Donovan Joyce

Who was Donovan Joyce?

Donovan Maxwell Joyce was an Australian radio producer and writer, best known as the author of the international best-seller The Jesus Scroll.

Joyce was born in 1910 at Hawthorn, Melbourne, and educated at Scotch College, Hawthorn. On leaving education he was employed by the Broken Hill Proprietary Company Ltd but, finding himself unsuited to that work, he performed in amateur theatricals in Melbourne and was stage manager for several productions of the Little Theatre Company.

In 1932 Joyce entered commercial radio, working in various stations across Australia, and eventually rising to station manager. He could not enlist during World War II because of a childhood injury, so instead he served as an air-raid warden. At this time he wrote a regular and occasionally controversial column in Radio Times under the pseudonym 'Slapper'.

He formed Donovan Joyce Productions in 1945. For his new company he wrote and commissioned dramas and documentaries for radio, many of which he exported, particularly to South Africa, where he also advised on local radio production.