Bruno Lawrence
Birthday: Born in 1941-02-12 in Worthing, West Sussex, England
Deathday: 1995-06-10
Born David Charles Lawrence in Worthing, West Sussex, England, he migrated with his family to New Zealand in 1946, settling in New Plymouth before moving to Wellington in 1948. Lawrence spent most of his life in New Zealand, but also worked extensively in Australia. He was a renowned jazz and rock drummer, playing drums in many bands, including Max Merritt & The Meteors, Quincy Conserve,Blerta, and The Crocodiles. His last recording was with Bernie McGann, Larry Gales and Jonathan Crayford on "Jazz at the St. James" in 1989. In the early 1970s, Lawrence founded Blerta ("Bruno Lawrence's Electric Revelation and Travelling Apparition"). The multi and theatrical co-operative toured New Zealand and in parts of Australia. Blerta saw him performing alongside many people he would work with later as an actor, including director Geoff Murphy, and actors Martyn Sanderson and Ian Watkin.
TV Credits
Frontline
Character: Brian Thompson
Frontline is an Australian comedy television series which satirised Australian television current affairs programmes and reporting. It ran for three series of 13 half-hour episodes and was broadcast on ABC TV in 1994, 1995 and 1997....
The Great Bookie Robbery
Character: Cracka Park
On 21st April 1976, gunmen held up more than 50 members of Melbourne’s venerable Victorian club, escaping with several million dollars in untraceable cash.The robbery had been so brilliantly planned and executed that police were left without a single clue–and so strict was the robbers’ code of silence that not even the underworld was aware of their identities....
Movie Credits
Smash Palace
Character: Al Shaw
Al Shaw's life revolves around motor racing and his back country junkyard, the "Smash Palace". His French wife, Jacqui, doesn't appreciate the lack of attention due to Al's obsession with cars. When Al finds her in the arms of another man, he takes his daughter, Georgie and heads for the bush, desperately hoping to hold on to the only family he has left....
Warlords of the 21st Century
Character: Willie
It's the 21st century, the Oil Wars have made a mess of the planet and the land outside major cities is lawless. After Hunter comes to the aid of Corlie, who has run away from the villainous Straker, he takes her to the peaceful community of Clearwater. Unfortunately for the citizens of Clearwater, Straker fully intends to get Corlie back....
Goodbye Pork Pie
Character: Mulvaney
Gerry hires a car in Kaitaia with a stolen licence and travels to Invercargill with John, whose wife has just left him. The ultimate New Zealand road trip adventure....
The Delinquents
Character: Bosun
A small town in Australia, in the late 1950s: Brownie and Lola are deeply in love. But because they are under-age, their parents are against their relationship and try to separate them....
Death Warmed Up
Character: Tex
A kid is hypnotized by a scientist to kill his parents and ends in a mental institution. As a grown up he returns to seek revenge over the scientist....
The Rainbow Warrior Conspiracy
Character: Detective Sergeant Batchelor
Dramatisation of the sinking of the Greenpeace ship 'The Rainbow Warrior' by French agents in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1985....
Jack Be Nimble
Character: Teddy
Jack and Dora, abandoned by their parents as babies, are desperate to find each other after years of adoption. Jack's young life has been spent with a sadistic family. Dora, whose life has been somewhat better, has developed extra-sensory powers which tell her that Jack's in danger and drives her to search for him....
Grievous Bodily Harm
Character: Det. Sgt. Ray Birch
A schoolteacher (John Waters) becomes obsessed with the idea that his wife (Joy Bell) did not die in a car accident, as everyone else thinks....
Initiation
Character: Nat Molloy
After the death of his mother, teenage Danny visits his father Matt Malloy on a lonesome farm in Australia, where he lives with a girlfriend and her daughter Stevie. The farm has been going bad lately, so Matt starts smuggling Marijuana for a drug connection. When Danny joins him on one of his flights, the two-seater crashes in the middle of nowhere. Since his father is wounded, he has to conquer the jungle alone in search for help....
Bridge to Nowhere
Character: Mac
Kids on an outing in the forest come up against a mysterious hermit who lives on the other side of a bridge, and he is definitely not happy to see them....
