Peter FitzSimons

Peter FitzSimons is a rugby star, best-selling author, well respected columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald and Sun-Herald and a television presenter on Fox Sports.

He speaks four languages, has played rugby for Australia, co-hosted radio shows with Mike Carlton and Doug Mulray, interviewed famous people around the globe from George Bush to Diego Maradona and written over twenty best-selling books including Batavia, Tobruk, Kokoda, A Simpler Time, Little Theories of Life and biographies on Douglas Mawson, Nancy Wake, Nene King, Les Darcy, Steve Waugh, Nick Farr-Jones, Kim Beazley, John Eales and Charles Kingsford Smith. In 2001 he was Australia's biggest selling non-fiction author, duplicating that feat in 2004 with Kokoda.

One of the ten most popular after-dinner speakers in Australia, he is married to Today Show co-host Lisa Wilkinson and they have three children.

Born on a farm in Peat's Ridge, Peter went to Knox Grammar School, before accepting an American Field Service Scholarship to go to Ohio for a year. He returned to complete an Arts degree at Sydney University majoring in government and political science. 

In 1984 he broke into the Wallabies under the coaching of Alan Jones, then lived in France and Italy playing rugby for the next five years whilst learning both languages as well as Spanish. Upon his return to Australia he again played for the Wallabies, under Bob Dwyer, going on to play seven tests.

In 1989 he joined The Sydney Morning Herald full-time, and has been one of their most popular columnists since. Andrew Denton has called him 'Australia's finest sports journalist.'

Peter FitzSimons boasts an impressive list of interview credits including ex-president George Bush, Sir Edmund Hillary, Jodie Foster, Nicki Lauda, Joe Montana and Carl Lewis as well as all the major Australian sporting figures from Shane Gould to Lionel Rose and Allan Border. He has interviewed every Australian Prime Minister from Gough Whitlam through to Julia Gillard.

Speaking Topics

• International Sport
• Little Theories of Life
• Looking at Australia From Over the Fence