Early TV and Acting Career
Kemsley attended the Independent School of Dramatic Art, North Sydney (1968-71) as well as a National Institute of Dramatic Art Playwright Forum in 1973 and a RADA Professional Workshop in London in 1979.
Kemsley's background was in acting and television. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Kemsley was known to children's television audiences as "Skeeter the Paperboy", an on-screen cap-wearing persona (who once said his full name was Amos Skeeter - a play on "a mosquito") that he portrayed as a cast member of The Super Flying Fun Show, and then as host of Skeeter's Cartoon Corner in Sydney and Melbourne, both on the Nine Network.
The daily afternoon program offered a mix of US-based cartoons (such as Wacky Races, Scooby Doo and The Archies), with viewer competitions. One of his tag lines on the telephone with viewer contestants who were unsuccessful was "golly gosh". When Kemsley left in 1973, Daryl Somers took over the time slot.
In 1973 Kemsley compered a variety program on the Nine Network titled Junior Cabaret. He also appeared in the ABC TV mini-series The Cousin From Fiji and Seven Little Australians.
Kemsley studied acting at the Independent Theatre of Dramatic Art from 1969 - 1972 under Doris Fitton and attended the Playwright Forum at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 1973 under the directorship of David Whittaker. He went on to write three successful children's plays, "The Land Of Coloured Dreams", "Once Upon A Time... And All That" and "The Magical Adventures of Puck".
Kemersley left Channel Nine and then studied in England at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) in 1979.
Read more about this topic: James Kemsley
Famous quotes containing the words early, acting and/or career:
“Names on a list, whose faces I do not recall
But they are gone to early death, who late in school
Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl.”
—Richard Eberhart (b. 1904)
“More broadly across time and cultures, it seems, one perennial piece of advice to father has been the importance of acting tenderly toward their children. The New Father, it turns out, is an old story.”
—David Blankenhorn (20th century)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)