Tom Long (actor)
Australian actor (1968–2020)
Thomas Andrew Long (3 August 1968 – 4 January 2020) was an Australian film and television actor. He played court official and avid surfer Angus in the late 1990s TV series SeaChange and Brenden Abbott in the 2003 Australian TV movie The Postcard Bandit.
Early life
Long was born on 3 August 1968 in Boston, Massachusetts, as his Australian parents were visiting there at the time. On their return to Australia he grew up on a farm near Benalla, Victoria. He worked as a jackaroo and shearer after attending Geelong Grammar School, before going abroad, travelling to India, the United Kingdom, Los Angeles, and South Carolina.
After returning to Australia, Long successfully auditioned for a place at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, graduating in 1994.
Career
Long appeared in several Australian television series, most notably the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) hit SeaChange (1998–2000) and the Nine Network police drama Young Lions (2002). He appeared in the Australian films Two Hands (1999) and The Dish (2000). Long played Brenden Abbott in the 2003 telemovie The Postcard Bandit and appeared in the film The Book of Revelation.
He also appeared in The Last of the Ryans, Doing Time for Patsy Cline, Do or Die, Risk, Heroes' Mountain: The Thredbo Story, Black Jack: Ghosts, Joanne Lees: Murder in the Outback, and East of Everything, and Woodley.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Tom Long (actor)” is australian actor (1968–2020). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Long, actor and Australian, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “australian actor (1968–2020)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q366168. VIAF identifies the subject as 301365389. The Library of Congress control number is no2010009096. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1968, 2020, 2003 and 1994.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Tom Long (actor)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Tom Long (actor) primary sources, Tom Long (actor) archive and Long research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Tom Long (actor)”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Tom Long (actor)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.