in Melbourne in 1993.
Gordon Chater later worked in the United States, including appearing on Broadway.
In the 1970s Chater was particularly associated with the play The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin by Steve J. Spears, the stage role for which he became best known. The play broke new ground in Australian theatre with its shocking opening scene (in which Chater walked onstage naked) and its discussion of paedophilia.
Chater also had a radio show on 2GB, in Sydney, opposite Gwen Plumb. In 1955 & 1956, he worked on the highly successful drama White Coolies, which was based on the diary of Sister Betty Jeffrey, written while she and other Australian nurses were held in a Japanese prison camp in World War Two. The series of more than 50 episodes, has been released for sale and download, by Grace Gibson Productions.
Chater died on 12 December 1999, aged 77 from heart disease in Southport, Queensland.
Winner of the Macquarie Radio Award in 1952 for Comedy Performance on Radio
Winner of the Gold Logie in 1966 for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television (The Mavis Bramston Show)
Member of the Order of Australia (AM), 1999
Gordon Chater – Stage acting credits
"The Dictionary of Performing Arts in Australia — Theatre . Film . Radio . Television — Volume 1" — Ann Atkinson, Linsay Knight, Margaret McPhee — Allen & Unwin Pty. Ltd., 1996
"The Australian Film and Television Companion" — compiled by Tony Harrison — Simon & Schuster Australia, 1994
"The Importance of Being Earnest" — (information and photo): , , , ,
Gordon Chater at the Internet Broadway Database