Travelling North Film Festival awarded the Best Actor award to Leo McKern. "Travelling North" grossed $1,464,000 at the box office in Australia, which is equivalent to $2,942,640 in 2009 dollars. Travelling North Travelling North is a 1987 film directed by Carl Schultz and starring Leo McKern, Julia Blake, and Graham Kennedy. Based on an original 1979 play of the same name by David Williamson, it is one of Williamson's favourite movies based on his works. An aged couple decide to move from Melbourne to north Queensland. The David Williamson play "Travelling North" premiered in 1979, the year that Williamson moved from Melbourne
Leo McKern presented "The Battle of the Somme", a British Broadcasting Corporation documentary produced to mark the 60th anniversary of World War I battle. He played the Earl of Gloucester in the Granada Television production of "King Lear" (1983) with Sir Laurence Olivier. In 1983 also starring in most episodes of the mini-series 'Reilly, Ace of Spies' as 'Zaharov', director of Vickers with Sam Neill. In 1975, McKern made his first appearance in the role that would make him a household name as an actor, Horace Rumpole, whom he played in "Rumpole of the Bailey", originally an episode of the BBC's "Play