Vincent Connolly was born in Narrabri, NSW in 1939, the youngest of six children. The family moved to Sydney during the war and he grew up in Randwick, his education completed with a Masters degree in Commerce from UNSW. He worked in computer systems development from the earliest days of commercial computing, that career taking him to large organisations in Sydney, Canberra and London, working in the Statistical, Telecommunications, Education and Central Banking fields. Since a change of direction twenty years ago, he has worked in the Australian film industry, first in Financial Control for production and distribution group Arena Film, then for the last twelve years on script editing and research for Arenamedia, with his son, award-winning film maker Robert Connolly. Widowed in 2008, he has three children and seven grand-children.
James is an award-winning actor who has performed on stages and screens throughout Australia, Europe and the Americas. His work in film and TV includes Animal Kingdom, The Turning, Offspring, Winners and Losers, The Doctor Blake Mysteries and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. James has also worked across radio documentary and drama, spanning 17 years and counting.