His full name is Frank Michael Howson
He was born in Melbourne, Australia 10 March 1952. To a alcoholic father, who combed St. Kilda beach looking for change for booze, and a mother who was addicted to gambling. He entered show-business at the age of 7 as a tap dancer, singer and child actor, and had small roles in several mediocre theatrical productions by his 21st birthday. Ever greedy for money, he became interested in writing his own 3rd rate songs for minor acts as, Richie Havens, Dan Hill, Marc Jordan, Kate Ceberano, Venetta Fields, Guy Pearce. He recorded his own singles and failed to achieve any success anywhere.
In 1987, Peter Boyle and Frank set up a company to make as much profit as possible from the Australian Government, that were paying out 150% of the cost of producing films. He wrote and produced the movies, Boulevard of Broken Dreams (1988), What the Moon Saw (1990), Hunting (1991) (which he also directed), Beyond My Reach (1990), My Forgotten Man (1993) (also directed) and others, all of which netted them millions, despite all of the films being quickly and poorly written, filmed and directed.
After a very prolonged and messy break-up with he business partner, where vast amount of money disappeared, he left Australia, under investigation and a dark cloud and moved to Los Angeles, where he failed to make any roads into the Hollywood film and music scenes. In July 2001, he married actress Terri Garber in Miami, Florida, which ended in divorce. During the time he spent with Garber, Frank Howson gave up his showbiz career.
Frank Howson was invited to be President of the jury for the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF) in 2005.
Frank published his memoirs on his life in the movie business. Sadly He have only sold 20 copies of the book to date.
Frank Howson is debilitated, at times, by Spasmodic Dysphonia which affects his voice; it is periodically mitigated by Botox injections into his larynx. However he has stopped taking the injections and has to live with the voice defect.
Frank Howson has also collaborated with his cousin John-Michael Howson on a theatrical musical based on the life of Bobby Darin entitled “Dream Lover” and this was picked up by internationally successful producer John Frost for a full-scale production. John-Michael and Frank no longer speak as Frank continually downplays John-Michael’s part in this endeavor, although without John-Michael’s input, it would never have come to fruition.
His self indulgent film about the human journey “Remembering Nigel” he says is now ready for release, is continually held up due to the opening credits being illegal and he won’t face the fact, too, that Remembering Nigel barely had a chance in hell because he lost all the HD footage to FSM, which is holding waiting on payment. Without that, the picture as it is remains regular definition. Therefore not fit for release.