NIDA

I got into NIDA, and so did Chris. It was a strange place for me. I was a bushy by Townsville standards, let alone NIDA. I was a complete and utter fish out of water, but I knew I could act. I’d done it all my life. I didn’t listen in class, I didn’t do my homework, I just played up every day at school and every weekend at home. Why? Because I was good at it. I got laughs. My dad taught me to have no respect for authority. ‘Nobody’s better than you are and no one’s worse. Don’t take shit from anyone.’ (Then he turned around and put shit on me, but I stood up to the big bastard. Why? Because that’s what he taught me.) So I was a monster to discipline at school.

I was a natural performer and I knew it. As a person, I didn’t fit in. I was completely ignorant about Australian theatre and who was in it. I’d never been in a theatre to see a live play. I only went to the movies to get it off with my girlfriends. And yet, I somehow knew how to play Hotspur in the audition. I’d seen enough biblical movies to do the Old Vic accent. I can do most accents. At a party in Townsville, I once convinced a girl I was in the Irish air force visiting Australia with my battalion, playing war games off the coast. I came undone when I slipped back to Australian during lovemaking.

The basic classes were Movement, Dance, Speech, Voice, Singing, Acting, and History of Theatre. They were what the names suggest. The confronting ones for me were Movement and Dance, because I was hopeless. I couldn’t even touch my toes, still can’t. The dance teacher was Keith Baine, a lovely guy. He’d prance around, expand his chest, his arms would fan out from his chest, he’d look up, eyes sparkling: ‘Headlights, people…headlights…headlights.’ Then he’d start doing little jumps, ‘and you go up…and you go up…and you go up.’ Terrific bloke. He ran his own ballet school, and he also choreographed dance sequences in Aussie movies.

Miss (Maggie) Barr was the Movement teacher. She was between sixty and 100, no one knew, fit as. She was 5 foot tall, wore black dance slacks, a black top and a black rag wrapped in her black hair. We think she was gay (she drove a manual ’68 Falcon ute), single, probably scared her girlfriends to death. She had a deep, booming, theatrical voice, and rolled her Rs for effect.

The girls and boys had to wear black tights. I had two problems with that: one, it was girlie, and two, I had bony legs. You had to wear a support underneath to keep your block and tackle under control. The back piece went up the crack of your arse like a thong. I was not a happy straight camper.

Miss Barr was a torturer. She played the Carmina Burana and you had to throw your body into these hideous configurations. The pain was excruciating after two minutes and I’d think, Fuck, I’ve got an hour to go! The closest I’d got to Movement before was football training and boxing training. I was as stiff as a board.

We were doing this exercise where you lean your head to your left shoulder and, using the weight of your head throw it to your right shoulder. My head was going from shoulder to shoulder in a series of jerks.

‘One, two, three, and throw your heads, one, two, three, and throw your heads.’

She stopped the music.

‘What are you doing, Crrreature?’

‘I dunno, Miss Barr. I just can’t seem ta chuck me head…’

‘I’m obviously using the wrong vernacular. And one, two, three, and chuck your heads, one, two, three, and chuck your heads.’

Another time she came up to me and said, ‘I shall call you CorpSsse until you find Some Sign of LiFe, now movvve, CorpSe!’ I finally improved and I graduated to GorrrilLA.

I loved her. I thought she was great. She had more balls than most of the male tutors. She liked me, too. At the end of the year I got 4 out of 10 for ability and 8 out of 10 for trying, which gave me a pass mark of 6.

The rest of the classes were easy. Making sounds, tongue exercising (that’s come in handy over the years), singing (too easy), speeches (a bit tricky, but not too much trouble), improvisation (like being back at school), History of Theatre (boring, like being back at school, and the only subject I didn’t do well in).

I loved NIDA. I was good at it and therefore I worked hard because, for the first time in my life, I was doing something I wanted to do.

I didn’t fit in. Most of the students were middle- to upper-middle-class, they spoke well, and most had some kind of theatrical family background. Something told me to be true to myself and proud of my background. In second and third year I was the only one who had been brought up in the bush. In my day there were about seventy first-year students. That was culled alarmingly to about fifteen in Year 2 and 3. The straight guys tended to form a group: we became known as the Butch Brigade by our gay acting teacher Alex Hay, a very theatrical RADA graduate in his fifties.

We started playing cricket at lunchtimes. It didn’t last long: our buildings were made of fibro and we holed a few walls. I had to repair them because I was the only one who could. I also played League for the uni. I was made to stop as I was turning up to Movement classes with grazed knees and corked thighs. In my last game I was sent off. The opposing front rower and I got into a punch-up and we got sent off. I thought that was a fitting time to walk away.

Speaking of football. The gay guys used to tease me a lot because they always got a bite out of me ( not literally, darling).

