Stephen Anderton

Born in 1966 in the Queensland town of Ipswich, Australia as Stephen Mckenzie, he grew up in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales. His parents separated early on and his mother Roslyn married Australian Vietnam war veteran Bruce Anderton, whose name he adopted.Steve started performing at speech nights and 8mm shorts in primary school. However he was stifled creatively by a largely unhappy and transient adolescence as his step-father was sent around the country on army postings. After experiencing three secondary school education systems Steve recorded a dismal Higher School Certificate result and eventually left home. Despite a desire to be an actor that had existed since childhood, his prospects at this stage were obviously not bright. Yet Steve had been born with a dogged determination and movies of that era such as Alien and Bladerunner provided him with the inspiration to persevere.After some period working menial jobs around the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, he was by chance hitchhiking and picked up by a petrol truck. On the radio played a commercial for a Melbourne broadcasting school. He applied, gained entry and studied for some months whilst working as a trainee clerical officer at the Museum of Victoria, sometimes hitching the forty-plus kilometers home to the peninsula, or staying at Melbourne's notorious Gordon House homeless shelter. After completing the course Steve landed a mid-dawn job at 3CV in the central Victorian town of Bendigo. It was 1986 and he was nineteen.Steve remained as an announcer for several years but was unfulfilled; Orson Welles' golden era of radio was long gone. Though the security and money of radio were welcome, in the early 90's he decided to put them aside and move to Sydney to pursue an acting career.He was largely ignored for a decade.Despite many short films and lots of co-op theatre, Steve hit a ceiling and realised that he needed more training. At the ripe old age of thirty two, and somewhat inspired by the success of previous graduates such as David Wenham, he gained entry into University of Western Sydney's Theatre Nepean.He graduated in 2001 and now makes a living as an actor and voice-artist.In 2004 he met Annalisa Dezarnaulds through a surfing buddy. They now have two beautiful boys; Deuchar and Jacques. Show less «