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DaveLetch

  • Actor
  • Director
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Perhaps best known in New Zealand as the psycho who glares from the poster of pioneering 1984 horror film Death Warmed Up, Dave Letch played ghosts (Mr Wrong), misfits (miniseries Heart of the High Country) and suitor to author Janet Frame (An Angel at My Table). London born and bred, Letch spent most of his working life in Australia. At 19 he was writing scripts for Aussie TV company Crawfords. In the 1990s he left acting to co-found Brisbane theatre group Renegade. He did turns as a theatre director, acting teacher, and film assessor, and in 2006 directed community-driven movie Wishbone. Dave Letch died in early August 2022.

Screenography

In Memoriam 2022
2022 Subject Short film
Wednesday
2018 Director Short film
Wishbone
2006 Director Film
Misery Guts
1998 - 1999 As: Mick Series
Mr Reliable
1996 As: Les Thompson Film

“...I’ve been incredibly lucky. I’ve never had long stretches of being unemployed in the fields I love. Be it painting, acting or directing, writing… they sort of all fuse together, don’t they? And gardening. Must not forget that. Voltaire said ‘Gardening is the most noble pursuit’ — utterly, utterly true.”

— Dave Letch on his career, The Southern Highland News (New South Wales), 28 February 2018

Related images

Death_Warmed_Up_gallery.jpg
A classic image of Kiwi horror: Dave Letch as Spider, in David Blyth’s Death Warmed Up (1984). The film is a prime contender for New Zealand's first horror movie.
Photo courtesy of the NZ Film Commission
Terry-and-the-Gunrunners-Gallery-03.jpg
The hopeless secret agents in 1985 adventure series Terry and the Gunrunners: Stephen Tozer (left) as Crouch and Dave Letch as Thompson.