John McTernan is an Australian actor, known for several theatre and television roles.
A former sailor, McTernan emigrated to Australia from the United States in 1968. After graduating from university with an Economics degree, he began studying at Sydney's Ensemble Theatre.
McTernan's first job was singing and dancing in cabaret shows. One of his earliest professional jobs was in a vocal comedy act with friend Timothy Bean, both writing and performing their material. He went on to work in theatre for seven years in Sydney, performing "everything from Godspell to Shakespeare".
He has appeared with all of Australia's major theatre companies. His Sydney Theatre Company credits include The Sunny South and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. His work at the Melbourne Theatre Company includes Born Yesterday, Twelfth Night, Into the Woods, Assassins, The Glass Menagerie, The Real Thing, Serious Money, High Society, Art, Take Me Out and Boy Gets Girl. Plays for Nimrod Theatre Company include Young Mo, Volpone, Inside the Island, The Orestia, Clouds, Romeo and Juliet, Henry IV and Comedy of Errors. He has also appeared in several productions at Ensemble Theatre, including Lovers, The Comedians, Boy Meets Girl, 6 Rms Riv Vu, Sonny and Same Difference and more recently, Wrong Turn at Lungfish in 2008.
In 2014, McTernan took over the lead role of Shelley Levine at the last minute in a Melbourne Theatre Company production of Glengarry Glen Ross, after Steve Bisley had to relinquish the role during the play's opening week, due to illness.
McTernan is also well known for his work in musical theatre. He performed in a Harry M. Miller production of Grease at Melbourne's Metro Theatre, in 1972, just three months after its Broadway debut. In 1975, he took on the task of the narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, in a production that featured Mark Holden in the titular role of Joseph. In 1979, he appeared in two-act musical comedy The Venetian Twins, for the inaugural season of the Sydney Theatre Company, which premiered at the Sydney Opera House. The production went on to tour throughout 1981 to Canberra, Adelaide, Melbourne and Geelong.
In 1986, McTernan played Benny Southstreet in an Adelaide Festival Centre production of Guys and Dolls, alongside Anthony Warlow, which was consistently met with standing ovations and rave reviews in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. He reprised the role in a fundraiser concert spectacular at Melbourne Concert Hall in 1990, and then again for The Production Company in 2000. More recently, McTernan has appeared as Grandfather in a 2019 staging of Ragtime, once again for The Production Company.
McTernan's other musical credits include Godspell, Sunset Boulevard, The History of Australia, Shout, Into the Woods, and Assassins, She Loves Me, Gypsy and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
McTernan is best known to television audiences for his roles in popular Australian drama series and soap operas. He played the regular role of Rob Forsyth, a gay man, later revealed to be a psychopathic blackmailer, in soap opera Number 96 in 1977. He took on a recurring guest role as prison teacher, Tom Lucas in Prisoner in 1986. The same year, he portrayed music promoter Lee Gordon in two-part biographical miniseries Shout! The Story of Johnny O'Keefe, about the life of musician OâÂÂKeefe (played by Terry Serio).
McTernan's long-running series credits included a role in long-running police drama Cop Shop, as Irish Detective Sergeant Tom Shannon from 1981 to 1994, and a main role in medical drama G.P. as Dr Robert Sharp, who ran a suburban medical practice together with his uncle William Sharp (played by Michael Craig) in its first four seasons from 1989 to 1992. He won Logie Awards for his roles in both series. In 2005, he played a main role as villain Mackenna in children's drama series '.
McTernan's numerous other television credits have included The Young Doctors, The Flying Doctors, City Homicide, All Saints, Blue Heelers, Stingers, Something in the Air, Good Guys, Bad Guys, MDA and Miss FisherâÂÂs Murder Mysteries.
McTernan's work in feature films and made-for-television movies has included The Understudy (1977), ABC feature Fuzzy (1984), The Brown Out Murders (1988), The Four Minute Mile (1988) and Evil Never Dies (2003).
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