John McCallum was best known as the stage and screen partner for more than half a century of his wife, the English actress Googie Withers; but in middle age he branched out into theatrical, film and television production in Australia, and helped to create the popular children's television series Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.The idea came to him in 1966, as he and Googie Withers were packing up after a holiday in Australian. It had struck him that Australia was the only country on earth with indigenous kangaroos, and when a producer friend, Lee Robinson, came up with the notion of the adventures of a boy and a kangaroo, McCallum sank $5,000 into a pilot show.The result was a hugely successful series that ran to 91 episodes and was shown in some 80 countries. Filmed at the Waratah National Park outside Sydney between 1966 and 1968, it was shown in Britain on ITV from 1967 to 1969 . Skippy in fact was a female - easier to handle, with some 35 of them used in the course of making the series, as the animals often fled into the bush. It took six months to train the principal Skippy, but there were "body doubles" – including one that could run fast, another that could jump high and even one that could get in and out of a car.
As an actor, McCallum almost always worked with his wife. They co-starred in plays like The Deep Blue Sea and Simon and Laura, as well as various works at the Chichester Festival, which usually transferred into the West End. Their best-remembered films were probably from the 1940s: The Loves of Joanna Godden (1946), the Ealing production on which they first met; It Always Rains on Sunday; and Miranda.
His height, dark good looks and dashing on-screen charm invited comparisons with Stewart Granger.In later years his line in silver-haired drawing-room stalwarts, stuffed shirts from the colonies or pompous regimental buffers acquired on stage a pleasing authenticity, especially when he was behind a cigar.Offstage McCallum could be the personification of the phlegmatic Englishman,.
He was born in Brisbane on March 14 1918, the son of a theatre producer who had emigrated from Scotland; his English mother was an accomplished amateur actress. He was educated at Knox College, Sydney, and the Church of England grammar school, Brisbane.After Rada in London, in 1934 he made his stage debut in Brisbane in Henry VIII; the next year he was in Hamlet and Richard II before returning to England, where he joined repertory companies at Mile End and Tonbridge.He had small parts at the Festival Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon (1939) and at the Old Vic, and in Priestley's Cornelius (Westminster, 1940), before serving with the Australian Imperial Forces in 2/5 Field Regiment from 1941 to 1945.After the war he acted in Sydney and London, where he made notable appearances as James Manning in Waiting For Gillian (St James's, 1954); as Mr Darling and Captain Hook in Peter Pan (Scala, 1956); and, a particular success, as Lord Dungavel in Roar Like A Dove (Phoenix, 1957).
He and Googie Withers had married in 1948, and in 1959 they went to Australia. McCallum joined JC Williamson's, then the largest theatre management company in the world, as joint managing director.
In Australia and New Zealand he and his wife toured some of the more recent London successes, beginning with Roar Like A Dove, which McCallum also directed.
Back in London in 1973, he played John Middleton opposite Ingrid Bergman in The Constant Wife (Albery), and in Melbourne the following year he staged and acted in his own play, As It's Played Today. He and Googie Withers continued to act together for many years in both England and Australia; among the productions were Maugham's The Circle, The Cherry Orchard and Hay Fever.
McCallum also appeared in some 26 films, including Valley of the Eagles, Trent's Last Case, Devil On Horseback and Smiley.
He produced several series for Australian television and was president of the Australian Film Council in 1971 and had been chairman of Fauna Films, Australia, since 1967. He was appointed CBE in 1971 and AO in 1992.
