Charles Edward Chauvel OBE (1897 - 1959)

Born 7 Oct 1897 in Mutdapilly, Queensland (Australia)

Ancestors

Husband of Elsie May (Wilcox) Chauvel OBE — married 5 Jun 1927 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Died 11 Nov 1959 at age 62 in Castlecrag, New South Wales, Australia

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Biography

Charles Chauvel OBE is Notable.

Charles Edward Chauvel OBE was an Australian filmmaker, producer and screenwriter. He is noted for making the films, In the Wake of the Bounty in 1933, Forty Thousand Horsemen in 1940, The Rats of Tobruk in 1944 and Jedda in 1955. He made films in Australia in a period when the Australian film industry had virtually collapsed. He is credited with helping to build the careers of Errol Flynn, Chips Rafferty and Michael Pate.

formative years

Charles Chauvel OBE is the descendant of a Huguenot emigrant.

Charles Edward Chauvel was born in 1897 at Mutdapilly, Queensland (Australia). He was the second son of Mutdapilly pioneers, James Allan Chauvel and Susan Isabella Barnes. He was a nephew of senior Australian soldier, General Sir Harry Chauvel.^[1] The Chauvels were from a French Huguenot family who fled France for England in 1685. Charles grandparents migrated to Australia. Charles was educated at the Normanby State School (now the Mutdapilly State School), The Southport School and Ipswich Grammar School in Queensland. After leaving school, he worked on Queensland properties, and on his family property when his father was away at the First World War, before studying commercial art and taking drama classes in Sydney. He designed St Aidan's Church of England in Mutdapilly in 1921 (the church closed in 1974 and is now used as a private residence).

early days in the film industy

Chauvel was fascinated by films and pestered a friend, showman Reginald "Snowy" Baker, to give him work as a production assistant; usually, he was the man in charge of the horses. In 1922, at his own expense, he travelled to Hollywood and spent a year as a 'jack of all trades' including working as an extra, a lighting technician, a publicist, a stunt double and so on.

Returning to Australia, Chauvel obtained finance from Queensland businessmen and friends to make his first film, The Moth of Moonbi; a romantic melodrama exploring a theme of the decadent city vs the authentic country. The Moth is a country girl who flutters to the city lights, loses her fortune, but eventually returns home and finds love with her father's trusty stockman. The film was made near his parents' home at Harrisville, Queensland, enlisting locals as extras, and was profitable enough for Chauvel to raise funds for a second film, which he also made at Harrisville. In Greenhide, a city girl struggles to cope on a cattle station and gradually finds love with her polar opposite, an extremely taciturn bushman. Both these silent films were released in 1926 and were reasonably successful in Australia. Unfortunately Chauvel could not arrange for their release in Hollywood because of the transition to sound.

His leading lady from Greenhide, Elsa Sylvaney, became his wife on 5th June 1927 in the historic St James' Church of England, Sydney. The ceremony was officiated by Charles' older brother, the Reverend John Chauvel.^[2] After their marriage Elsa traveled with him and assisted him on all his films; his constant companion for 32 years. They would have one daughter, Suzanne Marie, who married Nils Erik Carlsson in 1962 in Chatswood, New South Wales.^[3]

There wasn't much filmmaking happening during the Great Depression, but people flocked to the cinemas for that 'little bit of escapism from reality' that entertain provides. Chauvel found work as a cinema manager, giving him valuable insight to the viewers' desires in film.

taking hold of the film industry

In the Wake of the Bounty

In 1933, he made his first talkie: In the Wake of the Bounty, starring Errol Flynn as Fletcher Christian before Flynn went on to Hollywood. The film mixed re-enactments with documentary, and focused not so much on the mutiny itself as on its consequences. The Chauvels spent three months on Pitcairn Island, shooting interesting footage of the Bounty descendants. He also included footage of bare-breasted Tahitian dancers!

In 1935, Chauvel won a Commonwealth Government competition for Heritage which gave a panoramic view of Australian history; beginning with a character from the earliest days of white settlement (1788), following his struggles, his loves and his marriage, then skips to the modern generation, where a romance between descendants of the original characters completes a circle. The modern hero is struggling to run an outback cattle station, the modern heroine is an expert aviator.

Forty Thousand Horsemen

The outbreak of the Second World War allowed Chauvel to turn to war-themed films, making Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940); ^[4] a tribute to the Australian Light Horse in Palestine in the First World War (of which his uncle had been a central commander). Filmed in the Cronulla sand dunes by Botany Bay in Sydney's south, it was both a popular and critical success and was credited with boosting morale during the frightening early period of the war. The film also launched the careers of Australian actors, John William Pilbean Goffage (better known by his stage name, Chips Rafferty) and Michael Pate, and the legendary wartime cinematographer, Damien Parer.

The Fighting Rats of Tobruk

He followed the Horsemen up in 1944 with The Fighting Rats of Tobruk. Not quite as successful at the box office as Horsemen, possibly due to the event being so fresh in people's minds. Rats helped to launch the film career of Peter Finch (he was already established as a stage actor, but suffered horrible stage fright). Chips Rafferty also returned to work with Chauvel on the film.

Jedda

After the war Chauvel made a film about a pioneer family in Queensland, Sons of Matthew (1949), drawing on his own family history. He followed this with Jedda, a story of an Aboriginal baby girl raised by a white station owner and kept in ignorance of traditional ways. Both Jedda and Matthew involved travel to remote areas and difficult conditions for filming, and are considered Chauvel's best works. Jedda was the first Australian feature film made in colour, and had to be developed overseas as there were no colour processing facilities in Australia. Jedda was also an industry-first in that the two stars were of indigenous descent. Both these films were made in a period when the Australian film industry had virtually collapsed, unable to compete with imported films.

legacy

Chauvel died unexpectedly of coronary vascular disease on 11th November 1959 at his home at Castlecrag, New South Wales.^[5]

Apart from his films, Chauvel's legacy continues brightly:

• Since 1992 the Brisbane International Film Festival has awarded a Chauvel Award to a "distinguished contributor to Australian Cinema".
• An art-house cinema, the Chauvel Cinema, in the suburb of Paddington, Sydney, is named after him.
• Chauvel was posthumously inducted into the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame in 2013.^[6]
• As part of the Q150 celebrations in 2009, Charles Chauvel was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for his role as an "Influential Artist".^[7]

People - LifeTree (Links)

• Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (1909 - 1959) .
• Chips Rafferty (1909 - 1971)
• Damien Parer (1912 - 1944). The legendary wartime cinematographer

Sources

1. ↑ Queensland Birth Index # C11467/1897
2. ↑ New South Wales Marriage Index #5763/1927
3. ↑ New South Wales Marriage Index #5482/1962
4. ↑ Visit VWMA Battle of Beersheba (World War 1, November 1917)
5. ↑ New South Wales Death Index #34555/1959
6. ↑ Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame; accessed 27 Jul 2018
7. ↑ Q150 Icons of Queensland; accessed 27 Jul 2018

• Pike, A F. Chauvel, Charles Edward (1897–1959). Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University,
  published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 27 Jul 2018.
• Wikipedia: Charles Chauvel; accessed 27 Jul 2018.