Logie-winning television current affairs editor Mike Chirgwin, who also worked on the classic Australian film Mad Max 2, has died of cancer aged 73.
Chirgwin began his television career on the ABC’s groundbreaking program This Day Tonight and was best-known for his long stint on Nine’s 60 Minutes.
During his time on Nine’s flagship current affairs show Chirgwin worked with reporters Ray Martin, George Negus, Jana Wendt, Liz Hayes, Tara Brown, Tracey Curro and Charles Wooley.
He won Logies for a 2010 episode of Australian Story about backpacker killer Ivan Milat and for the 1980 documentary series This Fabulous Century.
Chirgwin edited the television movies Cattle King (1983) and Shipwrecked (1984) and was an additional editor on Mad Max 2, released in the US as The Road Warrior in 1982.
His achievements in editing were recognised with a lifetime achievement award from the Australian Film Institute.
Chirgwin died in Katoomba in the NSW Blue Mountains west of Sydney on August 20 a year after receiving a complex cancer diagnosis.
Former 60 Minutes reporter Charles Wooley said Chirgwin was ‘a lovely man’ and highly regarded colleague who excelled at his job.
Logie-winning current affairs editor Mike Chirgwin who also worked on the classic Australian film Mad Max 2 has died of cancer aged 73
‘He was very good,’ Wooley told Daily Mail Australia.
‘The editor has got to hold the story together – he weaves a tapestry – and Chirgy weaved a pretty bloody good tapestry.
‘If I was doing something myself I would want him. Everybody fought to get Chirgy.’
Wooley remembered the halcyon days of 60 Minutes when reporters travelled to exotic locations around the world, while technicians such as Chirgwin stayed home.
‘They had the best life, the crews on the road,’ Wooley said. ‘He stayed in that dark room under the transmission tower at the old Nine studios.
‘But Chirgy was never embittered. Some editors were but Chirgy wasn’t. He never resented the fact that we all went out and had a wonderful time.’
Wooley said it was not all work at the 60 Minutes offices in Willoughby on Sydney’s lower north shore and Chirgwin knew how to good have a time.
Chirgwin (right) began his television career on the ABC’s groundbreaking This Day Tonight and was best-known for his long stint on Nine’s 60 Minutes
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Wooley said. ‘He was great luncher. Work like mad, get it out of the way and go for a very long lunch.’
Former 60 Minutes executive producer Hamish Thomson also remembered Chirgwin as a legendary luncher and raconteur in a time when film editors were regarded as craftsmen.
‘They came from an era, a lost era, of film,’ he said. ‘It was a lot harder to shoot on film and a lot harder to edit stories in those days because you had limited material.
‘Those editors were an integral part of the whole editorial process. They made great observations and additions and contributions to the actual flow of the story and how it was finally crafted.’
Chirgwin and his wife Kath moved to the Blue Mountains in 2002, settling in Blackheath.
He was a founding member of the Blackheath Theatre Company and was heavily involved in the local Food and Wine Festival as well as other community activities.
Chirgwin is survived by Kath, children Andrew, Marion, Peter and Michelle and six grandchildren.
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