Lynn Bayonas
Encyclopedia
Lynn Bayonas was an Australian television producer
and writer. Her sister is Neighbours
executive producer Susan Bower
.
when she got her breakthrough into television. She was an assistant to the general manager of The Australian Ballet who were then travelling through Europe and were due to travel on to the United States, somewhere that Bayonas didn't want to go.
Whilst working in London, Bayonas heard of a job coming up with Citizen Kane
creator Orson Welles
. She agreed to meet Welles when he was making Casino Royale
with Peter Sellers
, Bayonas told him how she wasn't enjoying her job at the Australian Ballet and Welles invited her to Spain
immediately. While working in Spain she met her future husband, Luis Bayonas, a writer
, art director
and assistant director
.
After meeting her husband in Spain, Bayonas wanted to return to Australia, and Crawford Productions
allowed her to do that by appointing her as script editor and writer on shows Homicide, Division 4
, The Box
and The Sullivans
. In the 1980s she started work on A Country Practice
, the programme that later allowed her sister Susan Bower
to break into television writing.
Beginning in 1994, Bayonas lived in Los Angeles, California
for six years, writing for Paramount Pictures
. During her time in Los Angeles, she worked on programmes such as Sunset Beach
and Prime Time
. In 2000, Bayonas decided to return to Australia and began work on television programmes such as The Saddle Club
, The Secret Life of Us
and Lawrence of Arabia. In 2008, just as the third series of The Saddle Club finished production, cancer took hold of Bayonas meaning that this was Bayonas' last work before her death from cancer in January 2010.
She was also head of her own production company, Lynn Bayonas Productions, based in Preston, Victoria
. She was 66 years old. The Australian soap opera Neighbours
, of which Bayonas's sister Susan Bower
is an executive producer, marked Bayonas's passing at the end of their episode broadcast on 25 January 2010 with a title card as the credits rolled.
Television producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
and writer. Her sister is Neighbours
Neighbours
Neighbours is an Australian television soap opera first broadcast on the Seven Network on 18 March 1985. It was created by TV executive Reg Watson, who proposed the idea of making a show that focused on realistic stories and portrayed adults and teenagers who talk openly and solve their problems...
executive producer Susan Bower
Susan Bower
Susan Bower is an Australian television producer and television writer best known for her work on the soap opera Neighbours.-Career:Bower is a former nurse who worked at The Alfred Hospital for 20 years before getting her scriptwriting breakthrough on A Country Practice, where she provided the...
.
Personal life
Lynette Margaret Bower was 18 years old and living in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
when she got her breakthrough into television. She was an assistant to the general manager of The Australian Ballet who were then travelling through Europe and were due to travel on to the United States, somewhere that Bayonas didn't want to go.
Whilst working in London, Bayonas heard of a job coming up with Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
creator Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
. She agreed to meet Welles when he was making Casino Royale
Casino Royale (1967 film)
Casino Royale is a 1967 comedy spy film originally produced by Columbia Pictures starring an ensemble cast of directors and actors. It is set as a satire of the James Bond film series and the spy genre, and is loosely based on Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel.The film stars David Niven as the...
with Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
, Bayonas told him how she wasn't enjoying her job at the Australian Ballet and Welles invited her to Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
immediately. While working in Spain she met her future husband, Luis Bayonas, a writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, art director
Art director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
and assistant director
Assistant director
The role of an Assistant director include tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, maintaining order on the set. They also have to take care of health and safety of the crew...
.
Career
Bayonas' first job was taking notes for the film that Welles was working on at the time. Bayonas admitted that working with Welles taught her about flexibility in storytelling and turned her against many writing courses that she felt were structured.After meeting her husband in Spain, Bayonas wanted to return to Australia, and Crawford Productions
Crawford Productions
Crawford Productions is an Australian television production company founded by Hector Crawford; the present incarnation of the company, Crawfords Australia, is now a subsidiary of the WIN television corporation.-History:...
allowed her to do that by appointing her as script editor and writer on shows Homicide, Division 4
Division 4
Division 4 was an Australian television police drama series made by Crawford Productions for the Nine Network between 1969 and 1975 for 300 episodes....
, The Box
The Box (TV series)
The Box was an Australian soap opera than ran on Network Ten from February 1974 until 1977.The Box was produced by Crawford Productions who at the time was having great success producing police procedural television series in Australia...
and The Sullivans
The Sullivans
The Sullivans is an Australian drama television series produced by Crawford Productions which ran from 1976 until 1983. The series told the story of an average middle-classMelbourne family and the effect World War II had on their lives...
. In the 1980s she started work on A Country Practice
A Country Practice
A Country Practice is an Australian television drama series. One of the longest-running of its kind, produced by James Davern of JNP Productions, it ran on the Seven Network for 1,058 episodes from 18 November 1981 to 22 November 1993. It was produced in ATN-7's production facility at Epping,...
, the programme that later allowed her sister Susan Bower
Susan Bower
Susan Bower is an Australian television producer and television writer best known for her work on the soap opera Neighbours.-Career:Bower is a former nurse who worked at The Alfred Hospital for 20 years before getting her scriptwriting breakthrough on A Country Practice, where she provided the...
to break into television writing.
