Sydney - An Australian bushman who inspired the 1986 film Crocodile Dundee has been killed in a shootout with police in the outback. Police said Rodney Ansell shot and killed a policeman by a roadblock south of Darwin, capital of the Northern Territory, on Tuesday before being shot dead by the officer's partner.
Local media said Ansell was the role model for Paul Hogan's knife-slinging outback hero Crocodile Dundee. Ken Shadie, who wrote Crocodile Dundee with Hogan and John Cornell, had seen a television interview with Ansell by Michael Parkinson. That interview, firing Hogan's imagination, led to the making of the first Dundee film.