ABC hoping for a smash return as it serves up Evonne Goolagong biopic
Filming is under way on a three-part biopic of Evonne Goolagong Cawley, the first Indigenous Australian to win a grand slam tournament.
Goolagong, produced by Werner Film Productions (The Newsreader, Secret City) for the ABC, is being shot around Melbourne and in regional Victoria, with many famous matches of the 1970s and '80s, the period in which its subject rose to the top of the sport, being recreated.
Goolagong Cawley, a Wiradjuri woman, won seven grand slam singles titles – the Australian Open (four times), Wimbledon (twice, including once as a mother in 1980) and the French Open – and seven doubles titles. In 1976 she was ranked the No.1 female player in the world. She retired from professional tennis in 1985.
The Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club – former home of the Australian Open – and Royal South Yarra Lawn Tennis Club are being used as locations, while a replica of Wimbledon is being created on a vacant lot in Highett in Melbourne's southern suburbs.
West Australian Lila McGuire, a Whadjuk and Wardandi Noongar woman, plays Goolagong, as she was known until her marriage in 1975 to British tennis player Roger Cawley. It is a major role for McGuire, a graduate of Perth's Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, following her breakthrough appearance in the ensemble cast of season two of The Twelve.
Marton Csokas plays Vic Edwards, who discovered Goolagong as a 12-year-old prodigy, became her coach and guardian and, Goolagong Cawley would later allege, made sexual advances towards her.
The series boasts strong Indigenous credentials. Goolagong Cawley is an executive producer (along with her husband Roger Cawley), and Wayne Blair (Mystery Road, Total Control, The Sapphires) is director. The screenplay is co-written by Steven McGregor (Mystery Road: Origin, Sweet Country), with Megan Simpson Huberman. Danielle MacLean (Redfern Now, Little J & Big Cuz) is producer.
According to the ABC, the story 'will take us from the tiny NSW regional town of Barellan, where an eager eight-year-old Aboriginal kid first peered through the cyclone wire fence of a tennis court, to the centre courts of the world'.
'Along the way, the obstacles will be immense. While the on-court success unites a nation, a deeply disturbing dynamic is playing out behind the scenes.'
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