Died at 98
male
Stephen Mullawalla Dodd was an Arrente man from Central Australia. As a young man, he worked as a stockhand on cattle stations as a horsebreaker. Steve was also a rodeo rider who appeared at rodeos in many states and was a member of the Rough Riders' Association for many years. He sang and played guitar - mainly country and western as well as folk music. He first appeared in "The Overlanders" (1946. Chips Rafferty noticed him on the set and this opened the door to a small part. Steve appeared in such films as "Bitter Springs" (1950) and "Kangaroo" (1952). Steve put his acting career on hold and volunteering for service in the Korean War and was the first Aboriginal from South Australia to sign up and go to Korea. After completing his service, Steve returned to his acting career. By 1985, he had 55 combined acting credits in both television and on the silver screen. In 2013, The Deadly Awards presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award and described him as "an actor that created a pathway for others across the entire arts and music sectors to follow, at a time when typecasting stereotypes and discrimination was the 'norm' in Australia's arts industry." - https://servingcountry.com.au/portfolio/steve/
John Hill first began writing Quigley Down Under in 1974. He was inspired by a Los Angeles Times article about the genocide of the aborigines in 19th-century Australia. Although Westerns were in decline in the 1970s, Hill said that the script "opened a lot of doors for me," and led to other assignments.[4] The script was first optioned in 1979 by producer Mort Engelberg for Steve McQueen, with whom he teamed on The Hunter; however McQueen died of cancer shortly after completing The Hunter. The script was bought by CBS Theatrical Films where it was attached to director Rick Rosenthal. It then went to Warner Bros with Tom Selleck to star and Lewis Gilbert to direct around 1987. Warner Bros had the script for three years but then dropped their option. The script then became the subject of bidding between Pathe Entertainment, Disney and Warner Bros. It sold to Pathé for $250,000 which Hill said "is pretty good, when you consider that for 15 years I'd been making money optioning and rewriting that screenplay."