Alan with the red curls was the worst. I’d be lined up at the shop for lunch and he’d creep up and kiss me on the neck. The more I protested, the more he did it. He went too far one night. The students would get roped in to being waiters at the Old Tote (now the Sydney Theatre Company). We were carrying trays of white-wine glasses. I was walking down the hall with a full tray and Alan was walking back with an empty one. When he got beside me, he kissed me full on the mouth and I couldn’t do anything about it. I was fucking furious and I’d had enough.

The following Monday, I went to NIDA with a football under my arm. I walked up to the fig trees where the toffy types would sit eating their yoghurts while reading Stanislavski’s techniques.

I walked up to Alan. ‘Hi, Alan. Today at lunchtime, I would like to have male physical bonding with you. My idea of male physical bonding is playing football. We’ll have half an hour of football and half an hour of kissing and cuddling under the goal posts. Now, as you’ve given me your idea of male physical bonding, I think it’s only fair that I show you my idea of it.’

I picked him up, thrust the ball into his chest and spear-tackled him into the ground. He started crying and everyone else started yelling at me.

‘There’ll be half an hour of that. See you at lunchtime.’ That was the end of it.

The only other time the bushy came out in me was during a NIDA trip across the Harbour Bridge. There were seven of us squashed into this six-seater Vauxhall: three guys in the front, two girls and two guys in the back. I was passenger-side back. We were going to see a play at the Independent in North Sydney. The driver couldn’t see too well and he cut off these two blokes in a Mini. The Mini driver went troppo and started swearing and swerving at us. I unwound my window and told him to fuck off, which made things worse, of course. He swerved and nearly crashed into the front door. Then he got in front of us and jammed on his brakes. I was steaming. We came off the bridge onto the Pacific Highway and both cars stopped at the lights. I jumped out, raced over to the Mini, ripped the door open and started to punch the driver in the ear. He was so freaked, he drove his car through the red light to get away from me and almost got collected by cross traffic. I went back to the car expecting a hero’s welcome. They said things like ‘brute’ and ‘animal’ and ‘how dare you’ and ‘disgusting’. No sense of humour.

At this time there were no Australian films and there was very little TV work. We were being trained for a career in theatre. I was encouraged to neutralise my accent and to try to be more sophisticated. I resisted it, because I couldn’t imagine not being me. Admittedly, my accent was much broader then than it is now, but that’s happened naturally due to living in Sydney for so long.

In the end they sent John Clark to have a word with me. He said that I wasn’t doing what was asked of me, that my accent was way too broad and that I should bring it back a little.

I looked him in the eye and said, ‘Laurence Olivier has an English accent, Paul Newman has an American accent and I’ve got an Australian accent. I can do any accent you want, including posh Australian, if the part calls for it.’

He stared blankly at me for a minute, then he said in his broad Tasmanian accent, ‘Fair enough.’ He then proceeded to tell me a dirty joke about a midget. That meant John liked me, and we’ve been mates ever since. Phew! I was sure he was going to tell me to leave.

Meanwhile, on the home front, Dad had scored a job as the overseer at Parramatta Council. We moved to a little weatherboard council house in Epping. Beautiful little place in a beautiful leafy street. On his way to work, Dad would swing by and pick up Charlie Miano, a Sicilian who was a foreman on the council. Charlie and Dad became mates and our family was invited to his eldest daughter’s wedding in April 1971. We three boys didn’t want to go, but Dad talked us around because it was an insult to Italians if the family didn’t all turn up. It was a lavish affair, with lots of great Italian food overflowing on the tables. Music filled the air, and everyone except us three boys was dancing.

Then it happened.

The most beautiful woman I had ever seen walked over and said, ‘Why aren’t you boys dancing?’

She was sixteen, 5 foot tall and every inch a woman. Olive skin, dark wavy hair, big brown almond-shaped eyes, a cute nose, the fullest lips, a sensual neck, beautiful breasts, wonderful hips and a perfect smile that made her eyes shine. Love at first sight, the love of my life, the one and only, now and forever…Rosa Miano. ‘I’ll dance with you.’

Then the shock. Her parents were from the farm hills of Sicily.

If I wanted to go out with Rosa, I’d need a chaperone. That’s if her father approved. Which was unlikely until she was eighteen, which was a little over a year away. We could only meet on the train in the morning, and every other Thursday night. She was an apprentice hairdresser and she only had to work every second Thursday night, but she told her parents she worked every Thursday night so that she could see me. We’d spend that night having takeaway at a food hall, that was all I could afford, or we’d talk Chris Cummings into letting us use his bedroom in Redfern for a bit of petting. Rosa was very innocent and I had to respect that.

I was besotted with her. I know she was just as besotted with me. Every morning on the train we’d stand with our arms around each other, looking into each other’s eyes. Those beautiful eyes. I’d do most of the talking and she’d just look deeply at me, smiling. I’d never loved anybody like this, and I now realise, just by writing this book, that she was my first serious girlfriend, so she’s also my first love.

