Chapter 30: Talking to newsmakers

Celebrities -- sometimes only briefly -- who were Australian or popular Down Under

This is a continuation of the period, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s, when I interviewed celebrities with a story to tell of interest to Australians and New Zealanders. The previous chapter was about entertainers who became friends. I also had a good working relationship with people such as the Aussie comedian Barry Humphries. This is recounted in CHAPTER 22. As with previous chapters, much of the information is drawn from diaries and letters sent to my family in Australia and kept by my mother, Rena.

Let’s start with this from a family letter dated January 15, 1969…

Well, it’s been reasonably busy the last week. The highlight I guess was an exclusive interview I did with “Miss World”, Penny Plummer of Sydney. I’ve sold it to both 3AW and 2GB, so with their various network tie-ups the tape will be carried by about 30 radio stations, with a further 10 or so getting a scripted story. The interview was designed for both news and general programming. I was quite impressed by Penny. She's very natural (not at all like the American-type beauty queen) and I’m sure she’s a good advertisement for Australia. Incidentally, Penny was a librarian in Sydney. Before the interview we were talking about the job and I expressed the view (no doubt held by my younger librarian sister Alison) that for the qualifications required it was a grossly underpaid profession. She disagreed, saying that it was “quite easy to earn £60 a week after a few years training”. It seems Alison just doesn’t have the right connections!

This is from a letter dated February 9, 1969…

A few days ago, I was speaking to the Australian comedian, Bill Kerr, who was best known as Tony Hancock’s side kick in the long-running radio version of Hancock’s Half Hour. Bill was born in South Africa to Australian entertainers, but grew up in Wagga Wagga, a bush town in New South Wales. His accent couldn’t have been more Australian. It was as though he had left Wagga Wagga the day before. We spent about half-an-hour on the phone ear-bashing about Good Old Aussie. Bill was delighted to be speaking to someone who had worked in such places as Wycheproof and Quambatook and we agreed that at some time in the near future we would get together so that I could record an interview. [We met and recorded an interview, but I no longer have it.]

This is from the letter dated February 24, 1969…

We had an interesting time yesterday afternoon. We went to the BBC TV Centre where I interviewed Ray Barrett — Peter Thornton of “The Troubleshooters”. He was very good, and it was probably the best interview I’ve done. He invited us to watch rehearsals, and Rosemary got quite a thrill to meet and talk to Philip Latham who plays the part of Willy Izard in the series. We were especially interested because “The Troubleshooters” is our favourite TV show after “Softly Softly”.

More on Ray Barrett and the recording of an interview I did with him is on my blog. In it, he talked about the differences between radio in Australia and the United Kingdom and what it was like being Tarzan and many other characters in Australian radio serials. It can be found HERE.

This next episode is based on a letter dated April 21, 1969…

At the weekend I had my first meeting with a genuine spy — or to be precise — an ex counter-spy And I learned a valuable lesson: Be careful. The spy was Dr Michael Bialoguski, the chap who had hired London’s Royal Albert Hall and the New Symphonia Orchestra to prove that he has the ability to conduct. He was a war-time refugee from Poland, a classically trained violinist and a qualified medical practitioner.

Bialoguski had worked part-time as an undercover agent of the Australian Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and played a key role in the defection of the Soviet spies Vladimir and Evdokia Petrov who’d been posing as diplomats in Canberra.

When I arranged the interview by phone it struck me that he was a wee bit over-anxious to be on the wireless, but I put it down to a love and need for publicity. But it turned out to be more a love of money. When I arrived at his house after a two-hour multi-train journey 25 miles across London I found that I was to be charged for the interview. Ten pounds was suggested. It was, of course, no go as I didn’t pay for interviews, least of all when I was providing the interviewee with generous publicity. After 15 minutes of fruitless haggling, I packed my gear and made the long trip home — a total waste of a Saturday afternoon.

And there is this from a letter dated April 26, 1969…

The Bialoguski Affair, Episode Two: For the hell of it, I applied to his agent for press tickets to the concert. I talked my way around the question of how the interview had gone, and lo and behold! yesterday two tickets for the best seats (42 shillings each) arrived in the mail. This means I just about come out even for the wasted day.