Rikky and Pete
Character: Sonny
Rikky and her brother Pete struggle to keep their lives from spinning out of control in small town Australia....
Making Utu
Character: Self
Making of documentary on the set of New Zealand's first epic Utu (1983), working with little money and dealing respectfully with matters of cultural protocol. Merata Mita discusses complex issues of inter-cultural conflict....
Heart of the Stag
Character: Peter Daley
Chilling story of a farmhand who realizes his popular boss has been committing incest with his daughter for years....
Race for the Yankee Zephyr
Character: Barker
In a lake high in the mountains of New Zealand hunter Gibbie Gibson discovers a plane wreck from WW2. When he tells it around, a gang of crooks follows and threatens him and his daughter, because they know there are 50 million dollars in the wreck. Helicopter pilot Barney helps Gibbie against them, risking his life thereby....
An Indecent Obsession
Character: Matt Sawyer
Sister Honour Langtree (Wendy Hughes), is in charge of a military hospital for psychiatric patients. She however transgresses boundaries by developing a sexual attraction for a new patient....
Gino
Character: Mr. Palzetti
Gino Pallazetti is in love with Lucia Petri and his career as a stand up comedian is about to take off....
The Quiet Earth
Character: Zac Hobson
After a top-secret experiment misfires, a scientist may be the only man left alive in the world....
Utu
Character: Williamson
In New Zealand in the 1860s the native Maori people fought the British colonials to keep the land guaranteed to them by treaty. The warrior Te Wheke fights for the British until betrayal leads him to seek utu (revenge). The settler Williamson in turn seeks revenge after Te Wheke attacks his homestead. Meanwhile Wiremu, an officer for the British, seems to think that resistance is futile....
Spotswood
Character: Robert, Carey's Father
Wallace is an efficiency expert, managing the high-profile downsizing of a major auto parts factory. But when he is hired to evaluate a small moccasin factory which seems from another era, Wallace has to reconsider the rapid modernization he advocates, as he is confronted by the human faces such plans hurt....
The Rainbow Warrior
Character: Detective Sr. Sgt. Terry Batchelor
Peter Wilcox, as skipper of the 'Rainbow Warrior', a Greenpeace ship, docks in Auckland, July 1985, preparing for a protest against French nuclear testing in the south pacific. When a bomb rips open the vessel, killing a crew member, he must convince the police superintendent that this is an act of terrorism. Determined not to allow outside forces to threaten their harbor, the police embark on a pursuit of the persons responsible. The events that follow nearly bring down an allied nation'...
Hurry Hurry Faster Faster
Character:
Before the Blerta bus and Goodbye Pork Pie's yellow mini hit the road, some friends with more energy than cash dressed up as mad doctors and criminals, and began making films. This freeform short about running late is an early product of varied schemers who were key in the Kiwi film renaissance. Geoff Murphy plays the man in a hurry, and Bruno Lawrence is Dr Brunowski. Warning: final credits not to be trusted....
Beyond Reasonable Doubt
Character: Pat Vesey
A docu-drama covering one of the most famous cases in New Zealand history, the murder of Harvey and Jeanette Crewe in 1970....
As Time Goes By
Character:
A surfer abandoned in the middle of the Australian Outback encounters an alien who time-travels in a ship that looks like a 1950s greasy spoon restaurant and embroils the hero in a chase that involves him sorting out a time paradox so that he can wind back time to prevent the Japanese winning World War II....
The Rogue Stallion
Character: John Peterson
After her father's death, Anna Peterson and her family move from Australia to her father's ancestral home in New Zealand....
Wild Man
Character: Wild Man
The story of two itinerant con men, the Wild Man and the Colonel, who operate on the West Coast gold mining towns of the New Zealand South Island during the latter part of the last century....
Carry Me Back
Character:
Two brothers take their father into the city for the weekend for a rugby game and a night on the town. However, the old man dies in their hotel and the boys need to smuggle his body back to their farm and make it appear that he died there to satisfy a clause in his will or else they won't inherit the property....