Coral drouyn biography sample

Born in South Yorkshire as Coral O'Neill, Drouyn is the maternal grand-daughter of Charles Coppin and Bertha Baker, who together were the music-hall act Haig and Esco. Her maternal uncle, Jack Haig, was also a well-known British actor and her father, Terry O'Neill (born Terry Norris in Ireland in 1922), was also an actor and the son of an Irish tenor. With this performing background, Drouyn began her work as an actress with an uncredited role as 'Precocious Child' in 1949's I Was a Male War Bride. She continued to act subsequently (often as Coral Kelly), but her primary work since 1980 has been as a script-writer.

Drouyn began writing regularly for Australian television around 1980. Her father had been working in Australian television since the 1960s, and Drouyn notes in interviews that she had written comedy material for his Melbourne-based TV series, Time for Terry, since when she was around 20 (see Back to the Bay interview below). Her first full television scripts, however, were for Reg Watson's soap opera The Restless Years. She notes in her interview with Neighbours fansite The Perfect Blend that she was already writing

melodramas for theatre restaurants and comedy material. Ian Smith, who plays Harold Bishop, had worked in one of my theatre restaurants for many years and he had just moved into TV as a script editor on Prisoner. So when I saw the first ep and went "OH MY GAWD!!!" I called him and asked could I get a script...even though I didn't have a clue about doing it... But I had to wait for a while... and so my first script was for another Aussie soap The Restless Years or TRY.

By 1980, Drouyn was writing for Prisoner; she wrote at least sixty-four episodes between 1980 and 1985. She also worked as story editor for the series. While working for Prisoner, she also began work on Neighbours, then in its infancy:

I was aware of the development of Neighbours because Reg Watson was involved in both shows and he asked me

Coral Drouyn née O'Neill, (born 1944), also billed as Coral Kelly, is an English Australian actress, singer and screenwriter/story editor best known for her work in television, including Prisoner, Neighbours, Blue Heelers, Pacific Drive and Home and Away

Biography

Drouyn was born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, to Terry O'Neill, an actor and son of an Irish tenor, and Peggy Haig, an actress. Her maternal uncle was the British actor Jack Haig and her maternal grandparents were Charles Coppin and Bertha Baker, both of whom were music hall performers billed as "Haig and Esco".

At the age of four, she appeared in an uncredited role as "Precocious Child" in the Hollywood film I Was a Male War Bride.

Drouyn emigrated to Australia in the 1960s, where she wrote comedy for her father's Melbourne-based program "Time for Terry" and worked as a singer, while writing material for theatre restaurants.

During her acting career, when she was often billed as Coral Kelly, she featured in the ill-fated TV soap opera Arcade as health studio receptionist Consuela McPhee.

Retiring from acting, Drouyn began writing for television, working as a scriptwriter for Grundy Productions series such as The Restless Years, Prisoner and Neighbours. During her time on Prisoner, Drouyn worked her way up from freelance writer to in-house story editor, creating characters and stories before leaving the series prior to its 600th episode.

Drouyn subsequently was involved

Joanna Murray-Smith talks to Coral Drouyn about her amazing year.

“Creatives are born – they cannot be manufactured. It’s nature, though sometimes genes play a big part. But that’s only one element. How creativity is developed, how it is channelled, how it expresses itself…that’s nurture.If my family had been different, I might have been a painter, or an actress, or a musician. ButI came from a family of intellectual academics, and words were the Holy Grail. So becoming a writer was the inevitable expression of my creativity. As a child I loved theatre, loved sitting in the dark seeing other people’s lives, joys, problems, unfold in front of me – so performance writing was the most exciting life path I could ever imagine.”

These words come from Joanna Murray-Smith, arguably Australia’s second most famous playwright, though this year in particular she is probably our busiest. She has two world premieres opening in Australia within two weeks of each other. The STC will present Fury, opening on April 15, and the MTC will follow 10 days later with True Minds. A day after that her adaptation of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler opens at The Adelaide Festival Centre.

Three openings in the space of two weeks might well be a record for any playwright, but Joanna thrives on work and the energy that it requires. It’s doubtful that she could survive for long without the adrenaline rush of creativity, and her 18 plays, three novels and various other writings, including film and television and even a libretto, attest to that.

“I’m very hands-on with first productions. I’m there for rehearsals, I rework lines, I crystallise the grey areas on the page once I see the character take shape through the actor. Often I will edit or rewrite before a second production. I know too well that nothing is perfect. Sometimes I think I know what I’ve

Coral Drouyn first wrote for ‘Home and Away’ in the early 90’s. A decade later with ratings being of concern, she was headhunted and moved to Sydney to become Script Producer and Story Editor on the show between 2002-2004. She is most remembered by fans as being the creator of the legendary Angie Russell, a character that she was most proud of. Her resumé reads like a directory of Aussie TV, with writing credits including Neighbours, Prisoner, Pacific Drive, and Blue Heelers amongst many others. Coral was kind enough to take some time out to answer our forum member’s questions about her life and time on the show.

Interview conducted by Frankie & Dan in December 2007

Did you always want to be a writer?

I have written for as long as I can remember and had my first poems published when I was 11. There are writers and there are storytellers ( sometimes both together but storytellers can also be directors…even actors) Writers can be made….storytellers are born – so I think that was always going to be my path even when I was an actress and a singer.

How did you get into the writing business?

My Dad had a TV show in Melbourne in the sixties called Time For Terry. I started writing comedy material for it when I was about 20…. It just grew from there. I got into serial writing after writing 20 or so stage shows because Ian Smith ( of Neighbours fame) was assistant Producer on a new show called Prisoner. I saw the first episode and thought…”I want to do that!” But actually my first TV script was for The Restless Years.

What advice would you give to someone just starting out? Do I need an agent?

You DO need an agent but the problem is you won’t get one till you have already got your foot in the door. That’s the Paradox. Your best way is to make contact with the script producer of a local show you like and ask if you could do an attachment to the script department for one week. That