And this from a letter dated May 4, 1969…

The Bialoguski Affair, continued: As I told you, unbeknown to My Friend the Spy, his agent supplied us with two tickets to the concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Well, we found ourselves in marvellous, roomy seats just 20 yards from the orchestra. It turned out to be the most enjoyable concert we’ve attended at the Albert Hall. I’m quite conscience-stricken and intend writing to the doctor to wish him the best! [I can’t remember if I ever did.]

In a letter dated May 17, 1969…

I interview Judith Durham, formerly of the Seekers, last week. She impressed me a great deal. She did an excellent interview - very natural. [Sadly I don’t have a copy of the interview or the articles I wrote.]

This is from a letter dated June 1, 1969…

Last Wednesday, I began arrangements to interview Mick Jagger about this ridiculous business of him playing Ned Kelly. An hour after I spoke to his office, the police raided him. The tipping here is that he’ll be sent to jail because of his prior conviction. So, it will be bye-bye “Ned” Jagger and bye-bye interview. [Jagger was convicted of possessing illegal drugs, but was released after spending one night in prison. The hoped-for interview never happened.]

This is from a letter dated June 28, 1969…

Did an interview this week with Keith Potger, formerly of the “Seekers”. He's formed another group called “The New Seekers”. It’s the second time I’ve interviewed him, but he doesn’t impress me all that much. Not a patch on the personality of Judith Durham.

A video of The Seekers recording their hit “I’ll Never Find Another You” is HERE.

From a letter dated August 26, 1969…

Do you remember Ruth (Farren-Price) Nye, the pianist and former ABC-TV hostess? Well I interviewed her the other day about a concert she’s giving in London next month. She will premiere a lost Beethoven sonata. She was, without doubt, the best hostess ABC-TV has ever had, and she was just the same to meet. Although I must admit I expected to find her in better surroundings than I did. She and her husband, Ross Nye, live in a flat above her husband’s stables. (He runs a riding school on Hyde Park). The smell of horse manure was terrible. I don’t know how she stood it.

Ruth first came to my attention when TV was launched in Australia in 1956. In those days, the ABC employed glamourous women to do on-screen introductions to the next program. Ruth was one of them, but her fame was established later as a classical concert pianist. In addition to the interview I did with her, I saw her and Ross a number of times when I collected bags of horse manure which they were happy to give us for our garden compost heaps.

Ruth was later appointed a professor of music at the Royal College of Music in London and became an MBE (Member of the British Empire) awarded to her at Buckingham Palace by the-then Prince Charles in October 2007.

From a letter dated April 6, 1970…

I did an interview the other day with a bloody lion charging about in the room. The lion is owned by a couple of camp Australians who co-manage an antique furniture store called “Sophisticats”. The lion is just seven months old but weighs about nine stone [57 kg]. The chap I interviewed wore snake-skin high heeled boots and had tips in his hair but the interview came out well. He talked about having to take out insurance on the lion and would get a no claims bonus if the animal didn’t attack anyone.

Unfortunately I no longer have a copy of the recording I made or any of the newspapers that printed my article, but I think the interview was done with John Rendall. He and his business partner Anthony “Ace” Bourke bought the lion when it was a cub from Harrods, back when it had a department selling exotic animals. They named it Christian. When it became an adult and too difficult to handle, they took it to Kenya and released it into the wild in the Lora National Park .

It is extraordinary that John and “Ace” were able to have the lion wandering around the shop and would sometimes take it out for a drive around London in the back seat of their open-top Mercedes. I was assured that it was kept well fed so that it didn’t need to consume John or Ace or the customers — or journalists. The Daily Mail did a feature on the pet lion and its two owners and it can be found HERE.

From a letter date April 12, 1970…

I did an interview this week with Frank Ifield who is shortly off to America for appearances on TV and in Las Vegas. I ended up having to make an 80-mile trip to a place south of London to get the interview, but I think it will be worth it. I got two pieces for 3AW and have written a long “Bruce Conway” article for TV Week. Frank was staying with his film producer-manager who has this 500-year-old mansion set in 25 acres of land. The house was fabulous and was once owned by Baden-Powell. The manager’s wife picked me up from the station in a Ferrari and Frank drove me back in his Rolls Royce. Frank, as far as could be established in a two-hour chat, seemed a nice chap with no fancy ideas about himself.

