Alan Coleman, English-Australian director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1936)
Alan James Coleman (28 December 1936 – 10 December 2013) was an English-born TV series writer, director and producer, primarily in the southern hemisphere, where he worked on soap operas The Young Doctors (which he also created), The Restless Years, Punishment, Breakers, Neighbours and Shortland Street.
Earlier he was the head of children's programming at ATV in the UK until emigrating to Australia in 1974. In 1997, he directed several episodes of the British soap opera, Family Affairs as a part of a working holiday in the UK. At one point, he also temporarily parted company with the Reg Grundy production stable to establish his own company, which provided television coverage of major sporting events. Before going behind the camera, he originally worked as an actor and is on record as saying that "you cannot be a good director unless you have acted yourself".
Coleman's autobiography, One Door Shuts, was self-published through Trafford Publishing in 2009.