The Bastard from the Bush: An Australian Life

by Jarratt, John

  I’ve lost many uncles, aunties, cousins, parents, grandparents and friends. I’ve loved them all and I apologise for not mentioning and paying respects to them all here. As Dad would say, ‘We’ve got relatives like ducks on the swamp.’ To all my beloved ducks, God bless you.

  The American film market

  Simon and I flew into LAX for the American Film Market on 4 November 2008, the day Obama was elected. How cool is that? We went to Santa Monica and the place was going nuts. I walked along the pier and the coolest of black dudes was on guitar. He was about fifty, I reckon, and he sang the blues extraordinarily well. I gave him $5 and asked him to pick a song from his list he wanted to sing to celebrate Black President’s Day. He chose ‘Stand by Me’, perfect. I did my best whitefella dance moves, I was out there in an Elaine from Seinfeld kind of dance way. I was getting attention but I didn’t give a flying fuck. Others started to join us and it got magnificently out of hand. Man, could that guy sing!

  Simon and I worked our butts off. We kicked down the door of every sales agent and distributor we could. After a week, we came home empty-handed. The GFC had kicked in and illegal downloads had arrived like a plague of locusts tearing the guts out of the home entertainment sector. It was by far the worst AFM on record, and our timing to make our first feature couldn’t have been worse.

  Simon and I were now doing it tough financially. We had given our all to Savages and we’d worked flat-out with no pay. Simon had walked away from a high-paying job in the advertising world, he had living expenses and two kids from a previous marriage to support and put through a private school. Simon had given it his best shot; he went broke over it and had to go back to advertising land to get his family back on track. I wish him well; I have plenty of fond memories above and beyond our struggle.

  Noosa

  I had to sell the three houses in Murwillumbah at a loss, thanks to the GFC. I was very happy with my home in Mount Crosby, where I’d built the most magnificent pool and outside entertainment building above it, but forces beyond my control compelled me to sell it and move to 3 acres at Doonan on the Sunshine Coast. I bought a small two-bedroom Queenslander and I trucked another matching three-bedroom Queenslander onto the property and joined them together to create a large five-bedroom Queenslander with three bathrooms and two living areas. It took me two years, from mid-2009 to mid-2011, to connect and renovate them both, matching the colonial heritage of the transported house.

  There was a lot to like about Doonan. Our acreage was a lush green rolling hill with a dam at the bottom. We had a beautiful outlook off a massive deck perched like a treehouse at the top of the block. There were birds and native animals all around, a huge mango tree dipping its fruit-laden branches towards the house and our two happy Labradors living a dog’s life. Riley and Jackson loved it. We had a pool. I put in a big swing on a large Moreton Bay fig, and the street was quiet for bike riding. Close by were Hastings Beach and the Noosa River park, also good for riding, skating and skateboarding. The boys loved their school. It was a very healthy place to be. The downside: it was a long way from the city.

  I went through my worst employment phase in 2009 and 2010. My home situation wasn’t much better, and I’d rather forget it. In October 2010 I was about to go to Portland, Oregon. I was to play the lead, Rood, in a horror film called Shiver, my first US film, which I had to do with an accent. I was really looking forward to it: I love doing accents and I hadn’t done one since Ned Kelly’s Irish accent.

  My home situation was not good, and it hadn’t been good for a long time. This was the third time I’d brought two kids into the world and then walked away from them. It wasn’t the first time. I’d try, but then I’d look into my children’s eyes and I couldn’t leave. This time I’d reached a point where I had to go.

  I flew into Portland in November. There was snow on the ground; it was freezing. I was driven to my hotel and I had a chance to look around at the beautiful city. The Willamette River runs through it and stunning bridges arch over the river into the city centre.

  Rood is a middle-American nerd who can’t make it with women, and when he does he has erectile dysfunction. He’s a psychopathic serial killer. He’ll become obsessed with a woman and when he gets rejected, he loses it. One night he goes nuts and kills a girl; when she’s dead there’s nothing to be shy about and he gets off on it. So he ends up stalking women, killing them for his pleasure and taking their heads to his lair as a trophy. Of course, one day it goes wrong and that’s when our story begins. Danielle Harris played opposite me: she was terrific, a great performer and also lots of fun as a person. She’s tiny and easy to throw around, which makes the monster look more monstrous and therefore she’s perfect in horror films. Why am I perfect? Because I’m big and I’m getting older and uglier, I s’pose.

