Wayne Darwen

Wayne Darwen
Wayne Darwen in June 2015
Born	Australia
Occupation	Journalist, television producer, filmmaker

Wayne Darwen is an Australian journalist, television producer and filmmaker best known as an innovator in the tabloid television genre^[1] and as director and star of the 2015 film, High There.^[2]

His early television exploits were featured in the 1999 book Tabloid Baby,^[3] written by his colleague Burt Kearns.

Began career as a 17-year-old reporter for a newspaper in Sydney, Australia. Traveled the world as a reporter for the likes of the Sydney Daily Mirror, Star magazine and the New York Post, before moving to American television as a producer on influential tabloid newsmagazine shows like A Current Affair, Hard Copy, Geraldo Rivera’s Now It Can be Told,^[4] Strange Universe and Inside Edition.^[5]

Gained international attention for his 1993 series of televised interviews with Son of Sam killer David Berkowitz,^[6] in which Berkowitz claimed the murders were the work of a Satanic cult.^[7]

Appeared as reporter in 2012 documentary film, Dark Mirror of Magick: The Vassago Millennium Prophecy.^[8]

Natural Born Killers

Inspired the character of newsman Wayne Gale, portrayed by Robert Downey Jr. in Oliver Stone’s film, Natural Born Killers.^[9]^[10]^[11]

In May 2015, Darwen made international news when he responded to Downey Jr.'s attack on journalists^[12] and independent films,^[13] telling the New York Post's Page Six: "Junior was a lot more interesting when he was a substance-abusing, suffering artist — brave and silly enough to push the envelope."^[11]

High There

High There DVD cover.

In 2014, Darwen wrote, directed with Henry Goren), produced and took on the guise of Dave High^[14] in the documentary film High There.^[15] High There is a nonfiction comedy about the efforts of Darwen and Henry Goren to film the pilot for a marijuana travelogue series on the island of Hawaii. They wind up in various misadventures, while uncovering a Drug Enforcement Administration campaign to control the marijuana trade and to persecute marijuana activist Roger Christie.^[16]

It is the first leg of a filmic journey that picks up where Darwen's late colleague and inspiration Hunter S. Thompson left off.^[17]

High There was a Sam Peters International Productions Unlimited and Good Story Productions presentation of a Rat Lung picture. It premiered 25 August 2014 at the Action on Film International Film Festival in Monrovia, California. Darwen was on location in Adelaide at the time, so he appeared at the premiere as a life-size cardboard cut-out.^[18] The film won the Viewers' Choice Award at the first annual Cannabis Film Festival in Humboldt County, California on May 3, 2015.^[19] On the heels of several rave reviews,^[2] it was released on VOD and Limited Edition DVD^[20] by BrinkVision^[21] on June 23, 2015.^[22]^[23]^[24]

References

External links

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