Here is one of the articles I wrote for TV Week after meeting Frank…

From a letter dated May 9, 1970…

Those who have read Morris West’s books, in particular “The Devil’s Advocate”, will be interested to know that I’m interviewing him on Wednesday about his new play which opens shortly in London. It’s going to be a bit of a rushed interview because he is so tied up preparing for the play. I don’t imagine I’ll have much time to make any reasonable assessment of him. I saw him interviewed on TV a few months back and he seemed pretty colourless. On Monday I’m interviewing the Australian actress Diane Cilento who is in private life Mrs Sean Connery. I’m doing the interview at her home now far from our flat. I’m interested to see what sort of place she has. I don’t think she and Sean will be short of a quid.

This is from a letter dated May 18, 1970…

As planned, I interviewed Diane Cilento at her mansion overlooking a lovely park about three miles from us. She seemed very nice (from her book, she sounded pretty tough) and we chatted away for an hour-and-a-half. Unfortunately, her husband, Sean Connery, didn’t seem to be about the place, so I missed seeing him. The only titbits I can pass on is that he leaves his golf clubs in the toilet; that the toilet is painted black; that Diane’s kitchen was an absolute mess; and that in contrast to a well made up face and a nicely kept figure she has dishwasher hands. Don’t say I’m not observant. Some people, of course, would say I was just plain nosy.

The purpose of the interview was to talk about Diane’s book Hybrid. Despite her high public profile, it appears that the book didn’t do well. It could be that being a fine actress doesn’t make you a fine writer. She and Sean Connery later divorced and she died of cancer in Cairns, Australia, in 2011.

I interviewed Morris West a couple of days later, but this was very hurried because he was rushing around like a bee in a bottle making final preparations for his play. He seemed very intense, but pleasant enough.

There’s no mention of a play by Morris around that time. Perhaps it never made it onto the stage or was so short-lived it was forgotten. One thing I did learn was that he hand-wrote all his books and passed them over to a woman to be typed. I also saw that he laid out each chapter on cardboard stiffeners from his shirts when they were returned from his laundry.

Morris, who was born in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda, returned to Australia in 1982 and died in Clarefield, New South Wales, in 1999 aged 83.

A sharp change of tone in this extract from a letter dated August 9, 1970…

I am, at the moment, involved in one of my more interesting journalistic assignments. I’ve been commissioned by [the tabloid weekly] Melbourne Truth to do a feature on a Melbourne stripper Zsa Zsa who is doing the London striptease circuit. And before you all throw your hands up in horror and wonder what Rosemary thinks of me doing such a thing, let me tell you that she was the one to got the tip-­off and suggested I offer the story to Truth. This I did, and I received a “yes please” cable in reply.

On Friday, I went along to one of the shows featuring Zsa Zsa and her friend Bonita [I must have known their real names, but have forgotten them]. It was no kidstuff with G-strings and jewelled nipples. It was right down to the buff for each of the dozen or so girls. I would be less than human if I tried to kid myself that the first couple of acts weren’t eye-popping, but after that the show got progressively more and more boring. I mean, a 1¾ hour non-stop parade of unadorned (often not very attractive) womanhood is enough to satisfy even the most ardent voyeur.

Here’s the front page introduction one of the stories published by Melbourne Truth on August 29, 1979…

From a following letter on August 21, 1970…

Well, I finally finished the Truth story on Zsa Zsa, the stripper. It turned into a marathon effort, with the interviews, writing and photo sessions spread over five days, and I only hope it all proves to be worth while. Zsa Zsa, you may be interested to learn, turned out to be both intelligent and lucid. I rather suspect that in her time she has been in spots of bother, but she was far less tough than some of the other people I’ve met in the more respectable branches of entertainment.

And an extract from a letter to the family dated September 2, 1970…

Well, after seeing last week’s Truth I suppose you have given me away. I very briefly saw a copy of the first edition but didn’t have time to study it too closely. They embellished the story somewhat. For instance, the story said that Zsa Zsa’s boy was “dangerously ill”. I never wrote that, nor is it true. They had also dug a lot of stuff from their files about the operation to improve her bustline. Some of the photos were from their files. I took the one of Zsa Zsa that was used on the front page. I also supplied, but didn’t take, the one of her son. I took one of Zsa Zsa (dressed) in the street, but this wasn’t used. I supposed the fact that she was dressed put Truth off. Now I’ll be interested to see how much I will be paid. Two full inside pages, plus a third of the front page should be worth a cent or two. [I can’t remember what I was paid.]

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More interviews with celebrities soon, but no nudity!