My love for her and hardly being able to see her was driving me crazy. I couldn’t concentrate on NIDA and I knew I had to do my best to be one of the fifteen from the Year 1 group of seventy. I think it was late August. I went to Rosa and told her I had to break up with her because I loved her so much it was getting in the way of NIDA. Once I got past that, I would come back to her. She didn’t believe me and, to be honest, I wasn’t too sure if I’d come back or not.

Man, did I fall into a hole, and I’ve since learnt that Rosa fell into a deeper one. I gathered myself together and attacked NIDA, to try to put her out of my mind. I started drinking a lot on weekends and I discovered marijuana. I loved it. Brian had found a few mates around Epping, so I started hanging out with him. One Saturday night, we went to a dance in Concord with a bunch from Epping. Brian, cousin Larry, fourteen-year-old Barry and I got there ahead of the others. A quite attractive girl came over and asked me to dance. Unusual, but I thought, Why not? We were dancing away and this guy came up and said, ‘Why are you dancing with my girlfriend?’

I said to her, ‘Are you his girlfriend?’

‘Nah…’

‘She’s not your girlfriend.’

‘Yes she is, cunt…’

Bang.

He thumped me in the ear. It was on: his mates joined in, my brothers and cousin joined in. A couple of older blokes broke it up. We went to one wall, they went to the other and we stared at each other. There were about fifteen of them and four of us. Our mates were late. I turned to Brian, who was now 5 foot 9 and about 85 kilos of blood and muscle.

‘What are we gonna do?’

‘Follow me…’

Brian got up and walked slowly towards the exit. The fifteen louts moved too. He allowed them to get in front of him. There was a flight of about six sandstone steps leading off the entrance. Suddenly Brian rushed forward with his arms spread. He sent about six of them sprawling down the stairs. He ran to the middle of the road, turned around and yelled, ‘Come on!’

We rushed out onto the road and started an all-in brawl. Brian and I stood back to back and hit everything. My little brother was getting the shit beaten out of him and Larry was racing around not really knowing what to do. He just used his agility and concentrated on not getting killed. The first punch in the dance hall hit me in the left jaw, another punch hit me in the right jaw. I turned around to see how Brian was doing. All he could see was another head and he punched me in the chin. The next day I couldn’t even eat Corn Flakes. And then the Epping cavalry arrived, thank Christ.

We beat the shit out of those arseholes. We were walking away and this bloke raced after us and tried to belt me with a fence paling. I ripped it out of his hand and smashed him in the head with it. You can’t take Queensland out of the Jarratt boys.

The NIDA year finished in November and didn’t start again until mid-Febuary 1972. I didn’t hold out much hope. Towards the end of the year, students were making lists of who they thought would make it into ’72. I wasn’t on any of them. I was voted least likely to succeed. I didn’t know how much faith John Clark had in me until years later, when he told me. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have made it.

His faith in me was vindicated. Without sounding like a wanker (although I probably am) I’m the most well-known graduate from that group. Thanks, Clarky.

NIDA holidays 1971

I had a three-month break before returning to NIDA, so I decided to get my truck licence. I learnt the rules, booked a truck-driving lesson and took the test straight after the lesson. I got my licence first try. Yahoo.

I answered an ad to drive a brewery truck for a company with a fleet of them. We’d drive around Sydney and collect empty beer bottles from depots in various suburbs. I’d turn up with a truck full of black plastic beer crates, unload those, stack filled crates onto the pallets on the truck and leave for the brewery with a full load of empty bottles.

On my first day I was shown to my truck. I had to tie the crates down and head to Manly for my load of beer bottles. I’d never tied down a load before. I knew my Boy Scout knots but not my truckie knots. I did my best and off I went. I got lost and ended up in the hilly backstreets of Manly. I went up a steep hill and, still not used to the truck, I double-shuffled into first and jerked the truck savagely. The load fell off the back. I somehow got it back on and eventually found the bottle depot.

The overseer of the truck fleet was the 22-year-old son of the boss and he was a little Hitler turd. By now he was screaming at me on the two-way about how long I was taking. The guy at the depot thankfully tied my load on for me and I went back to the brewery to deliver it. It was late by the time I got the truck back to the yard. The turd gave me another mouthful and threatened to sack me if I didn’t improve. I didn’t tell him about the load coming off, just that I’d got lost.

Just after my parents married, on 1 January 1949, Dad got a job driving semitrailers for a couple of years. I went home that night and he showed me the running knot and the double running knot. I practised over and over for two hours. I went to work the next day on a mission. The turd sent me down to a goods train in Darling Harbour (back before it was ‘Darling Harbour’).

