Ben Lewis (Australian actor): Difference between revisions

Australian actor (1979–2025)

Ben Lewis (28 September 1979 – 6 October 2025) was an Australian actor and baritenor. His most well-known role was The Phantom of the Opera in the original Australian production of Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s Love Never Dies. In 2017 and 2018, he reprised the role in Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera in the original West End production.

His other notable roles included Chad and Frank Farmer in the UK tours of Love Me Tender and The Bodyguard, as well as Larry in the 2018 West End revival of Company.

Lewis was born in London^[1] to a theatrical family. His father, Michael Lewis, is an opera singer and his mother, Patricia Price, was also an opera singer and has retired as Head of Vocal Studies and Opera at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.^[2] His brother, Alexander Lewis, is an opera singer and actor who completed three years as a young artist at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.^[3] During his childhood, his family went back and forth between England and the North Shore of Sydney, Australia.^[1]

After starting at a British secondary school, the family moved back to Australia and Lewis graduated from Newington College in Sydney and then undertook an Arts Degree at Sydney University. He performed with the Australian Theatre for Young People and was awarded a Lend Lease scholarship to further his studies overseas, where he studied voice at the Royal College of Music. Upon returning to Australia, Lewis applied to study at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) with his brother and both were successful.^[1] It was during his time at WAAPA that Lewis met his wife, actress Melle Stewart. The leading Australian performer Tony Sheldon was a visiting Director during Lewis’s time at WAAPA and Lewis credits Sheldon with helping him through his student years.^[1]

Lewis was married to Australian actress Melle Stewart.

In July 2025, it was publicly revealed that Lewis was diagnosed with fast spreading bowel cancer in February 2024, that became incurable. His brother, Alexander, launched a GoFundMe for him that same month.^[4]

Lewis died from bowel cancer in Sydney, Australia on 6 October 2025, at the age of 46. A statement was released by his friend, Todd Woodbridge, on Instagram.^[5]

In 2012, Ben Lewis received a nomination for Helpmann Award and won a Judith Johnson Award for Best Actor in Leading Role in a Musical at the 2012 Sydney Theatre Awards for his role of the Phantom in Love Never Dies.