Anthony Coburn
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James Anthony Coburn was an Australian television writer and producer, who spent his professional career living and working in the United Kingdom.
[edit] Early career
After initially working as a butcher's assistant in his native Australia, he travelled to the UK in 1951 intending to find work as an actor. Whilst working as a furniture van-driver in London he married and started a family and shortly afterward entered and won a playwriting contest held by 'The Observer' newspaper. His play 'The Bastard Country', set in his native Australia, and concerning the righting of a terrible wrong committed by one of the play's principal characters whilst hiding out from the Germans as an injured separated ANZAC serviceman, amongst Greek villagers, during the war (WWII) was subsequently brought to the stage by the Birmingham Repertory Company to a (reportedly) enthusiastic reception.
[edit] Start of writing career
This together with Coburn's ongoing failure to break into acting and his need to support his already burgeoning young family, prompted his turning his attention to writing. After a brief period, spent working for ABC TV, where as fellow 'colonials' he and ABC's then head of Drama, Canadian, Sidney Newman quickly became friends, Tony moved to the BBC shortly after Sidney Newman's move to the Corporation as the BBC's new Head of Drama.
[edit] Joins the BBC
At Newman's suggestion, Tony applied for (and was accepted for) a position as a staff-writer in the BBC's (then) 'Script Department, in which capacity he worked on scripts for shows like 'Dr Finlay's Casebook' and 'Maigret'. It was similarly in this capacity that in 1963 he became involved in the early development of Sidney Newman's incipient brainchild, the science-fiction series Doctor Who.
[edit] Doctor Who
'Tony' as Anthony Coburn preferred to be known, liaised closely with the series' first Story Editor, David Whitaker, establishing the format and characters of the show, responsibility for which had by then been handed off by Sidney Newman to the show's first production team. It was Coburn's idea for the (at the time still un-named) TARDIS to externally resemble a police box, the thought having come to him while taking a walk near his office and spotting such a box on the street. It was also his idea for the Doctor's travelling companion, Susan, to be his granddaughter, as he was disturbed by the possible sexual connotations of an old man travelling with an unrelated female teenager.
[edit] The First Episode
Coburn wrote two full serials for the programme, An Unearthly Child and The Robots (also known as The Masters of Luxor). Only An Unearthly Child was produced, becoming the first ever Doctor Who serial transmitted, despite both Coburn and the production team's misgivings about its prehistoric settings. Due to disagreements over content, The Robots was delayed in production order, and finally rejected altogether; following this, Coburn severed his links with the show. The script (in its entirety) was eventually published by Titan Books as The Masters of Luxor in the 1990s, as part of their series of Doctor Who script books.
[edit] Turns freelance
During his work on 'Doctor Who', with the simultaneous demise of the BBC's 'Script Department' in the course of Sidney Newman's top-down reorganisation of the Drama Department, Coburn left the staff of the BBC to write freelance, signing a contract with the BBC in which he would retain copyright in perpetuity in all his original works, with the exceptions (stated clearly in advance) of components which would remain the intellectual property of the BBC. By this arrangement, (in regard to 'Doctor Who' in particular) the BBC retained (and currently retain) copyright ownership of the title of the show and the names of the four original characters.
[edit] TARDIS and departure from Dr Who
Anthony Coburn (and after his death, his estate) retained (and currently retain) copyright ownership of all other elements of Coburn's script text for the first four transmitted (as well as Tony's six untransmitted episodes) of the series, most notably including the now World-famous acronym, 'TARDIS', standing as every juvenile and upwards science-fiction fan throughout time and space knows, for 'Time And Relative Dimension In Space' which Coburn independently originated whilst working at home, subsequent to signing his contract to write for the show. Following his premature departure from 'Doctor Who' in circumstances still largely mysterious even to his surviving family, Anthony wrote a letter granting the Corporation, his personal permission as copyright owner, to use the components of his work on 'Doctor Who' which remained (and remain) his (and subsequently his estate's) and not the BBC's intellectual property.
[edit] New work as freelance
Throughout his career, in addition to 'Doctor Who', working initially as a staff writer, then as a freelance writer/Script-Editor/producer, Anthony Coburn worked throughout the remainder of the sixties and the greater part of the seventies on BBC TV drama productions as diverse as 'The Newcomers', an early 'soap' format series; an early and well-reviewed adaptation for television of 'The Children Of The New Forest'; and an episode for the long running police drama series 'Z Cars' which remained unproduced following the unexpected and untimely death of one of the show's principal actors. Coburn worked as script-editor on the second series of the Mafia related vengeance-themed, 'Vendetta', graduating to the role of Producer for the series' third (and coincidentally final) season.