There were bloody trains everywhere. I was given a code that would place the carriage, but I had no idea how to read it. The turd knew this and did nothing to help me. With the kind help of other truckies, I found my carriage full of empties. Again I was already late. By the time I’d loaded, the turd was screaming over the two-way again. The bastard had it in for me.

Two weeks later, I knew what I was doing. I was loading and delivering to the brewery as fast, if not faster, as everyone else and he was still berating me. I took no notice and just did my job. After you delivered a load, you were given a beer ticket. You’d duck in to the private bar and a have a schooner. This was their best beer, it was like nectar from the gods. You’d be suckin’ on a beer and amazing people would be drinking beside you, like John Sattler and Ron Coote, legends of the famous Rabbitoh sides of the early seventies. The more loads you delivered, the more beer you drank; that was the incentive. By 4 p.m. you were the best truck driver in Sydney. No random breath testing in those days, that was still ten years away.

The brewery was in Broadway, where that amazing building with the plants growing off it stands today. There was a long line of trucks at the brewery on this particular morning, which was unusual and new to me. I’d been in the job for two weeks. I finally unloaded and the forklift driver stacked my empty pallets just behind the cab. As per usual, I tied the pallets down. Next thing, the turd stormed up the loading ramp.

‘What the fuck are you doing? I’ve got fifteen trucks trying to get in here and you’re tying your pallets down. Drive out onto the street and tie them down there, you stupid cunt!’

I turned to the fat guy sitting in a chair who gave you the beer tickets. ‘Did you hear what he called me?’

‘Yep, he called a you a cunt.’

I walked over to the turd and punched him in the head. Couldn’t be better – the blow sent him reeling backwards into a mountainous stack of empty crates. They cascaded all around him. I left the truck sitting there, went out to the street, hailed a cab, went back to the truck depot, jumped in my car and went home.

The old man reckoned they’d sue me, but I never heard from them again. I missed out on a week’s wages but it was worth it to punch that maggot’s face. What a cunt!

My next job was driving a chook truck. Since that job, I’ve never eaten takeaway fried chicken. That’s forty-four years. It was early December and chicken was in high demand. All the farms were holding out to get the chooks sold at this time for premium price. I got the job because they were absolutely flat-out. These chooks were hormone-treated. They were fully grown in nine to ten weeks, a chicken in a hen’s body. If you pick them up much later than that, they’d start growing into emus and their little chicken hearts would cave in and they’d have strokes. You’d turn up and half the chooks were dragging a leg around, having had strokes. By fourteen weeks they’d start dying. By fifteen weeks, you’d have a very angry chook farmer to deal with. This happened to me on many occasions. I don’t recommend driving a chook truck in December.

The chooks were never in the dark. Lights were left on all night. Instinctively chickens roost at night, but these chooks would just keep going until they fell asleep through exhaustion. Why? Three reasons: they tend to grow faster, constant movement keeps the fat down, and when the truck arrives they turn the lights off and instinctively, the chickens group together and all lie down. We’d walk in and start to pick them up off the ground and shove them in cages. You’d reach in and grab one leg. You’d gather seven legs into each hand and pick up fourteen chooks at a time, jam them in a cage and chuck ’em on the truck. They’d scratch the crap out of your hand with the other leg. I was told to wear gloves. ‘I never wear gloves’ – a sad mantra I picked up from the old man. I got a poisoned hand, then I wore gloves.

I was running a bit behind on this unseasonably cold, wet night. I was heading back from the Southern Highlands and I was coming down Razorback Hill. A long, straight, sweeping hill. So I put it in angel gear (neutral) and rocketed down. I got up to 130 k’s per hour at the bottom, the fastest I’ve ever gone in a truck. I got back to the slaughteryard and the bloke there said to me as I got out of the truck, ‘Have you been speeding?’

I looked at him quizzically. ‘How’d you know?’

The whole front line of chooks were dead. The combination of high wind and cold had killed them. If I’d driven in the winter, I’d have had to put a tarp over them to keep them warm. It didn’t stop us using them, they were freshly dead after all.

I used to get a bit of overtime cutting necks. You’d back the truck up to ‘the line’. You’d pull the chooks out and hang them upside down in a W-shaped stainless-steel hanger. The legs were wedged into the valleys of the W. The Ws were attached to a moving cable, at about 500 mm intervals. You’d hang the chooks and the bloke beside you would pull the head down to stretch the neck and slit their throats. They’d then be plucked by the plucking machine. (No, I’m not going to pluckin’ go there.) Next the chook would be inspected. If it was unmarked it would go to packaging as a whole chook. If it was bruised or paralysed down one side due to a stroke, they’d cut off the bruising and paralysis and throw what was left in the Kentucky Fried Chicken basket. I haven’t touched that for forty-four years and now you know why.

I enjoyed my time on the chook trucks. No turds, all good blokes.

Study, drugs and rock ’n’ roll

I didn’t socialise much; I missed Rosa. I couldn’t get her out of my head. There were beautiful girls at NIDA, both in my year and in the first year. I went to plenty of parties on weekends.

