Mungo Ballardie MacCallum (1913-1999), journalist, novelist and poet, was the third in the MacCallum dynasty of scholars, writers and academics. He joined the Sydney Morning Herald as a cadet in 1933, and a few years later, declared unfit for war service, he became the editor of the military journal Salt. In 1952 he began work at the ABC, where he wrote some powerful radio scripts. After a stint at the BBC funded by the Imperial Relations Trust, he returned to Australia in 1956 for the opening of ABC television, subsequently spending several years as an interviewer and moderator. Throughout the 1960s he wrote criticism for Nation, an intellectual journal. Known as an elegant man-about-town and entertaining interlocutor, MacCallum produced plays, poems, essays, an autobiography and two novels over the course of his career. His son with Diana Wentworth, also named Mungo MacCallum, became one of Australia's leading political journalists.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mrs Lily Kahan 2017
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
© Louis Kahan/Copyright Agency, 2024
Lily Kahan (52 portraits)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Sarah Engledow on a foundational gallery figure who was quick on the draw.
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