Sunday, January 19, 2025

   7. Australia's Hollywood Pioneers






Australia’s involvement in the American movie business started way back in the humble, make-shift studios of the East Coast when three travelling show people from ‘down under’ drifted, by chance, into the magical new world of the ‘flickers’. Even in the US, the young and decidedly shaky industry was wide open. No one cared where you came from. As long as you were animated, had plenty of energy and could “do a turn” for the hand-cranked cameras of D.W. Griffith and lesser mortals you could, with luck, get a foot in the studio door.

Champion swimmer Annette Kellerman got the ball rolling in  1907 when she made a short demonstrational film for the Vitagraph Company entitled Miss Kellerman's Diving Feats. Photogenic and more than a touch outrageous, the girl from Sydney’s inner-suburbs caused a major uproar when she was arrested on a Boston beach for wearing a one piece ‘bathing costume’. Already a rising star of the variety circuit, Kellerman's fame exploded overnight thanks to the blaze of publicity that followed her run-in with the cops. The inventor of underwater ballet and synchronized swimming, she was a superb athlete and her amusing array of crowd - pleasing tricks were ideally suited to the silent pictures. Establishing herself as a sex symbol in the rapidly growing medium, she reached her peak in 1916 in the lavish production A Daughter of the Gods for the Fox Corporation . Later, her life story was immortalized in MGM's 1952 aquatic spectacular The Million Dollar Mermaid which starred Esther Williams. 

Two years after Kellerman's film debut, touring stage actors Sidney Bracy and Paul Scardon from Melbourne arrived in New York to work on Broadway but soon found themselves in front of the cameras as well. Bracy, like Kellerman, got his break at Vitagraph where he appeared in the 1909 comedy short Cohen at Coney Island opposite rotund comedian John Bunny. Scardon was initially employed at Biograph then transferred to Majestic. 

When the movie crowd decided to relocate to California their Aussie colleagues went right along with them and they were quickly joined in Los Angeles by an increasing number of their fellow countrymen and women. By 1911, J.P McGowan from South Australia was making a name for himself at the Kalem Film Company where he specialized in the production of low budget Westerns. However, it was the end of the Edwardian era that saw a number of truly accomplished Australian actors establishing Hollywood careers. Glamour girls Louise Lovely, Enid Bennett and Mae Busch, along with comedians Snub Pollard, Billy Bevan and Clyde Cook had all become popular box office attractions prior to 1920. None of them attained super star  status but each one managed to build up a solid fan base .               
 

(Left to right) Annette Kellerman in A Daughter of the Gods (1916) Sid Bracy with Buster Keaton
 in The Cameraman (1928) and a lobby card for Gene Autry's Guns and Guitars (1936) JP McGowan behind movie title




Mae Busch from Page Street, South Melbourne (now Albert Park) publicity shot and
 Snub Pollard, also from Melbourne, starring in It's a Gift (1923)


The introduction of sound demanded a different kind of talent  and a second wave of Australian actors stood patiently in the wings waiting for their cues to enter. But, in the years ahead, only those who had acceptable transpacific or transatlantic accents would be offered a chance to shine. Some found acceptance under the guise of ‘British actors’ while others were routinely issued with straight-out American accents by studio dialogue coaches. In a number of cases their Antipodean origins were lost in the system (sometimes deliberately) and remained unknown.

Bursting onto the scene in a flurry of high energy zest and vigor, Tasmania’s impossibly good-looking Errol Flynn made an immediate impact. Possessing a unique and attractive voice, Flynn will always be best remembered as the swashbuckling hero of Warner’s 1938 historical epic, The Adventures of Robin Hood. Long before horror legend Vincent Price cornered the market in regard to villainy and evil, Adelaide's Judith Anderson chilled movie audiences with her thoroughly demonic portrayal of Mrs. Danvers, the bloodless housekeeper, in Hitchcock’s Rebecca. Regal and commanding in the sinister role, Anderson brought the full force of her powerful stage technique to the memorable character as she ruthlessly manipulated the young and naïve Mrs. De Winter (Joan Fontaine) with cruel mind games. Psychological intimidation became Anderson's strong point in a succession of similar film appearances. But  yet another South Australian, O.P Heggie, would secure his place in movie history in a far more confronting form of cinematic horror by playing the blind hermit who befriended the monster (Boris Karloff) in 1935’s  Bride of Frankenstein .Seven years later, wartime cameraman Damien Parer won Australia's first Academy Award for his dramatic combat documentary, Kokoda Frontline !