  To play Rood I used a West Coast accent with a whiny, nasal vocal tone. I pushed my upper teeth out to look a bit bucktoothed and wore a beanie and glasses. Before we started shooting I went to the shops in character. I wanted fingerless gloves and I found three joined together for $9.

  I went up to the saleslady with my whiny American accent. ‘Hi, I need some gloves, you have three here and I only want one pair. I’ll give you $3 for one pair and you can sell the other two for $6.’

  ‘We can’t do that, sir.’

  It went on. I argued with her and ended up with the three for $9. I’m pretty sure she was sold on the accent, so I started work with lots of confidence. The filmmaking process was exactly the same on Shiver as it was on Aussie films, except that the accents were different. I learnt American English. It’s easy, there’s only one phrase and the derivations of that phrase, ‘I’m good, we’re good, all good, we’re all good…Duuude.’ Put ‘dude’ at the end of everything. They don’t go to the toilet, they go to the bathroom. I’d say to them, ‘You going to shit in the bath? Why don’t you go to the toilet!’ Dude! They don’t say ‘Hi,’ they say, ‘What’s up?’ I’d say, ‘Nothing’s up. Why? Do I look sick?’

  Rood is well-read and verbose. He uses intelligent language and enjoys making little speeches to his victims. He is creepy; Mick Taylor would have eaten him for breakfast. It was a great challenge for me to play a character way out of my comfort zone and with an accent. I enjoyed my time there very much and I was sad to be going back to my difficulties at home, but I was really missing Jackson and Riley.

  I went home via LA and I took time out to visit Mel Gibson, who was having a tough time after his argument was posted on the net. Mel has been sabotaged twice, once when a cop released his drunken ramblings. I used to drink, I’ve said nasty shit to cops, but the cops didn’t put it out there. Why not? Because I’m not Mel Gibson. We’ve all had arguments with spouses and partners, we’ve called each other all sorts of appalling things, maybe even thrown things at each other. Does that get released on the internet? No, because we’re not Mel Gibson.

  Mel is a great bloke and he knows he’s a great bloke and because of that, he’s fine. Has he made mistakes? Yeah. Has he done something about it? Yeah, that’s what decent blokes do. When I saw him he was sad – mainly sad for his kids and what they had to put up with. But he’s tough and resilient. Like most of us, he’s done it tough and worked through it. That’s all you can do.

  Facing the music

  I returned home and did a strange thing. I looked at my boys’ innocent eyes again and melted. Just once in your life, John, see your kids to eighteen at least, I thought. You’re nearly sixty, you’re on the downhill slope, you don’t matter any more, your boys matter. Just try to make your life as bearable as you can under the circumstances and hang in until they’re eighteen.

  Almost immediately I regretted that decision. I knew it was a mistake, but at that stage I thought my whole life had been one big mistake. I didn’t have a very high opinion of myself.

  In March I had to go back to LA for some Shiver pick-ups in a diner. I was so happy to be getting away again. It was only a fortnight but I relished it. I return
ed home to that familiar survival mode, ‘grit your teeth and bear it’. Three days later I got a phone call. An actor had pulled out of a play sick and the theatre company wanted me to take over, starting in three days. It was an eight-month tour around Australia doing The Sum of Us (the film version starred Jack Thompson and Russell Crowe). I’d knocked back the role a year earlier when we thought Wolf Creek 2 would get up and I didn’t want to jeopardise it.

  Three days later I was rehearsing, happy as Larry to be away but feeling guilty about the boys. This was wrong, it’s no way to live.

