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RON DAVIS

The Man of Mystery

By Gary Hartley

One’s memory tends to fade
after 40 odd years, and my first
meeting with Ron Davis is
unclear, but it was somewhere in
the mid 1980s.

Many people have heard of Ron,
but few knew him as he has he
kept mostly to himself.

Ron was a true collector to the
point, where it stopped being a
hobby and became an obsession,
it can happen to all of us I guess,
I based on my own experience.
The reason for writing, this story Ron Davis demonstrating a limelight burner and his 1909
is that so many people have asked Motiograph 35mm Projector.
about him, they were curious to know area and was probably born there around
more. 1930 or thereabouts. He started working
as a projectionist in Shepparton, firstly at
I visited Ron at his home in Wattle Street the Star Theatre and then later at the Lyric.
Bendigo on several occasions, and was
usually welcomed in for a cup of tea. His Sometime later, he arrived in Bendigo –
parents were there at the time, they would around 1948 – I’ve been told. He worked
have been in their nineties at the time. We at the candy bar next to Lyric Theatre for
would sit around the kitchen table and talk. a long time during the fifties. By the
1960s he had opened a movie museum in
I remember on one occasion, Ron had a Adelaide House in McLaren Street
graphescope projector head on the table
Bendigo, where he gave demonstrations
and we talked about that, but after about of movie machines to Scout Groups and
10 or 15 minutes, you were made to feel
others, or to anyone who was interested.
like it was time to go.
It’s unclear when closed the museum, but
probably in the 1970s.
I couldn’t help feeling he was very a very
lonely man, although he did warm to me Ron tried his hand at the making of movie
after a while. The mystery never unfolded
he titled, The Magic Illusion, the film was
until the end.
basically about his museum and showed
him demonstrating various projectors.
Ron grew up on a farm in the Shepparton
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