(Left to right) Original poster for The Adventures of Robin Hood, Judith Anderson (in black) with
Joan Fontaine in Rebecca and O.P.Heggie (white beard) with Boris Karloff in Bride of Frankenstein

The Adventures of Robin Hood (imdb.com)




 Kokoda Frontline ! (1942)


Shortly after the war, Sydney's Leon Errol and Melbourne's Joe Kirkwood Jr starred in the Monogram series Joe Palooka which featured the hard-hitting adventures of a prize fighter. In 1956, the awards tally increased when Victoria Shaw  took out a Golden Globe for her promising performance opposite Tyrone Power in The Eddie Duchin Story . Following a screen apprenticeship in two Australian pictures, The King of the Coral Sea and Long John Silver (both released in  1954), former lifeguard Rod Taylor was invited to Hollywood. Minor appearances in quality films such as Giant and Raintree County eventually led to stardom for Taylor in 1960 when he landed the role of George, the inventor, in MGM’s science fiction classic, The Time Machine (see separate blog about Rod Taylor)


 Victoria Shaw with Tyronne Power
 in The Eddie Duchin Story . Rod Taylor in the Time Machine



Throughout the ' 70s, hit records on the US Top 40 charts allowed Olivia Newton–John, Rick Springfield and Helen Reddy to forge careers on both the big and small screens. However, the transition from vinyl to celluloid wasn’t always a complete success. The cards were well and truly stacked against Reddy, for example, whose box office debut saw the gold record champ being lumbered with an absurd character in an equally absurd movie. Echoing Frank Sinatra’s turn as a priest in RKO’s Miracle of the Bells, the aggressive and outspoken feminist was given the role of Sister Ruth, a guitar-playing nun in the idiotic disaster yarn Airport ‘75 .Initiating a sing-a-long, surrounded by plastic cups and vomit bags on-board a doomed 747, Reddy serenaded teenage scream queen Linda Blair in what appeared to be a clear case of getting together to have fun at gun-point (or should that be guitar point ?). When it came to projecting gentle humility, the prickly songbird from Melbourne made Sinatra look like Bambi. What transpired was an unintentional laugh fest with Reddy’s gruesome portrayal of the saintly sister resembling a bizarre cross between Mitch Miller and Mrs Danvers. Later roles utilized her charismatic persona far more effectively.


(Top left) Olivia Newton John starred with John Travolta
 in the 1978 box office smash Grease
(Top right) Rick Springfield and (lower image) Helen Reddy and Linda Blair in Airport ' 75
           
Occasionally, members of Australia's old guard would make a notable or even spectacular impact in Hollywood . For example, Peter Finch, a former Sydney stage actor and player in Australian films since the late 1930s, stunned the critics and took out an Oscar for his powerhouse performance as a crazed TV newsman in Sidney Lumet's 1976 production Network . 

 

And the music played on. As the glam rock era reached its zenith, glitter balls in discos across the world rotated and flashed to the pulsating soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever as sung by one of the hottest bands of the day – the Bee Gees from Brisbane


Finally, from the 1980s onwards, we saw the gradual emergence of today's line up of familiar names.

But for all those who have scaled the heights and managed to endure, others merely passed through the penetrating beam of the spotlight on their way to somewhere else. One such fleeting figure was the former model Antony Hamilton who seemed to be destined for great things in the wake of his starring role in the 1984’s much-publicized remake of Samson and Delila. Sadly, premature death claimed Hamilton at 35.


Jewel Blanch, a young singer from Glenn Innes, New South Wales went to America in the late ‘60s to further her career in country music but took a sidetrack to Hollywood. Attracting critical praise for her performance in the 1974 Dick Van Dyke movie The Morning After, she also picked up an Emmy nomination for her work on the TV special Blind Sunday before heading back to Nashville.