Beginning in 1994, Bayonas lived in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
for six years, writing for Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
. During her time in Los Angeles, she worked on programmes such as Sunset Beach
Sunset Beach (TV series)
Sunset Beach was an American television soap opera, first broadcast in the United States on NBC on January 6, 1997, and last airing on December 31, 1999. The show followed the loves and lives of the people living in a fictional coastal city named Sunset Beach, on the coast of California...
and Prime Time
Primetime (TV series)
Primetime is an American news magazine show which debuted on ABC in 1989 with co-hosts Sam Donaldson and Diane Sawyer and originally had the title Primetime Live.-Early history:...
. In 2000, Bayonas decided to return to Australia and began work on television programmes such as The Saddle Club
The Saddle Club
The Saddle Club is a children's television series based on the books written by Bonnie Bryant and is an Australia/Canada co-production. Like the book series, the scripted live action series follows the lives of three teenage girls in training to compete in equestrian competitions at the fictional...
, The Secret Life of Us
The Secret Life of Us
The Secret Life of Us was a television drama series set in the beachside suburb of St Kilda, Melbourne, Australia. The series was produced by Southern Star Entertainment and screened in Australia from 2001 to 2005 on Network Ten and on Channel 4 in the UK...
and Lawrence of Arabia. In 2008, just as the third series of The Saddle Club finished production, cancer took hold of Bayonas meaning that this was Bayonas' last work before her death from cancer in January 2010.
She was also head of her own production company, Lynn Bayonas Productions, based in Preston, Victoria
Preston, Victoria
Preston is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 9 km north from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Darebin. At the 2006 Census, Preston had a population of 27,892.-Settlement:...
Television
| Role | Production | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Writer | Homicide | 1964 |
| Writer | Division 4 Division 4 Division 4 was an Australian television police drama series made by Crawford Productions for the Nine Network between 1969 and 1975 for 300 episodes.... |
1969 |
| Writer/Script Editor | Homicide | 1971–72 |
| Writer | The Box The Box (TV series) The Box was an Australian soap opera than ran on Network Ten from February 1974 until 1977.The Box was produced by Crawford Productions who at the time was having great success producing police procedural television series in Australia... |
1974 |
| Writer | Quality of Mercy | 1975 |
| Writer | The Sullivans The Sullivans The Sullivans is an Australian drama television series produced by Crawford Productions which ran from 1976 until 1983. The series told the story of an average middle-classMelbourne family and the effect World War II had on their lives... |
1976 |
| Writer | Skyways Skyways (TV series) Skyways is an Australian television series made by Crawford Productions for the Seven Network.The series, which aired from 1979 to 1981, was set at the fictional Pacific International Airport and dealt with the lives of the pilots, airline staff and management team who worked there.Skyways was... |
1979 |
| Producer | The Nargun and the Stars The Nargun and The Stars The Nargun and The Stars is a children's fantasy novel set in Australia, written by Patricia Wrightson. It was among the first Australian books for children to draw on Australian Aboriginal mythology... |
1980 |
| Writer | Holiday Island | 1981 |
| Script Consultant | Hector's Bunyip | 1986 |
| Writer/Creator | Willing and Abel Willing and Abel Willing and Abel is an Australian television comedy series which was made in 1987, about two handymen.The main cast were Grant Dodwell as "Charles Willing", Shane Withington as "Abel Moore", and Rebecca Rigg as "Angela Reddy".... |
1987 |
| Producer | Raw Silk | 1988 |
| Writer | Chances | 1991 |
| Producer/Writer | Good Vibrations | 1992 |
| Writer | A Country Practice A Country Practice A Country Practice is an Australian television drama series. One of the longest-running of its kind, produced by James Davern of JNP Productions, it ran on the Seven Network for 1,058 episodes from 18 November 1981 to 22 November 1993. It was produced in ATN-7's production facility at Epping,... |
1994 |
| Producer | The Saddle Club The Saddle Club The Saddle Club is a children's television series based on the books written by Bonnie Bryant and is an Australia/Canada co-production. Like the book series, the scripted live action series follows the lives of three teenage girls in training to compete in equestrian competitions at the fictional... |
2001–08 |
| Writer | Parallax Parallax (TV series) Parallax is a 2004 Australian and British children's television series that screened on the ABC and the Nine Network. It was a 26 part series funded by the Film Finance Corporation Australia and supported by Lotterywest.... |
2004 |
Death
It was announced on 25 January 2010 that Bayonas had died following a long battle with cancerCancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
. She was 66 years old. The Australian soap opera Neighbours
Neighbours
Neighbours is an Australian television soap opera first broadcast on the Seven Network on 18 March 1985. It was created by TV executive Reg Watson, who proposed the idea of making a show that focused on realistic stories and portrayed adults and teenagers who talk openly and solve their problems...
, of which Bayonas's sister Susan Bower
Susan Bower
Susan Bower is an Australian television producer and television writer best known for her work on the soap opera Neighbours.-Career:Bower is a former nurse who worked at The Alfred Hospital for 20 years before getting her scriptwriting breakthrough on A Country Practice, where she provided the...
is an executive producer, marked Bayonas's passing at the end of their episode broadcast on 25 January 2010 with a title card as the credits rolled.