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THE GRASS IS BROWN ON BOTH SIDES OF THE FENCE

HOMICIDE
part 2

Homicide director Igor Auzins had been out on a yacht with an actor from another of the Crawford’s Police shows. They were way off shore when Igor asked the actor why he had built the yacht. The actor’s explanation was that the end of the world was coming, and he would be taking his craft into the Bermuda triangle, because that’s where the space ships would be picking the people up from. When I asked the Director what his reply was he said, ‘I didn’t say anything, but for the rest of the afternoon I just kept looking at the shore in the distance, and wishing I was on it.’

Fame. I was to find out what that is. It’s when you go somewhere you have never been before and people know who you are. That’s fun and tickles your ego for a while, and then it rapidly becomes a pain. To deal with it, I would, at the expense of my own self, add even more layers on top of what it was that I thought was expected of me.

You often hear of people changing when they get famous. That is true of some. But I also know that it’s not you, but people’s attitude towards you, that changes.

On spasmodic Saturday afternoons, I used to play darts at the Kew Hotel. I was hopeless at the quick maths that was required, but tolerated because I threw a fairly mean dart. I didn’t know what the other players did for a living and they didn’t know what I did. It was simply about the Darts. When my episodes started to be screened on air, one of the dartists, realising that I was on Television, asked me to come home so I could meet his family. When I politely declined, he lashed out, saying that it hadn’t taken me long to get up myself. No more occasional darts on a Saturday. Lots of things change quickly when you are in the public eye.

The week after I went to air Leonard Teale, who had been in Homicide for eight years, resigned. I don’t think it was necessarily because I had ruined his perception of what the show should be. But my paranoia about other issues at this time, certainly took time out to consider it. Then Alwyn gave his notice as well, and George was to follow with his a little later. Leaving me, at three months, the longest running member of a show that had been in production for nine years. It felt like they had decided to desert a sinking ship that I was somehow responsible for. It didn’t do much for the tenuous grip I had on my own self worth, let me tell you. Then one lunchtime I overheard Alwyn and Leonard talking.

Alwyn: ‘Len. You know that this is all about ten dollars, don’t you?’
Len: ‘I know.’

I gathered that whatever had been negotiated between them and Crawford’s contract-wise, had come down to a sticking point of ten dollars. Ten dollars would get you a lot more for your buck back then. At this particular time, my weekly wage for being in Homicide was $250. But even so, for both parties not to give way over a paltry ten dollars seems ludicrous now.

But everyone stuck to their guns and it was good bye to Alwyn and Len, and hello to Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell (1923 – 2009), who came back from England to play the Homicide Squad’s head honcho. John Stanton replaced Leonard Teale and a little later Don Barker replaced George Mallaby. John Stanton wasn’t happy with some aspects of working at Crawford’s and he left within a year, to be replaced by Dennis Grosvenor. Homicide had really been shaken up, and although having the advantage of now being shot on film and in colour, it had dipped in the all-important ratings.

Had you replaced so many actors in such a short time in the present climate, it would be the immediate death of any show. To change a single actor, even if it is for the better, requires great planning and delicacy and is always extremely risky, as any producer will tell you.

However, the reshuffle of actors and Production Staff helped produce some terrific episodes. Working with Charles Tingwell immediately upped my game, and as I have always said, I learnt more about film acting from working with Bud than anyone before or since.

That didn’t mean that the Homicide cast always got along - we were a diverse bunch. But what did unite us was the show itself.

We had a great crew. Scripts varied, but for the most part held a high standard.
Even I was tapped for my opinions. Henry Crawford took me into a screening room to show me the newly cast Don Barker’s opening credit. Afterwards he asked me what was wrong with it. I instantly said, ‘He should be eating a sandwich.’ It was refilmed and the sandwich was in.

Ted Ogden, another producer on the show, came up to me seditiously and asked me if I had any ideas about how John Stanton should leave the show. I suggested, ‘Paraplegic?’ Ted thought that was a great idea.

John’s last shot in the series was of him in callipers, falling over and realising he would never walk again.

By this time, I had managed to alienate myself from the Channel 7 publicity machine, which was run by Eileen O’Shea. A powerful woman who liked to get her own way. Fair enough…it’s a requirement that comes with that position. However, I upset her apple cart when I baulked at one of her brainwaves. We were filming at the Melbourne Docks. Her idea - she wanted me to pretend that I had been knocked out, and to fall as if unconscious, off the wharf and into the water. John Stanton would then dive in and save me. As there would be plenty of photos and film to cover this mocked up incident, it was felt that it would make the front page of the daily newspapers. When I said to Eileen that we couldn’t do that because it would be unethical, she responded by saying that, no one would know and that it would be great publicity. I said that it was wrong and there was no way I would do it.
Eileen was not pleased and my refusal was seen as insubordination. I would like to say that I didn’t care what she thought, but I did. Once again, I knew that I had added fuel to my petulant and uncooperative reputation. But I wouldn’t do what she wanted then, and I wouldn’t do it now. To turn fiction around, to be represented as the truth like that, is repugnant to me. Yeah, I know, but even a one-time thief can have standards.
My relationship with the publicity machine was never comfortable. I had a shirt that the publicity woman at Crawford’s really liked. So much so, she said that if I gave it to her, then she would see that my face would be on the cover of TV Week. My ego would have loved to be on the cover of TV Week, but here was another proposal that somehow stank to high heaven. I kept the shirt. Never did that cover. All the others - a lot - but never TV Week.
Another publicity call - this one a bloody nuisance. It was arranged for a Tuesday night, and would involve photographs of Mary Hardy and myself, getting Kung Fu lessons from some visiting Chinese martial arts hot shot.

