Vale: Linda Klejus
Producer best known for Conspiracy 365, and a passionate member of the TV Tonight online community, has died.
- Published by David Knox
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Producer Linda Klejus, best known for producing teen action drama Conspiracy 365, has died.
She passed away on March 31, ten years after first being diagnosed with cancer.
Klejus was principal of Circa Media which produced 2012 miniseries Conspiracy 365 for Foxtel’s Family Movie Channel. Based on the novels by Gabrielle Lord, it featured Harrison Gilbertson plus Julia Zemiro, Kate Kendall and James Sorensen.
She was partner to Peter Bain-Hogg (Renegade Media) producer of RocKwiz.
An article on Arts Hub, which includes a contribution by both Bain-Hogg and Lord, recalls she worked as a PA on ABC drama in 1983 before moving to Seven as a production manager in the late 1980s, running outside productions for Crawfords and Artist Services.
She became an Investment Manager at the FFC before returning to production with numerous pilot projects that were al labours of love, including Nine soap pilot, The Coast.
Remembering her early meetings with Linda, author Gabrielle Lord writes, “She encouraged me when I worried about how I was going to keep tension high over such a long story arc. We both understood the importance of story, story, story as well as character. At this stage I had to remind her that none of the books had been written yet! But that was of little concern to Linda. She had faith in the story, she had faith in me and it was easy for me to reciprocate, so that when the time came to option the series, and despite my agent’s dire warnings.”
Linda was elected Victorian Chapter head of SPAA and fulfilled that role until 2013. She continued to develop projects but also wanted to keep her brain active all the time so went back to school to learn from the experts she respected like Kim Williams and David Court. She graduated from the AFTRS Screen Business course with a Masters degree in late 2017 and most recently she joined PJ at Context Media to develop more drama projects.
Linda was also a passionate member of the TV Tonight online community, a regular reader and comments contributor. Over many years she was a champion of local content, frequently speaking her mind over network and funding body announcements. Many of you have exchanged ideas and arguments with her on these pages. We would sometimes clash over such debates, but she never shrinked from the battle, in words as in life. Thanks Linda…
A farewell and celebration of her life will be held at The Railway Hotel in South Melbourne from 6pm on Tuesday 17 April. For catering purposes, you need to RSVP via [email protected]
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- Tagged with Conspiracy 365, RocKwiz, The Coast
9 Responses
Vale Linda. We never got the chance to meet, but some of my co-workers have had the pleasure of working with her before. Never heard a bad word spoken, she sounded like a great lady who left us too soon.
Vale Linda :'(
Yes, it would be good to know. I often wonder what happened to names I used to see a lot here, but don’t anymore. Its like a bizarre thing of the modern age.
Vale Linda and thank you .
Thanks David. I wish I knew her handle.
I understand. Unfortunately, it isn’t appropriate for me to do that.
Vale Linda.
Only speculating, but Secret Squirrel has been MIA from this site for a while now. Have been wondering where they went.
SS was always a very lively and articulate contributor and never afraid to speak her/his mind.
For some reason though, always presumed SS was male…
Not SS, but let’s focus on Linda not guessing games.
Of course. Very sad to hear no matter what Linda’s moniker was on here.