John McTernan (actor)

A former sailor, McTernan started acting when he came to Australia from the United States in 1968. [1] His thirty year-plus career in theatre, television and film began with training and then performing at the Ensemble Theatre in Sydney.

McTernan's first job was singing and dancing in cabaret shows. One of his earliest professional jobs was in a vocal comedy act with friend Timothy Bean, both writing and performing their material.[2]

McTernan has appeared with all the major theatre companies. He has appeared in several productions at Ensemble Theatre including Lovers, The Comedians, Boy Meets Girl, 6 Rms Riv Vu, Sonny and Same Difference, and most recently Wrong Turn at Lungfish in 2008. His work at the Melbourne Theatre Company includes Born Yesterday, Twelfth Night, Into the Woods, Assassins, The Glass Menagerie, The Real Thing, Serious Money, High Society, Art, Take Me Out and Boy Gets Girl. Plays for Nimrod Theatre Company include Young Mo, Volpone, Inside the Island, The Orestia, Clouds, Romeo and Juliet, Henry IV and Comedy of Errors. He appeared in the following Sydney Theatre Company productions: The Sunny South, The Venetian Twins, The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Work for other theatre companies included Sanctuary, Oleanna, What Did We Do Wrong? among others.

McTernan is also well known for his work in music theatre with major stage roles in Grease, Godspell, Guys and Dolls, Sunset Boulevard, The History of Australia, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, Shout, Into the Woods, and Assassins. Also for The Production Company in Melbourne: She Loves Me, Gypsy and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

His work in film includes: The Brown Out Murders, the ABC feature Fuzzy, The Understudy and Evil Never Dies.

He is known to television audiences for roles in popular Australian drama series and soap operas. Long running series roles include: Cop Shop and G.P., for which he won Logie Awards. He played a gay man later revealed as a psychopathic blackmailer in soap opera Number 96 in 1977, and played a prison teacher in Prisoner in 1986. He played Lee Gordon in the miniseries Shout! The Story of Johnny O'Keefe

Other television roles include City Homicide, All Saints, Blue Heelers, Stingers, Something in the Air and Scooter: Secret Agent.

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