I’d had my first joint the year before. Listening to ‘In-a-Gadda-da-Vida’ on the record player, stoned out of my tits on army grass, good shit brought back by the boys in ’Nam. Now, I couldn’t touch my toes, still can’t, I couldn’t sit cross-legged, still can’t. So I’m shit-faced, sitting cross-legged under a tie-dyed parachute. I have this girl’s fox fur in my lap, and I’m terribly upset about its demise. As the music continues my head dips towards the fox fur in my lap, and my face ends up in the fox fur. Next day I try to repeat the process straight, no way in the world, couldn’t do it. And this is from a bloke who shot the heads off heaps of foxes in Aramac. Drugs, man, strange shit, man.

I had my way with a number of women as a result of these parties. A couple of them were quite taken with me and wanted to get closer. My heart wasn’t in it – it was satisfying and the women were sweet people, but my heart belonged elsewhere.

I wanted to see Rosa but Mum got in my ear and suggested I concentrate on NIDA: I was only nineteen, I should concentrate on my career and then think about the rest of my life. Mum didn’t know Rosa at this stage and I don’t think she realised how much she meant to me. I didn’t realise how much she meant to me. Barry had befriended Rosa and I used him to tell me what she was up to.

One day Rosa was at the wrong end of a confrontation with this dickhead. Barry told me about it and I went up to the Epping pub with Brian to sort this bloke out. We found him at the pool table with a few others. Brian held me back.

‘Shit, he’s hanging with Abo Henry.’

‘Who’s Abo Henry?’

‘One of the toughest motherfuckers around.’

‘Well, I haven’t got a beef with him.’

I walked up to the bloke I wanted, introduced myself, told him why I was there and invited him to step outside. He looked at Abo, who said, ‘Not my fuckin’ problem.’

Realising he was on his own, he backed down, like most cowards do. I warned him what I’d do to him if he went within a mile of Rosa and left.

Abo Henry was an offsider of Neddy Smith’s; he featured in Blue Murder, played by Peter Phelps. Brian said he was sweating and that I was playing with dynamite. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.

They announced at NIDA that they’d like us to be the first graduates to do three years as opposed to two. This knocked me: I only wanted two, and I was keen to get out there. Everyone else went with three so I had no choice. I was hoping to get back with Rosa and I couldn’t see myself going another year without her.

I was really upset that I was the only student who hadn’t landed a decent part in any of the plays we were constantly doing. There were about five a year. I was getting pissy little character parts that I seemed to handle easily; I wasn’t being tested. A decent actor has got to know he can play the lead, hold a play together and make it work. My complaints were landing on deaf ears. I asked Clarky if it would help if I changed my name to Angela Punch or Andrew McFarlane, who had more than their share of leads. Don’t get me wrong, they were great actors then and are great actors now and wonderful people.

Clarky wasn’t amused: ‘Patience and tolerance is your middle name in this game, mate.’ Believe me he’s right, bloody good advice. He’s gotta moderate that bloody Tasmanian drawl, though.

I’m sitting here trying to remember second-year NIDA, in 1972: it’s a blur of acting classes and boring plays. The gay tutors were giving me gay roles and gay acting exercises because I was too butch for my own good and I needed to get in touch with my feminine side. I soon learnt that they were also fully intent on getting in touch with my masculine side. I was butch, I turned them on and I was a target. I’m not at all homophobic; I’d become friends with a number of gay guys at NIDA. Like all men, they’re sluts and wouldn’t take no for an answer. They tried it on a few times. One tutor was drunk at a party and grabbed me by the balls. The next instant he was unconscious on the floor. In my own defence, I described myself to them as a ‘chronic heterosexual’. From then on, we treated each other with mutual respect.

The year was coming to a close. I had planned to see if I could bring Rosa back into my life. Occasionally I’d run into her on the way to the railway station. She treated me kindly but civilly. She was deeply hurt by our break-up, and my plucked eyebrows didn’t help: she thought I’d turned gay. The NIDA fairies had talked me into plucking my eyebrows to play this poof in Antony and Cleopatra. I was far from a poof: she looked even more beautiful to me at eighteen than she had at sixteen.

Dad came to me and said he had some great news. An old mate from the Snowy Mountains days was working on the train tunnels just north of Townsville. It was a private line to bring copper from a mine about 200 k’s from the coast. He offered me a job drilling into the tunnel face on an air leg, a machine on a stand that supports a giant drill that bores a hole about 10 cm wide and a metre deep into the tunnel face. That hole and many others were then filled with dynamite and blown. Extract the blown rock and start again. The money was fantastic. The wooing of Rosa was regretfully put on hold.