  The play is about a working-class, inner-city father who was widowed when his only son was a young boy. His son grows up to be a good footballer, a plumber and a butch queen. The dad learns to accept it. The play is about love lost, love gained and family. There were a lot of words and a short time for me to memorise them. It had been eleven years since I was on stage and nineteen years since I’d played a theatrical lead. I was scared shitless. Somehow I got through the first four performances and on the fifth I had a doozy. It was a Melbourne audience, many of whom were mates from the biz. I had quite a lot of long speeches to the audience. It was reminiscent of my meltdown on The Sentimental Bloke, and the bloke who punched me in that disaster, Mike Bishop, was in the audience. I jumped ahead in a speech, got halfway through and knew it wasn’t working but I couldn’t figure out why. I started again and got to the same point with nowhere to go, so I started talking about my quandary with the audience. Then Paddy, who played my son, came on and said, ‘Weren’t you talking about Grandma, Dad?’

  ‘Aw yeah, thanks, son.’

  That was the last time I stuffed it to that degree. The play is full of poetic prose, the exquisite language flows like wine and the piece really works. I never got sick of doing it. I might have whinged a few times, but once we started it was magic. The actors became like family: Paddy, Glen and Nell. Paddy and Glen will always be my surrogate sons. Paddy directed a rock clip I did recently for William, and Glen played my son. Three extremely talented young blokes.

  In May 2011, just before we headed off on the Australian tour, one of our legendary actors, Bill Hunter, died from cancer. He was seventy-two. I went to his funeral and it changed my life. Rod Mullinar, who’d just nursed his wife and lost her to cancer, turned around and did the same for Billy, the saint. Rod, who was a bit of an old hippie, was doing the eulogy. ‘I asked Bill what he thought of reincarnation. He said, “What’s the use of coming back if you can’t remember the last time? This is the only life you’ve got, live it to the full.”’ That hit me like a tonne of bricks.

  The way I’d been living my life for years and years was far from full. I made up my mind there and then that I’d have to move on. It mightn’t be too good for the boys in the short term, but in the long term, surely it’s better to have a contented, easygoing, low-stress father. Time will tell, because that’s how I feel right now.

  I didn’t think it was fair to announce my intentions so early in the tour. I wasn’t going to be home very much in the next six months anyway, so I decided to break the news towards the end of the tour.

  The tour took me up through Victoria first. I’d been to most of the towns with the Sentimental Bloke tour and on location through the years. Funnily enough, I’d never been to Bendigo, with its grand historic buildings, such an important part of Australian history. The theatre was immense; we were almost shouting our lines. We travelled across to the Hume and headed north. I got a phone call from Rosa. She couldn’t remember certain things about a friend of ours from yesteryear and she was wondering if I could shed some light on it. My heart just glowed whenever she rang me. I was so happy to talk to her, it was so easy. We talked for about an hour. I didn’t want her to hang up.

  We were in Sydney by August and did three weeks there: a week at NIDA, then Forestville and finally Parramatta. I stayed in Coogee for NIDA and Chatswood for Forestville. Zadia and Cobi stayed with me at Coogee and Chatswood, which was a great chance to catch up. Yes, Cobi’s a girl. Zadia started out with boys and moved to girls about fifteen years ago, she’s bi, Cobi’s gay. She’s a proud woman and a naughty boy and I love her. I hope they stay together for life, they’re meant for each other. Plus Cobi likes the football and she enjoys sparring. She can hit…for a girl.

  They all came to watch the show at NIDA. I came out to greet them and Rosa was standing there looking like a princess. She took my breath away. We went down to the Coogee Bay for a drink. Rosa didn’t stay long because she had a long drive home.

  Zadia organised a birthday dinner for me on Sunday at Rosa’s house, where Zadia lived as well. It was a lovely meal. I couldn’t take my eyes off Rosa, but that wasn’t unusual – it had been the same for twenty-six years.

  The tour continued up the coast. When we got to Bundaberg in early September, Zadia phoned me. She explained that Rosa needed medical assistance for a health problem, but Zadia was maxed out financially and Ebony and Daniel had just bought a house, so they weren’t in a position to get a loan. Zadia asked me if I could get a loan and she and Ebony would be responsible for the payments. Rosa was too proud to ask me. I agreed to help them.

