Phillip Keatley

Philip attended the University of British Columbia. While attending UBC, he became actively involved in the Player’s Club. He continued his education at the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art and spent time acting in London.  Soon after marrying Philip and his wife returned to Vancouver, and quickly became immersed in local theatre productions at the newly created Frederic Wood Theatre.

Philip joined the CBC 1956. Within three months he was appointed a Producer in the fledgling television studios and cut his teeth on programs that ran the gamut from News to Sports to Mobiles, Variety and Drama. By the end of the 1950’s, CBC’s newly connected network across Canada and the restrictions of the tiny Georgia Street studio for production, were conspiring to bring about the end of TV Drama on the West Coast. In response to this inevitability, Philip and others began to look at the feasibility of doing drama on film.  Cariboo Country, produced and directed by Philip, was the first film drama series produced by CBC and shot on location. In 1965 the TV Drama Department was founded in Vancouver with Philip as Executive Producer. Series like Where the Action Was and The Manipulators soon followed. Five years later, development started for The Beachcombers and the series began production in 1971. It ran for an unprecedented nineteen years. By 1975 the new CBC studios had opened in Vancouver and the Drama Department was back in business.  With series and specials such as Leo and Me which introduced child actor Michael J. Fox, The Magic Lie, and The Overlanders, Vancouver was producing close to 40% of all CBC English-language Television Drama.  In 1977, Philip transferred to CBC Toronto as Head of Production Training for the English Network.

In 1985 Philip returned to Vancouver as Western Head of Development with the responsibility of creating co-production and independent production in the new relationship between public and private broadcasting and film-making. In 1990 he decided to take an early retirement from the Corporation and started a private production company with daughter Julia Keatley and producing the series Cold Squad. That series played for seven seasons; Philip retired for good after three of them.  He died in 2007.