[edit] The Bordereers, the Regiment, The Onedin Line
Coburn's next major project, 'The Borderers' set amongst the wild society of pre-industrial Scottish/English border country saw him cast the now internationally renowned stage and screen actor Michael Gambon' in a debut TV romantic-hero role before a broad-spectrum British viewing audience. Following this Coburn produced pilot episodes of 'The Regiment' in which he cast then fledgling, now well known actor, Christopher Cazenove as a British Army officer in turn of the century India; and 'The Onedin Line' in which he introduced the viewing public to the seagoing World and adventures of the 'tall-ship' 'Charlotte Rhodes' and her 'rough-hewn' plain-speaking Captain, James Onedin, casting now veteran actor Peter Gilmore in a role which he subsequently maintained through four successful seasons. In the course of producing the pilot, Coburn finally (if very briefly) fulfilled his initial intent to work in front of the camera when he gave himself a one-time non-speaking 'Hitchcock' style 'walk on extra' part as a customer in the 'Chandlery' shop in which the opening scene of the pilot is set.
[edit] Daniel Pike
In 1971 Coburn co-produced 'The View From Daniel Pike' for BBC Scotland. This was a series about a somewhat 'down at heels' Scottish Private Investigator, featuring the actor Roddy McMillan in the title role.
[edit] Warship
In 1973 Anthony Coburn realised a long-time dream when he co-created (with writer Ian Mackintosh) and subsequently produced, the first season of, the quickly popular BBC drama series 'Warship'. Set aboard a Royal Navy (Leander Class) frigate, the fictional but otherwise realistic 'HMS Hero', (portrayed, in reality, by a succession of real-life active-service Leander Class frigates) the series provided a sometimes grittily revealing look into the life of a working modern-day 'Ship of the Line'. Coburn had expressed the wish several years beforehand to produce a series 'that would do for the (Royal) Navy, what Z Cars had done for the Police'. 'Warship' was that series in every regard.
[edit] Heart attack
Soon after the close of production of the first season however, Anthony Coburn suffered a severe heart-attack (myocardial infarction) which laid him low for the entire following year. A lifelong cigarette smoker Tony worked to change this along with other stress-inducing aspects of his life which he considered contributory causes to his dramatic health collapse.
[edit] The expert and his novel
He returned to work, first as script-editor on the ground-breaking 'police-forensics' series 'The Expert', featuring actor Marius Goring, a period during which he gradually began to pick up some of the pace of his previous life. During this period he wrote his (intended) first, but subsequently only novel 'Gargantua' (published by Futura in 1977) about the Captain and crew of a near-future European spacecraft the 'ECV Isaac Newton' charged with saving the World (or the European part of it at least) from the threat of a gigantic incoming asteroid.
[edit] Poldark
With his novel in the process of publication and the first five working chapters of a sequel under way, Coburn was offered and accepted the job of Producer of the second series of the BBC's flagship 'costume drama' series 'Poldark'. With most of the series pre-production accomplished, and cast and crew preparing to travel to Cornwall for six weeks of location shooting Tony suffered his second major heart-attack, putting him back in the critical-wing at 'Kent and Canterbury' Hospital, (close to his home in Herne Bay) and permanently ending his involvement with the show.
[edit] Second heart attack and death
Ten days later on the 28th April 1977, Coburn died following a third (and final) heart attack. At his funeral at the RC church in Herne Bay, (which Coburn had attended since moving to the town with his family in 1961) the congregation standing the back of the packed church were surprised to find several of the cast and crew of the then famous series amongst them who had taken time off from their busy schedules and traveled well out of their way to stand in brief unannounced attendance. Anthony Coburn is credited on screen as producer for the first half of the second series of 'Poldark' his name being succeeded for the remainder of the series by that of Peter Graham Scott who took over production of the show in his stead.
[edit] Survived by
He was surviveded by his wife Joan, his six sons, and his two surviving daughters.
[edit] Biography
A fuller (though still incomplete) filmography for Anthony Coburn can be found at:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0167985/