  The tour north finished in Home Hill, just south of Townsville. We then had a short break before going to Western Australia. Nial, Sally and Max drove down from Cairns to see the show and they picked Herbie up from Townsville on the way. They were to stay at the same motel as us. When they arrived everyone except Nial got out and went to reception. Nial just sat in the car and stared at me.

  Paddy said, ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘He’s going to come over here, push me into the concrete and squeeze my knee, causing excruciating pain, and there isn’t a fucking thing I can do about it.’

  He got out of the car, strode across and did exactly what I said he would. Paddy just looked on bug-eyed, shaking his head and laughed nervously.

  They were watching the show that night and it got to the part where Paddy kisses Glen on stage. Max reacted, ‘Oh shit no, they’re gonna kiss, oh fuck, they’re gonna kiss, oh Christ, they’re kissing, they’re kissing, I can’t look.’ Now Max isn’t homophobic, he’s just never been confronted with that sight and he couldn’t handle it. Mistake.

  Next day we were packed into Nial’s car. I was off to spend a couple of days with Herb on Magnetic Island, so we were saying goodbye to Paddy and Glen. Herbie whispered to Paddy, ‘Dive in through the window and give Max a kiss.’ I was in the middle and Max was beside me. Paddy dived in and laid one on Max. You’ve never seen a guy get out of a car so quickly. Ever since, we’ve chased Max around trying to kiss him. There’ll only ever be one Maxy Beikoff, God love him.

  Just before I flew to Perth to continue the tour, Jackson and Riley got the news that I’d be moving on. They were devastated: it tore my guts out.

  I was in a relationship that had more downs for me than ups and that is why I have chosen not to write about it. I don’t want to hurt anybody, especially my children. I have made the mistake a couple of times in my life to stay in a dysfunctional relationship because I just want to be with my kids when they are growing up. Too often I’ve been accused of abandoning my children and moving on to freedom, bright lights and a good time. It’s generally the opposite. Many men I know have suffered the way I have and it’s very frustrating and more common than you think. I have endured hellish situations with the only thing keeping me there being my kids. I’ve hung in for years for my kids. I don’t abandon them, I am ripped apart from them. Do men go off and have the time of their lives? I don’t think so, I’m more likely to find a quiet room and cry like a baby into a pillow. Do men go and socialise and have coffee, cakes and laughs at a seaside cafe? I don’t think so. I tend to walk for miles along beaches, forget the sunblock, realise I’ve walked for an hour and a half, walk back again and don’t sleep at night because of heartache, sunburn and regrets.

  ‘I’m stuck here trying to raise the kids on my own with no help from you!’

  ‘Easily
solved, give me the kids.’

  ‘Never!’

  You’re stuck with the kids, poor you. It’s extremely rare that the man gets custody of his children and rightly so. I think in nature, if children are to have the choice, they should be with their mother. When men move on, they lose their kids for at least twelve days out of fourteen. Men don’t walk away from their kids, men walk away from bad situations and suffer distance from their children who mean so much to them; they’d cheerfully die for them in a nanosecond. Women tend to think they’re worse off; you’re feeling pain but they’re feeling worse pain. The truth is, the pain is gut-wrenching for both parties. At least women can put their arms around their children when they’re feeling gutted.

  Rosa was touched that I’d helped her. It wasn’t the first time I’d helped her and the kids; that’s what fathers do. I’d ring her to see how her health was recovering, and she would ring me too at times. I think she was pleased to have someone to talk to while she was going through a tough time. I started to call her more and more. Finally she said she had the feeling I was courting her, and I had to admit I was. I’d thought to myself, I’m single, she’s single, I’m going to have a go. Her immediate reaction was that she couldn’t believe it; never in her wildest dreams had she seen this coming. She thought the universe was playing a joke on her. Right now she was busy recovering her health, thank you very much. This wasn’t going to be easy. I kept calling. I think she was amused by it all, but she wasn’t taking it too seriously.

  The play slowly ground to a halt. Western Australia was amazing: I fell in love with Margaret River, the beaches, the surf, which is so enticing it’s worth playing Russian roulette with the great whites. In the north, Monkey Mia and the dolphins. The tour hugged the coast mainly, travelling from Townsville to Port Lincoln and from Margaret River to Carnarvon.