I owned a 1962 Morris Major Elite. It cost me very little and was a piece of shit, so Dad fixed it. By the time I left for Townsville, he had it going like a clock. I drove to Townsville in a day and a half. I had Max’s work number, and I rang him when I was about half an hour away. He said he’d meet me near the cop shop in town. I drove up the hill towards the cop shop to be met by Max, Denis and another bloke, Billy Gregson, who became a lifelong friend.

It was exciting to be back with my closest mates on earth. We’d missed each other. I celebrated by chucking a screaming U-ey in front of the cop shop. I finished the manoeuvre by parking expertly opposite them. They were impressed; the cops weren’t impressed. The boys raced across the road to greet me. The cops walked across the road to book me.

Max was already working as a draftsman in town, and Bill and Denis were at teachers’ college. Bill reckoned my timing was good, because he was looking for a house to rent and I could stay there. So I went with him in search of a house almost straight away. We quickly found a rambling Queenslander in Hale Street, a house on a hill overlooking the town. Boy, did we have fun. I was twenty, I was fit; NIDA kept me very fit. Fit enough to live on a diet of beer for the next three months. The parties were outrageous. Bill was laying any woman he could get his hands on. I didn’t lay anyone, didn’t want too. I was lovesick for a woman I’d walked away from because of NIDA. Idiot!

So I got drunk, very drunk. I got into fights, including a memorable one with Billy. Bill was standing – no – swaying with his legs a long way apart in a desperate effort to stay upright. I was standing at the top of the stairs teasing him. I got him worked up.

‘I’ve had e-fuckin-nough of you, Jarratt, get down here and put ya fuckin’ hands up, come on, have a go, I’ll show you how to fuckin’ fight!’

Bill was only 5 foot 7, but he was a feisty little bastard. I just stood there laughing at him, knowing that would make him angrier. The more I laughed, the more he yelled and the funnier he became and I laughed some more. I couldn’t take it any more, my guts were aching and I’d laughed so hard I had tears running down my face. So I went downstairs to clock him in order to shut him up. I didn’t have to; he took a giant swing and missed by about 2 metres. The momentum spun him to the ground, upon which he went into a drunken coma and made that spot his bed for the night.

Another party night, I was quite drunk and this monster of a bloke, about 6 foot 4 and two pick handles across the shoulders, was swanning around full of his own importance. I decided to give him a bit of lip.

‘Hey King Kong, you’ve had a few, why don’t you stay the night, climb up that mango tree and go to sleep.’

Everyone laughed and I went back inside for another beer.

Max came into the kitchen looking worried. ‘That big bastard’s mad as hell, he wants to fight you.’

‘Jesus, he’ll kill me.’

‘Yup.’

I came up with a plan and I took Max through it. Next thing I’ve got Geoffrey John and Billy holding me back, I’m going nuts at the front doorway and allowing a lot of spit to come out while I’m ranting. ‘Let me go, let me fuckin’ go, I’ll tear his overgrown fuckin’ head off, I’ll rip his fuckin’ eyes out,’ etc.

Max was in front of me, giving the big guy some advice. ‘Just go, mate, get out of here, he’s a pro boxer and he just goes berserk, just get outta here, mate.’

The big bloke was wide-eyed and slightly pale at my maniacal visage and took off. He drove away and we fell about laughing. Acting comes in handy sometimes.

I’ve gotta tell you this yarn, apropos to nothing, apart from the fact it’ll annoy the shit out of Bill when he reads this. A bunch of us, mainly girls, were sitting up one end of a verandah. Up the other end sitting on a bench with one leg up and his elbow resting on his knee was Billy, holding forth with what he thought was a funny story as he was getting plenty of laughs. He was wearing stubbie shorts, and you could see along his inner thigh, up the leg of his shorts. His right knacker had slipped out of his jocks and a fly was doing slow circles on it. All eyes were on it, you couldn’t look elsewhere. It slowly dawned on Bill that he was getting laughs in strange spaces, and then he noticed where our stares were heading. He slowly felt down and his hand discovered the one lunger hanging out of his shorts. You’ve gotta hand it to Bill, he’s a good sport and saw the funny side straight up. He laughed. ‘You bastards, you fuckin’ bastards. I need a beer.’

The job in the tunnel was interesting, but really hard work. There were about ten air legs going at once, bloody noisy. It took all morning to drill, then we’d have lunch. Another team would set the explosives to blow the face. The rocks were loaded onto a purpose-built truck and out of the tunnel they went, and back into the tunnel we’d go to start more drilling. This was okay, and after a week I was getting used to it.

The gang consisted of ten Yugoslavs, a Kiwi and me. The boss was also Yugoslav. He gave his orders in English, except once. We were working away and he screamed out something in Croatian. All the Yugoslavs left immediately. A couple of beats later me and the Kiwi ran. As we ran out, a part of the tunnel’s roof collapsed. The dust surrounded us. We got outside and I said to the Kiwi, ‘I’m outta here.’