Mary co-hosted the Penthouse Club, a very popular tonight show. I was out of sorts because Homicide went to air on Tuesday nights and in those days, long before the advent of video recorders, it was the only opportunity to see the show before it disappeared into the ether.

So, I’m not exactly a laugh a minute when Eileen O’Shea picks me up in the taxi. Then we pick up Mary Hardy, who I had never met. Mary, I rapidly find out, is hyperactive with a mouth like a spring-loaded trap that never stops talking. She is very funny, but no one got a word in for the whole trip. I didn’t mind, as there was nothing I wanted to contribute had there been a space. But listening to the machine gun of words spilling out of Mary, I quickly came to the conclusion that her grip on reality was even more tenuous than mine. There was some relief for me in the fact that here was someone in worse shape than I was. The photo shoot was silly - most of them were. When it was over, Mary held court again for the drive back to town. Exhausted from listening, it was a relief to get home. I then made a point of watching Mary hosting the Penthouse Club. She was very funny and clever, and it was hard to see the fragility that I now knew was just under the surface. There was a song out around this time that had the lyrics, ‘Where do you go to my lovely when you’re alone in your bed.’ I wondered that about Mary. In 1985, she answered that question by sitting in a bath and blowing her head off with a shotgun.

Show business has a dark side and Crawford’s definitely had its fair share. A director on Homicide committed suicide by walking between the rails into the path of an oncoming train. An assistant cameraman was hit and killed by a car that lost control during the filming of a stunt. There was only a small reference to the incident in an afternoon paper and that was it. To try and hide something like that from the Paparazzi of today would be impossible. But back in the 70’s, while there was caution, there was no real regard to safety.

Ambulances that were on duty to cover accidents on the state’s highways, were used in scenes that required their communication radio controls to be turned off, as their frequency interfered with the sound being recorded. Unprotected Cameramen were known to lie across bonnets of fast moving cars. Unthinkable now. Stuntmen on Homicide injured themselves as often as not by taking unnecessary risks. All par for the course back then. You could be a stuntman simply by calling yourself one, and that left the door open to its share of idiots. It was through death and injuries that this was to change. Qualifications for risking life and limb were about to come under scrutiny and strict regulations would ensue

Over the next eighteen months, as the roller coaster ride of the never-ending episodes churned away, my mood swings increased and became more diverse. Depression would slide over me like a glove. My see-sawing disposition affected my relationship to the extent that my partner, wanting her own space, went to England. I subsequently formed another relationship, but as I was in no shape to be with myself, let alone someone else, it didn’t last.

I knew something was wrong, but I was not able to address the problem, because I didn’t know the what’s and why’s of what was happening to me. ‘How do you go forward when you don’t know which way you’re facing’.

In hindsight, it’s easy. Not only am I pretending to be someone I’m not on film, I’ve other facades as well. One for the public, one for publicity, and these I wear when warranted. What was missing was me. I had slowly but surely whittled myself away during my time in Homicide. Who the fuck am I? Who was I?

I didn’t have a clue back then, but with hindsight I realise that I was a series of facades that I shuffled like cards, to try and cover the fact that there was no one at the helm anymore.

I now had a sense that I was headed for trouble. But being a lead in a TV series, and knowing that these roles don’t come along every day of the week, I could appreciate that this was a rare opportunity to save some serious money for an uncertain future.

Occasionally my hypertension would slide to a feeling of calm. It came quickly, without rhyme or reason, and was not governed by any particular mood. The feeling is the predecessor to a message rather than a voice. Its context telling me ‘this is not where you want to be’. Its message is from a friend, and it’s offering me advice that I know is in my best interests to heed. But as quickly as it comes, it would go, taking its relevance with it. This happened to me twice during my time in Homicide. The first was on my very first day of filming and really surprised me, because I was so buoyant about being lucky enough to have got the part. ‘This is not where you want to be,’ was being passed on to me by someone or something that appeared to know me better than I did. The second time it happened was just as out of the blue, and occurred when I was sitting on location having a pleasant lunch in the sun.

The third and last time was in America twenty-five years later, and this time it was relevant to the situation. Its intrusion was welcome and when it faded it didn’t leave me bewildered. Quite the reverse, this time its relevance was to stay with me, because I knew who it was that was looking after my interests. It was me.

But back in the seventies – probably because it came from a source that was knowing and calm and authoritative – I never suspected that it could be me.

I would go for long drives in my new white Datsun 240z sports car. Rather than enjoying these drives, I would for no reason, find myself crying behind the wheel. Other times I would pull to the side of a country road, crawl into the hatch back and pull a blanket over me and sleep. Had George Mallaby still been around, I’m sure he would have seen what was starting to become obvious to others. I was losing the plot. But because I had a job to do called Homicide, and I didn’t want to stuff that up, I continued to cover my true feelings up

One Homicide episode had to be shot every six days and that meant everyone had to be on deck and thinking on their feet. The Homicide crew were a brilliant team. A well-oiled machine that had none of the conveniences of today’s technologies.

 

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