Chris Haywood (born c. 1948) is an English-born Australian actor, writer, and producer, with close to 500 screen performances to his name. He has also worked as a casting director, art director, sound recordist, camera operator, gaffer, grip, and location and unit manager.
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Early life and education
Haywood was born around 1948 in Billericay, Essex, England. He spent his early childhood in Chelmsford before moving to High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, where he attended Royal Grammar School from 1959 to 1965, on a scholarship. His early acting experience at school was in a production of The Mikado, but after his first year there, his academic record declined (which Haywood has since attributed to ADD, which was not diagnosed until adulthood). As a youth he was a navy cadet, and at the age of 15, he worked in frigate fisheries protection patrol in the Northern Sea. While living in High Wycombe, he also served as chairman of the Young Liberals for three years.
Haywood then started working in the cellars of a local wine shipper in London, before gaining a place at E15 Acting School, for which he sourced a grant from his local county council to cover his tuition fees. Soon after graduating, Haywood emigrated to Sydney, Australia as a 'Ten Pound Pom' in November 1970, upon the suggestion of Australian theatre director Richard Wherrett (was a tutor at E15 at the time, in 1969) and Australian production designer Larry Eastwood (then, a student at the school).
Upon his arrival in Australia, Haywood met several other aspiring young actors, including Wendy Hughes and John Hargreaves, before taking a job as a surveyor’s assistant for the Eastern Suburbs railway, while attending theatre auditions.
Career
Soon after arriving in Sydney, Haywood undertook work as an extra for Film Australia and understudied roles for Sydney theatre companies including the Old Tote. He Al so worked on the railways and then drove trucks, while playing an instrumental part in the inception of the Nimrod Theatre Company, helping to build the premises with scrap timber. He then began landing roles in drama series at the ABC, including Certain Women and Crawford Productions police procedural series, including Homicide and Matlock Police, while performing on stage in plays at night.
Haywood landed his first major film role as a psychiatric nurse in director Peter Weir’s debut feature The Cars That Ate Paris in 1974, before scoring his breakthrough role in Phillip Noyce's 1978 film Newsfront, playing an assistant cameraman alongside Bill Hunter. Haywood then became artistic director of the Pros and Cons Playhouse at Parramatta Gaol from 1979 to 1981, and established the drama service on Kiribati National Radio.
In a move that proved to be instrumental in shaping his ongoing career, Wendy Hughes introduced Haywood to filmmaker Paul Cox, who cast him opposite Hughes in his 1979 film Kostas. This was the beginning of a partnership which saw Haywood work on both sides of the camera on many of Cox's films.
In 1980, Haywood next appeared opposite an all-star cast of Edward Woodward, Jack Thompson, John Waters, Bryan Brown, Charles Tingwell, Terence Donovan and Ray Meagher in Bruce Beresford's 1980 war epic Breaker Morant. That same year, Haywood and Hughes portrayed the roles of parents in For a Child Called Michael, a film about childbirth, which was shown to expecting parents at Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne.
Haywood went on to play Curly, opposite Kirk Douglas, Sigrid Thornton and Tom Burlinson in George Miller's 1982 classic western period drama, The Man from Snowy River. Based on Banjo Paterson's poem of the same name, it became the most successful film in Australia, until Crocodile Dundee was released three years later. That same year, he reunited with director Phillip Noyce for his 1982 film Heatwave, playing developer Peter Houseman.
Haywood next appeared in 1983 Richard Lowenstein film Strikebound, before landing a pivotal role in 1985 Bill Bennett film A Street to Die, as a returned soldier suing for damages over chemical exposure in Vietnam. He worked with Lowenstein once more on 1986 film Dogs in Space, appearing opposite the late INXS frontman Michael Hutchence. He then played the lead role of Henry Rose in 1987 film The Tale of Ruby Rose, which was nominated for Best Picture and Director at the 1987 Australian Film Institute Awards.
Other
As Patron of the Friends of Waverley Group, in 2002 Haywood established an award for outstanding research-based literature, as an initiative of the Waverley Council with support from the community. It was further developed into a prestigious event by a group of local writers and literary advocates (including author and playwright Alex Buzo), and has since been renamed the Mark & Evette Moran Nib Literary Award.
Personal life
After meeting actress Wendy Hughes at a party in Whale Beach, immediately after his arrival in Australia in the early 1970s,
the pair worked together in the 1978 film Newsfront, and soonafter, developed a romantic relationship. On 3 August 1978, the pair had a daughter, Charlotte. The couple separated in 1980, after which time their daughter continued to live with Hughes in the Sydney suburb of Surry Hills, with Haywood playing an active role in raising her. As an adult, daughter Charlotte went on to work as an experimental interdisciplinary artist, and is also an actor.
Haywood's second wife was Dr Gillian Deakin, with whom he had two children, Rose and Felix. He relocated to Kiribati in the Gilbert Islands with the family, after Deakin secured work there, running an aid agency. Both children followed in their mother’s career footsteps.
As of 2021, Haywood was living with wife Aireen Diego and their daughter in a converted convent in Brooklyn, overlooking the Hawkesbury River, where, since COVID-19, he has worked as a coxswain in the Australian pearling industry for Broken Bay Pearl Farm in Mooney Mooney. In 2025, he was also conducting tours of the Hawkesbury River, as Deputy Captain of VRA Hawkesbury and coxswain of their rescue boat.
Haywood was by the side of former partner, Wendy Hughes, when she died of cancer on 8 March 2014.
Awards
Haywood's performances have been honoured with three awards from the Australian Film Institute (from a total of eight nominations) for his roles in the feature films A Street to Die and Emerald City, and for television in Stingers. He also earned a Film Critics Circle of Australia Award for Kiss or Kill and an Asian Film Festival Award for In Search of Anna. He garnered three Logie Awards for his work on television, for Essington, A Good Thing Going and Janus. He also won the Best Actor award at the Tampa Bay Film Festival in Florida.
Filmography
Theatre
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