I explained my predicament to the boss and I got a job on the outside track build as a chainman, a surveyor’s assistant. I worked outside and ended up with a beautiful tan. It was easy work holding a staff for the surveyor. I was surrounded by heavy machinery building the railway. Bulldozers, scrapers and graders. The scraper drivers used to chase me and almost run me over, scary bastards. The most amazing thing I saw on that job was a big D9 dozer on top of a major cutting, and hanging off the side of it held by massive chains was a grader. The grader was grading the face of the cutting at a precarious angle. Highly illegal and scary to watch. Those were the days: no yellow danger vests or hard hats working in the open in those days.

I had my eye on an EJ station wagon, but I needed to sell my Morris first. I had New South Wales registration so nobody wanted to buy it. Dad had fully insured it for me, so I got an idea. One Saturday I drove around Townsville looking for an accident. I was driving past the hospital and this guy on my left drove out of the hospital in front of me, without looking. I sped up and just before I hit him, I hit the brakes and ploughed into his front mudguard. I hit him so hard, the back of my back seat came off and hit me in the back of the head. Didn’t do me any damage except an instant headache.

I got out of the car and I was really pleased with how crunched the front end was – a write-off for sure. Then the karma. The guy got out of his car very apologetic. He explained how his wife was dying of cancer and he wasn’t thinking straight. I got the EJ but I never felt right about it and I was pleased to sell it a year later.

Graduating into the real world

I was heading back to Sydney. But a very important event was happening along the way. Nial was marrying the love of his life, Sally – Sal Pal – at Sal’s parents’ place on the Gold Coast. I think I can count the number of my true female friends on one hand, and Sal is definitely one of them. Nial is a very lucky man, batting well above his average. Sal is one hell of a good woman.

I was honoured to be Nial’s best man. I’ve won acting awards, I’ve won Logies, but they don’t even come close. The look in their eyes and the love in their hearts that day made me ask myself, What am I doing!?

I went home to Epping. It was my first day back at NIDA. I sat in my car, knowing Rosa had to come past me to get to the station.

I saw her from afar. It was summer and she was wearing a beautiful dress. She seemed to be walking in slow motion. She came into focus and she was breathtaking. Her olive skin was tanned, her perfect Italian face shone. She walked straight past.

I got out of the car. ‘Hey Rosa!’

She spun around and looked at me with utter surprise. After a beat, ‘Hi.’

‘Hi, would you like a lift? I virtually drive past your work.’

After what felt like a couple of years, she said quietly, ‘Okay.’ She got in the car and off we went. We kicked off with small talk, and by the time we got to about Lane Cove I was gabbling nervously about my time in Townsville.

Rosa’s shy, but she also likes to get to the point. ‘Why did you pick me up this morning?’

‘Why?’

‘Yes, why?’

Pause, pause, pause. ‘Because I love you and I miss you and I can’t get you out of my head.’

‘Do you know the hell I went through when you left me?’

‘I don’t, but if it helps I’ve been through hell without you too.’

‘Really, I’d never have guessed.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I hope so.’

We sat in silence for a while. By this time I was driving over the Harbour Bridge. Suddenly, almost out of nowhere, I said something I didn’t seem to have control over. It was almost my inner self saying something my stupid outer self couldn’t comprehend. I found myself saying, ‘Will you marry me?’

Rosa leapt across the bench seat to my side, wrapped herself around my left arm and said, ‘Yes!’

My soul leapt to heaven and back.

Before I popped the question, I’d sat there looking at her thinking, This stunning woman is most assuredly going out with a tall, dark, handsome executive who drives a Porsche and owns an apartment in town. I thought I’d have a snowflake’s chance in hell of getting Rosa back in my life. It turned out she really loved me too.

Lucky me.

Back at NIDA, back into the grind. To be honest, I know I didn’t mind the work I was doing, but I can’t remember much of the first half of that year. I wanted to get out into the real acting world.

Something strange was emerging. Two Australian films went through the roof: Alvin Purple and The Adventures of Barry McKenzie. Both crass ocker films, one a sex romp, the other a booze romp. NIDA hated them, I loved them. Another film that didn’t do so well but eventually became iconic was Wake in Fright. We took Mum, she walked out. It was like a piece of Aramac, a brilliant film. Mum said it was tough enough living there without reliving it in the cinema.

I started thinking about being in movies for the first time. My timing was perfect. If the renaissance of the film industry hadn’t happened, the only alternative for me would’ve been theatre. I really don’t think I would have hung in, doing play after play; it’s not me. I probably would have become a singer in a rock band. If you haven’t heard my single ‘Killer in Me’ from the film StalkHer yet, YouTube it. I can sing pretty well for an old bloke.

