Background
Paul Cox was born on April 16, 1940 in Venlo, Limburg, Netherlands. He was the son of Else (née Kuminack), a native of Germany, and Wim Cox, a documentary film producer.
Paul Cox was born on April 16, 1940 in Venlo, Limburg, Netherlands. He was the son of Else (née Kuminack), a native of Germany, and Wim Cox, a documentary film producer.
Paul Cox studied at the Dutch School for Professional Photography. In 1966 he studied at Melbourne University, Australia.
Paul Cox worked on the 1964 BBC TV docudrama, Culloden. He emigrated to Australia in 1965, by which time he had already established a reputation as a photographer. In the late 1960s he travelled to Papua New Guinea with Ulli Beier whose interest was indigenous poetry, drama and creative writing. In the resulting book of Cox’s photographs of village life were set to poems written by Beier’s students. Beier and Cox later published a book on Mirka Mora.
His teaching at Prahran College of Advanced Education in the 1970s with Athol Shmith and John Cato influenced a number of photographers and filmmakers, including Carol Jerrems. Paul Cox collaborated with a number of screenwriters including John Clarke and Bob Ellis. He published Reflections: An Autobiographical Journey in 1998. His film-essay The Remarkable Mr. Kaye (2005) is a portrait of his ill friend, the actor Norman Kaye, who appeared in numerous Cox films, such as Lonely Hearts (1982) and Man of Flowers (1983). In 2006 he became the Patron of the Byron Bay Film Festival.
Cox's last film Force of Destiny, with David Wenham and Indian actress Shahana Goswami, was released in July 2015. Wenham plays a sculptor and transplant patient who falls in love with a patient he meets in the hospital ward. On 18 June 2016, he died at the age of 76.
Physical Characteristics: On 26 December 2009 Paul Cox received a liver transplant.
Quotes from others about the person
David Wenham states: "There is no one like Cox.... He is unique, and we need him, and people like him.... He is completely an auteur, because everything you see on the screen, and hear, has got Paul's fingerprints all over it."