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A former actor-turned-feature and documentary producer, Richard Mason rose up the ranks to become one of the most prestigious figures in the Australian film industry. Born in Hale, England in 1919, Mason began his acting career on-stage opposite Peter Finch in a Sydney Mercury Theater production of Molière's The Imaginary Invalid. Finch convinced Mason that his talents had yet to be discovered, and he was encouraged to branch out into new realms of the entertainment industry. Mason landed a wardrobe job on the 1949 feature Eureka Stockade; years of hard work eventually landed Mason a job as head of production for Commonwealth Film (later Film Australia), and it was there that Mason would nurture the talents of such up-and-coming directors as Peter Weir. Though he would serve with Commonwealth through its transformation into Film Australia, Mason later resigned in frustration, following the government-forced shutdown of the Film Australia feature The Unknown Industrial Prisoner. Later coming into his own by founding Alfred Road Films, the then-established producer found success collaborating with director John Duigan and actor Bryan Brown. Though the trio's first two efforts, Winter of Our Dreams (1981) and Far East (1982), earned them much notice in the film industry, Duigan and Mason's collaboration on One Night Stand found the cinematic partnership on the wane. Mason and his wife Elaine's son, Steve, followed his father into the film industry as a cinematographer of such features as Strictly Ballroom (1992), BASEketball (1998), and Rollerball (2002). In November of 2002, Richard Mason died of cancer and other complications in Sydney, Australia. He was 76.