Sometimes, an individual’s contribution has been relatively minor, merely co–incidental or just plain quirky but still worth noting from an historical viewpoint. In 1917, for instance, when director John Ford got ready to shoot one of his first pictures, The Trail of Hate, it was Sydney actress Louise Granville who moved into the frame of Ford’s dusty viewfinder as the star of the piece. There was the alluring beauty Mary Maguire who went to Los Angeles with a Warner contract after debuting in the Charles Chauvel production, Heritage. Maguire’s only real claim to fame occurred two years later when she appeared in the B-Grade programmer Sergeant Murphy (1937) with a fresh-faced actor from Illinois by the name of Ronald Reagan.



Original movie poster for the early Ronald Regan
 picture Sergeant Murphy co-starring Mary Maguire




And it was in 1916 that Dorothy Cumming portrayed the sinister Queen Brangomar in the live action version of Snow White which inspired Walt Disney to produce his own, animated remake of the same story. Indeed, it was to be in character roles that many Australians were given the opportunity to develop their special skills. Outstanding players in this field included May Robson, Murray Matheson, Frank Thring, Robert Helpman, Cecil Kellaway and Michael Pate. Another was C. Montague Shaw – a perennial ‘professor type’ who regularly added a touch of dignity to the raucous mayhem of matinee serials.

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(Top left) May Robson in Four Daughters (1938), (top right)
 Murray Matheson in TV's "Get Smart" (1960s), (Bottom left) Frank Thring
 (wearing toga) on the set of Ben - Hur with Charlton Heston (1959) and (bottom right)
 Robert Helpman in 55 Days at Peking (1963)


 (Top) Cecil Kellaway with Bette Davis (center) and Olivia De Havilland in Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964)
(Bottom left) Michael Pate and Vincent Price (reading) in The Tower of London (1962) and
(bottom right) C.Montague Shaw (standing second from the right) in the Undersea Kingdom (1936)









One the darker side of our Hollywood history, there's the curious tale of Frank Mills. An American - born actor, Mills starred as our legendary "Iron Outlaw", Ned Kelly, in The Story of the Kelly Gang. Believed to be the world's first full length feature, the movie was shot in Melbourne in 1906. After returning to the United States, Mills found work with Famous Players Lasky and other studios. He spent most of his on screen time in 1919's Let's Elope dressed as a woman. Shortly after, he suffered a mental collapse and died in an asylum.

   (Left) Original theatrical poster for The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906)
 Frank Mills (center) and (right) Ned Kelly's final shootout in the film
                                                           

And those Australians who now toil behind the scenes in Hollywood are the custodians of a similar legacy. Decades before Peter Weir directed Dead Poet's Society and Bruce Beresford made Driving Miss Daisy, directors John  Farrow and Alfred Goulding were busy creating a string of popular movies with performers as diverse as Laurel and Hardy  and John Wayne. Farrow’s screenplay for Around the World in Eighty Days won an Oscar in 1956. Married to actress Maureen O’Sullivan, their daughter is Mia Farrow.

John Wayne (left), Lana Turner and director
 John Farrow on the set of The Sea Chase (1955) (eBay)


Students of animated features may be familiar with the work of Kendall O’Connor. Art director on Fantasia and Pinocchio, and a pioneer of modern animation, O’Connor was the recipient of the Disney Legends Award in 1992.


                      FANTASIA 75th Anniversary Trailer - YouTube

There was the prolific and versatile writer Ivan Goff whose eclectic output included the scripts for Jimmy Cagney’s White Heat (1949) and the smash ‘70s TV show Charlie's Angels

               White Heat (1949) Official Trailer - James Cagney Movie - YouTube

From modest beginnings as a tailor’s son at Kiama, New South Wales, multiple Oscar-winner Orry–Kelly became a prominent costume designer with such towering productions as An American in Paris and Some Like it Hot to his credit. He deserves extra photo content on this occasion because he was, for a long time, our highest achiever in regard to the Academy Awards, winning a total of three Oscars.


