20 Facts About Mark Colvin

Mark Colvin was an Australian journalist and radio and television broadcaster for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and worked on most of the flagship current affairs programs.

In 1980, at the age of 28, Mark Colvin was appointed foreign correspondent in London, and travelled to cover major stories, including the American hostage crisis in Tehran and the rise of Solidarity in Poland.

Mark Colvin believed that the mullahs had a dispute with Dehqani-Tafti's father, the Anglican bishop of Iran in exile in London.

Mark Colvin returned to Australia in 1983 and was initially a reporter on both AM and PM, before agitating for the establishment of a midday news and current-affairs radio program.

Mark Colvin became the founding presenter of The World Today on ABC radio.

Between 1988 and 1992, Mark Colvin was a reporter for Four Corners, making programs focused on, inter alia, the French massacre of Kanaks in New Caledonia, the extinction of Australia's fauna and the Cambodian peace process.

In 1992, Mark Colvin accepted another London posting, this time for television, mainly reporting for Foreign Correspondent, the 7.30 Report and Lateline.

In 1994, Mark Colvin was deployed by the 7.30 Report to Africa to cover the unfolding tragedy in Rwanda.

Mark Colvin was diagnosed with granulomatosis with polyangiitis, a rare inflammation of blood vessels, which nearly killed him.

In 1997, Mark Colvin returned to Sydney and started in his role as presenter for ABC Radio's PM.

In November 2017 Mark Colvin was inducted into The Australian Media Hall of Fame.

On 22 March 2013, Mark Colvin received a kidney transplant from a living donor.

In 2016 Mark Colvin released his autobiography, Light and Shadow: Memoirs of a Spy's Son.

The Mark Colvin family had a long history of military and administrative service to Australia, and previously to the British Empire.

Mark Colvin is the great-grandson of the India Office mandarin Clement Sneyd Colvin, whose father was John Russell Colvin.

Mark Colvin was the step-son of Admiral Sir Anthony Synnot.

Mark Colvin married his second wife, Michele Francesca McKenzie, in 1987.

On 11 May 2017, Mark Colvin died aged 65, at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick, over twenty years after contracting granulomatosis with polyangiitis, the rare auto-immune condition which caused kidney failure in 2011.

Mark Colvin survived the kidney transplant only to be diagnosed with melanoma and then just before Easter in 2017 was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer.

Mark Colvin asked that anyone wishing to mark his death or honour his passing donate to the Prince of Wales Hospital Foundation.