Rosa made it clear to her parents that she was going out with her fiancé like a normal Australian couple. Charlie wasn’t too keen. Rosa’s Mum, Carmela, knew Rosa meant business. She was a typical subservient Sicilian wife, but at times in her life she stood her ground for herself and especially her daughters. She stood up to Charlie and got through to him. So Rosa was allowed to be ‘normal’ with me. When Rosa told Charlie I was going to be an actor, he immediately said no. Rosa quickly threw in, ‘And a qualified English teacher.’ This made the difference.

It was the summer of 1973. My mate Herbie from Townsville had moved to Sydney. He had a job as a food technician and he was responsible for the contents of fruit juice in a juice bottling company. He slept in the same room as me in the family home in Epping. He snored and I would often stuff his dirty socks in his mouth through frustration. One night I woke and he’d pulled the blind up and he was standing on his bed.

I said, ‘What are doing?’

‘I think a spaceship has landed.

I raced over to have a look. Nothing, just streetlights strangely flickering. It turned out there was an earth tremor, I slept through it. Herbie jumped up and looked out. He thought the trembling was the effect of a spaceship landing outside. We were smoking a lot of weed in those days. ’Nough said.

Speaking of weed. A bunch of us were smoking joints in our lounge room. Dad opened the door, knowing what was happening. He looked at me and said, ‘It’s called dope, son, it’s not called intelligent.’ Funny bastard.

Herb, Brian and I loved to bodysurf. Every weekend we’d drive to the Northern Beaches. We all had girlfriends, so we went in different cars. I had my EJ station wagon and I still had the mattress Mum made me for the FC panel van. Off we’d go for a surf. Rosa was magnificent in her bikini.

In the afternoon we’d walk to our cars, tingling from being soaked in Pacific salt. Feeling satisfied and invigorated from catching waves and canoodling on beach towels, we’d reluctantly head home. Well, Rosa and I didn’t, maybe the others did. We went for a cruise down some beautiful little trails in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, where we found a picturesque little glade on a slight hill just off the trail. It was a grassy natural circular shape, under a magnificent tree with outstretched branches covered in lush green leaves. It was completely private. I parked my EJ Holden station wagon onto our little piece of heaven. We looked down past a sea of eucalypt forest to the vast Pacific Ocean. Memories, ah.

Rosa and I didn’t have much money. She was on an apprentice hairdressing wage and I had money from two cleaning jobs. The first was cleaning the Ugg Boot factory in Epping with Mum, Barry and Herbie: 5 a.m. start, 8 a.m. finish, five days a week. Then Herb went to his juice-making job and I went to NIDA. We used to have the radio up loud and we’d all sing and dance and clean. Rob Stewart’s ‘Maggie May’ was number one. What a classic.

My other job was cleaning a hat factory in Surry Hills three nights a week. I hated it. Poor old Mum had to fill in when I had NIDA plays to do on the odd Friday night.

Out of our pathetic wages, Rosa and I managed to go to movies, eat out occasionally and go to parties, and she spent too much money buying me trendy clothes. She loves buying clothes. She also designed her own wedding ring. I put a small diamond on it. She secretly took it back and paid for a larger one. Somehow we got by.

I went to do the manly thing and officially ask for Rosa’s hand in marriage. Charlie was only 5 foot 6, but he was more solid and more muscular than my father, which is saying something. He was 2 inches shorter than Dad and he weighed the same. His nickname at work was ‘Little Big Man’ and he was strikingly good-looking. Rosa took after him in the looks department.

One time a biker, a big 6 foot 2 arsehole, started work on Charlie’s gang. He got off the truck, walked across to a park, lit a smoke and refused to work. Charlie went and argued with him about it. There was a low-lying fence between them. In the end, Charlie lost it when the big guy started calling Charlie a wog, laced with very nasty language. Charlie grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, picked him up bodily over the fence and slammed him into the dirt on the other side. He looked at Charlie in complete shock. Charlie said, ‘You work!’ and he did. He left that afternoon.

We all met in the Miano dining room, Charlie, Carmela, Rosa and me. I gathered up all my courage and said to Charlie, ‘I’m in love with Rosa and I would like your permission to take her hand in marriage.’

Pause. ‘I dow know.’

‘Papa!’

‘I dow know! I spose so…why you ask me?’

Silence.

‘You wanna coffee? Make him a coffee! How’s your mudda and fadda?’

And that was it.

The only other time he seriously spoke to me sent chills up my spine. We we’re both sitting in the dining room drinking his homemade wine, this long skinny boy and this short block of concrete.

He said, ‘Hey Johnny, I thought I tell you…I’m not in da Mafia.’

I was feeling very awkward and embarrassed. ‘Ah, that’s all right, Charlie, I didn’t think you’d be in the Mafia.’

‘Hey Johnny, don’t need da Mafia.’

I sat there, silently shitting myself, thinking, Right, I get it, look after his daughter, if you don’t he’ll crush you into a tennis ball and throw you away.