Orry- Kelly with stars Olivia De Havilland (left) and Kay Francis (right) (ACMI)

Kelly was costume  designer on the Maltese Falcon (1941) and Casablanca (1942)

     An American in Paris (1952) and Les Girls (1958)
for which Kelly won his first two Oscars for Best Costume Design

An American in Paris: Trailer (imdb.com)

 Some Like it Hot (1959) an outstanding comedy for which the talented Aussie scored a third Academy Award (UA)
 Some Like it Hot (1959) (Top left and top right)) Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe. (Bottom left
and right) Marilyn performs her big song in the movie "Running Wild"(UA)


Having a quick fiddle with Marilyn before the legendary sex symbol strikes a pose
      for the camera wearing one of the designer's stunning creations (UA)

Another genuine "wow" moment during the making of
Some Like it Hot as Miss Monroe dazzles in more of Mr Kelly's handiwork

Some Like It Hot (imdb.com)

Melbourne's Gil Perkins became one of the industry's top stuntmen. Also, co-founder of the Stuntmen’s Association of Motion Pictures, Perkins career hints at a wider observation that can be made. Coming from a country which boasts a generally pleasant climate and a national obsession with sport, most of Australia’s leading men in Hollywood have been decidedly ‘physical’ actors. From Errol Flynn to Rod Taylor and Mel Gibson, a highly commercial blend of romantic appeal, mixed with a ready aptitude for roughhouse action has frequently provided a stepping stone to movie stardom.

Cinematography has been another field in which the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has regularly acknowledged the expertise of Australians. Many critics are of the opinion that the haunting photography of Robert Kraskeron the 1949 black and white suspense thriller ,The Third Man has rarely been surpassed.

But away from the glitz and glamour of the production set are the boardrooms and front offices of the film and television business where deals are made and beans are counted. And it is in this comparatively low profile area where a few, select Australians have been particularly influential. Alfred ‘Al’ Daff from East Melbourne was appointed head of Universal around 1960. In the ‘80s, Rupert Murdoch bought Twentieth Century Fox. After working as a publicist for Union Theatres and Australasian Films prior to the First World War, Sydney journalist Robert Dexter (known as "Gayne" Dexter) moved to the US where he joined the publicity department of First National Pictures (established by American born Australian cinema  pioneer J.D.Williams). Dexter later became head of publicity for Warner Bros. before  eventually returning to Australia as editor of Everyone's magazine ; the local movie industry's trade publication. 

  

(Left to right) Gil Perkins (red shirt) in TV's "Batman" 
with star Adam West. Robert Krasker and Al Daff


The reasons for the on-going exodus from Australia to the US have remained unchanged over the years. Quite simply, the tempting prospect of gaining access to a much bigger market and more money has always been incentive enough for hundreds of starry-eyed hopefuls to give it a go. As briefly mentioned already, the circumstances which have led to these Pacific crossings have varied. The likes of Kellerman, Bracy and Scardon went to work on the New York stage when the movies were still viewed by many as being nothing more than  a passing gimmick. Others including Enid Bennett (1939's Intermezzo) and Victoria Shaw were ‘discovered‘ in their homeland by visiting American entertainers. In the case of Bennett, the opportunity came via a meeting with future Hollywood director (and her future husband) Fred Niblo who was touring down under as a vaudeville act around the time of the First World War. Niblo, who went on to direct the original 1925 production of Ben – Hur, did, in fact, make his first two pictures in Australia ; Get-Rich-Quick-Wallingford and Officer 666 (both made in 1916). As did the MGM star Renee Adoree.



(Left) Original theatrical poster for
 Goldwyn's epic production Ben - Hur directed by Fred Niblo ( right).


Fred Niblo and Enid Bennett: From Australia to Hollywood :

(Top left) Niblo when he arrived in Australia (top centre) acting with Enid Bennett in a scene from Get-Rich-Quick-Wallingford
  which he also directed and shot in Melbourne and (top right) his second movie Officer 666 . (Bottom left) Fred and Enid at home
 in Los Angeles and (bottom right) publicity for Paramount's The Law of Men (1919) which Niblo also directed



(Above) Memories of the classic MGM movie The Big Parade (1925). (Top right) French - born actress Renee Adoree who co-starred in the film is seen here with cinematographer, John Arnold. Miss Adoree made her first screen appearance in the 1918 Australian picture 500 Pounds Reward. (Bottom right) John Gilbert with Claire Adams who also featured in the production. Claire later came to live in Melbourne, Australia where she spent the second half of her life and her final years (thereby making her an honorary Aussie) after marrying wealthy South Yarra businessman, Donald 'Scobie' MacKinnon. Another intriguing Transpacific movie identity, her picture career started in 1912 when, at the age of fourteen, she was signed by the Edison Company.

