Garry Gillard > Perth Modern School > alumni > Bruce Williams 28Nov1943-28Nov2013
Bruce and I were close friends for many years, based on a mutual interest in literature and in performance - at both of which he was much better than me. He won the English Exhibition with a mark of 95%. (Lois Achimovich won it the year before with 85%.) Not only did I, more than once, get the second-best role in a show in which he played the lead, but he was actually at one point my tutor in English, tho he was exactly one week younger than me. He played the lead in both of the G&S operettas: The Sorcerer in 1959, and Patience (or Bunthorne's Bride) in 1960 - in which he played Bunthorne.
He died of brain cancer on his seventieth birthday.
The photo shows him at the school sports day in 1960 with Wendy Fenton (then Dowsett).
One of the plays in which Bruce played the lead was the prestigious production of Under Milk Wood, directed by Wal Cherry, which was presented in the Sunken Gardens UWA as part of the Festival of Perth in 1962.
This is the note about Bruce in the Under Milk Wood program. The same photo was used in the 1961 Sphinx in association with the announcement there of his getting the Exhibition for English.
And this is the photo he used for the blog he wrote in the years before his death, at wordability.com.au.
Bruce married Fleur Price, who was in the same year at school. After their marriage she used her second name and so became Romanie Williams, which she still is. They had three daughters. Bruce married again, this time resulting in two sons.
Garry Gillard | New: 29 November, 2020 | Now: 22 April, 2022
