[6] In 1980, at the age of 28, Colvin was appointed foreign correspondent in London, and travelled to cover major stories, including the American hostage crisis in Tehran and the rise of Solidarity in Poland.
The following year, Colvin went to Brussels as Europe correspondent, and covered the events across the continent as the Cold War began to thaw and the Gorbachev era started the process that would lead to the lifting of the Iron Curtain.
[6] Between 1988 and 1992, Colvin was a reporter for Four Corners, making programs focused on, inter alia, the French massacre of Kanaks in New Caledonia, the extinction of Australia's fauna and the Cambodian peace process.
His language skills and long European experience paid off in stories such as his series on the relationship between Italian organised crime and government, which culminated in the trial of former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti.
[11] During 2010, Colvin worked to raise the profile of organ donation through interviews with a number of media agencies including The Sydney Morning Herald,[2] The Australian,[7] The Drum,[12] The 7.30 Report,[13] and Life Matters.
The play was produced by the Sydney theatre company Belvoir with David Berthold as director, and a cast including actor John Howard as Colvin and Sarah Peirse as Mary-Ellen Field.
John Russell, son of an East Indies trader, ended up lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces of British India during the mutiny of 1857, had ten children and founded a dynasty of Empire-builders.
Through his mother, Elizabeth Anne Manifold,[19] Colvin was the great-great-nephew of a Prime Minister of Australia, Viscount Bruce of Melbourne, who went on to be an international statesman and the first Chancellor of the Australian National University.
[1][24] On 11 May 2017, Colvin died aged 65, at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick, over twenty years after contracting granulomatosis with polyangiitis, the rare auto-immune condition which caused kidney failure in 2011.