Big Parade (1925) Trailer - YouTube


(Top) Claire McKinnon in Australia with husband Donald McKinnon (1940) (Screening the Past) 

(Lower images)(Left to right) Claire gets a kiss from Pat O' Malley in Your Obedient Servant 
( Edison 1917) (IMDB) With Lon Chaney in Goldwyn's critically acclaimed thriller The Penalty (1920) Starring with Tom Mix in Fox's Western drama
Just Tony (1922)

"The Penalty" (1920) starring Lon Chaney - YouTube


For Victoria Shaw, a Sydney cover girl, it was her vibrant personality that impressed Bob Hope when the celebrated comedian toured the country in 1955 and Ron Randell , a radio actor, was summoned to the movie mecca on the strength of his performance in the title role of the 1946 biopic Smithy (AKA Pacific Adventure) which traced the story of Queensland aviator Charles Kingsford Smith. Although the film was produced at the Cinesound studios in Bondi it was financed by Columbia and was primarily intended for release in America where it went on to do a brisk trade. However, these giant leaps from local fame to Hollywood contracts were the exception rather than the rule. Handicapped by extreme geographical isolation, small budgets and limited equipment, Australian movies were seldom released overseas in earlier times. Some of the better production units such as Cinesound (mainly a newsreel company) churned out a handful of vaguely competent if somewhat uninspired features. A few of these homely offerings did respectable business and introduced several excellent actors including Peter Finch, Cecil Kellaway and (Shirley) Ann Richards. But the combined effect of the Depression and the commercial power of Hollywood was overwhelming. As the '30s drew to a close, Australian pictures were struggling to survive and most of their leading players sailed out of Sydney Harbour never to return.
Ron Randell (left) (Shirley)Ann Richards with Burt Lancaster in Sorry, Wrong Number




Cinesound film studios in Sydney


Throughout the ‘50s and ’60s, the most notable activity was generated by American and English films that were being shot in this part of the world. The Sundowners starring Robert Mitchum, and On the Beach with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner, for example, supplied the only bright spots on what was an otherwise gloomy cinematic landscape. Needless to say, the lingering stagnation did nothing to halt the departure of talent.




By the mid-‘70s, however, the situation had changed yet again. Triggered by various factors which included a sizable injection of government funding and a renewed sense of nationalism, the period witnessed a sudden and dramatic flowering of the creative arts in Australia. After years of being moribund, the domestic feature industry was reinvigorated with a rush of activity which later became known as the ‘New Wave’. Although still limited, financing became easier to obtain and a different kind of home-grown movie started to appear. Clearly intended for the international market, with less parochial story lines and superior production values, films such as Picnic at Hanging Rock and Mad Max provided the breakthrough. Winning both critical and public support, they managed to secure much-needed sales in the US which had previously been so elusive. They also attracted the attention of Hollywood producers and, in a somewhat ironic twist of fate, a number of the young guns who made these proudly Australian movies were quickly lured away. Directors Peter Weir, George Miller, Fred Schepisi, Phil Noyce and Gillian Armstrong together with cinematographers Dean Semler and Russell Boyd and actors Mel Gibson, Judy Davis and others all grabbed the chance to broaden their horizons. This revival era of our national cinema warrants a separate and much more detailed review.

It has been an interesting journey from Annette Kellerman's first, flickering appearance in the primitive nickelodeon parlors of 1907 to director George Miller’s Academy Award triumph with the animated blockbuster Happy Feet. 



The "Perfectly" Formed Woman - YouTube

Happy Feet - Official Trailer 2006 [HD] - YouTube

"Happy Feet" winning Best Animated Feature - YouTube

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The above work is based on a magazine article that was published some years ago. I make no claims to it being either an exhaustive or scholarly examination of all Australians who were employed in Hollywood or the earlier East coast American film industry.  It was merely intended to provide a general introduction to the subject with the additional aim of acknowledging the careers of some talented but , now, largely forgotten individuals from the pre and early "new wave" period. 

Not all of those who are mentioned were  born in Australia.  However, most either spent their formative years in this country, started their professional working lives here or had some other form of significant involvement in our arts and entertainment industry
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