Jerome Ehlers

Jerome Ehlers (20 December 1958 – 9 August 2014) was an Australian actor and writer.

Ehlers was born in Perth, Western Australia to Francis Charles Ehlers and his wife Berenice Margaret Franklyn Ehlers. He went to school in Perth and then lived in Floreat, Curtin, Western Australia, from 1977. He was a resident of St. Thomas More College in Perth, during the mid-1970s. He graduated from University of Western Australia in 1987.^{[citation needed]} He then graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) alongside his future wife, actress Emily Simpson in 1987.

Ehlers made his acting debut as Captain Watkin Tench in 1987 miniseries Frontier, alongside Max Cullen, Ruth Cracknell, and Robert Coleby.

Early television credits include the miniseries True Believers (1988), Body Surfer (1989), Darlings of the Gods (1989) and Bangkok Hilton (1989) – the latter alongside Nicole Kidman in her breakout role.

He made further television appearances in Shadows of the Heart (1990), A Country Practice (1992), New Zealand series Marlin Bay (1992), Time Trax (1993), Fire (1996), Flipper (1995-1996), Heartbreak High (1996), Water Rats (1998), Stingers (1999) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (1999-2002).

Various roles followed in the 2000s with Tales of the South Seas (2000), British drama series Ballykissangel (2001), fantasy series BeastMaster (2001), Jeopardy (2002), miniseries Through My Eyes (2004), long-running medical drama All Saints (2006), Monarch Cove (2006), US miniseries The Starter Wife (2007), Packed to the Rafters (2008-2009), East of Everything (2009) and Sea Patrol (2010). He played the role of Rhys Kowalski in 2011 legal series Crownies for 22 episodes. He made his later appearances in House Husbands (2012-2013) and Rake (2014).

Ehlers also appeared in numerous films including western film Quigley Down Under (1990) alongside Tom Selleck, Weekend with Kate (1990), erotic thriller Fatal Bond (1991), US thriller Irresistible Force (1993) and cult crime drama Two Hands (1999) alongside Heath Ledger, Bryan Brown and Rose Byrne.

Further film credits include adventure drama The Old Man Who Read Love Stories (2001), horror film Cubbyhouse (2001), bushranger drama Ned Kelly (2003) alongside Heath Ledger and Orlando Bloom, war film The Great Raid (2005) opposite James Franco and Benjamin Bratt, and US action film The Marine (2006). He also appears in many made-for-television films. Ehlers' final film before his death was Drive Hard (2014).

Ehlers died in Sydney on 9 August 2014, at age 55, ten months after being diagnosed with colorectal cancer.