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PORTRAITS ON YELLOW PAPER
Text by Roddy Meagher 2004
Drawings by Simon Fieldhouse
Paddy Bergin
Ian Callinan
Edmund Capon
Terry Clarke
Mike Connors
Ross Edwards
Mary Gaudron
Simon Fieldhouse
Robin Gibson
Murray Gleeson
Ken Handley
Dyson Heydon
Anne Lambert
PADDY
BERGIN
Paddy Bergin is formidable, strong, ruthless,
undainty.
After obtaining her law degree, she became a solicitor at Messrs Stephen Jaques
and Stephen, where she devoted her considerable skills to protecting the
interests of commercial scoundrels who manufactured inedible bread out of
permitted hours.
Then she transferred herself to the District Court and became Tutor to his
Honour Judge Peter Ayrton Leslie.
When she went to the Bar of New South Wales, she first protected the medical
profession of that state, and then organised secret police protection for Mr
Justice Wood.
In gratitude, the State appointed her to be a Judge of the Supreme Court of New
South Wales. There she still is.
Not long ago, she accepted an appointment to become Chief Justice of the
Australian Capital Territory, later reneging on the deal. It is to be hoped that
one day some investigative journalist will get to the bottom of this ugly
incident.
She looks as if she
plays golf. She does. She addresses the ball very firmly.
She distances herself from, and detests, the Women Lawyers’ Association.
She is a good sort.
IAN CALLINAN
Ian Callinan has
now produced his fourth novel, and I am pleased to launch it.
How odd that a little civilization seeps out of the High Court. Callinan gives
us plays and novels, and keeps adding to his enormous
—
and enormously
valuable
—
art collection. His brethren don’t. Sir Samuel Griffith wrote a
translation of Dante; Mr Justice Gleeson did not. Imagine getting Justice
McHugh to write a novel, even of the Guys and Dolls variety. Imaging squeezing a
poem out of Justice Gaudron: if it came it would resemble, I
have no doubt, Harold Pinter’s famous poem in last year’s Spectator.
Imagine Justice Gummoff (aka Gummow) producing something creative
despite his foreign ancestry and manifest skills as a legal digester, so lacking
is he in cultural literacy that he has never given birth to an epode or
even a polished rune.
But I digress. Back to Callinan’s novel. It concerns a group of uniformly
unlovely people connected with a film. Its aging director Roderick Lily is
holidaying on the Amalfi Coast. A bitchy journalist called Jane English pursues
him, primarily to obtain a story on the alleged murder by him and his
mistress of his wife, a story which led to a murder trial. Meanwhile, he is in
trouble with his producer
—
or, rather,
with both halves of his producer, a
corporate giant. The majority shareholder
—
a crook
—
wants the
production of his last film to be delayed as long as possible; the minority
shareholder,
another crook, wishes it to be accelerated. Scene follows scene
—
in Sydney,
Brisbane, New York, London and Positano
—
with
complexities mounting
and deft character sketch following deft character sketch, until eventually the
hero (if such he may be called) expires of motor neurone disease, an
event which is thrilling for those who have insured him.
The tone of the book is genial, but not lacking in irony. It is dotted with good
things. One of the production thugs on seeing a large carpet in an office
said “It was made in India by young children”, with a label on the back
saying “No child labour used”.
Or, again, consider this description of a chairman opening a meeting:
Kliner spoke slowly, as if he were introducing a country and western singer
who needed no introduction.
Or this:
Never worry about a lawyer pretending to be in a hurry since time charging
became legal, (If only “progressive” solicitors could read, and understand,
this.
These aphorisms adorn his tale, but (mercifully) point no moral.
The scenes describing the murder trial are realistic; there is none of that
imaginary court procedure which Mortimer’s “Rumpole” stories exhibit. As
to his Honour’s syntax and grammar, it is, as one might expect, only mildly
peccable. “Footpath” is always used, correctly, instead of “pavement”.
There is but one split infinitive, although that is spoken by an Italian.
“Firstly” appears twice, “St. James” once. And, one cannot overlook the fact
that, on no less than two occasions, the hero’s coat is referred to as a
“jacket” as if he were a potato. The non-word “receptioniste” is used once. And
His unfortunate Honour has trouble with his singulars and plurals.
Consider this sentence, for example: “Everyone involved in the production were
prima donnas”.
Dot Wordsworth would not have approved.
What, then, is one’s overall verdict? It is, in my view, a splendid novel; a
credible, fast-moving tale. There are some who demand of a novel that it should
be psychologically revelatory, others that it should be socially “relevant”, or
advocate some social or political cause; others that it be written in a stream
of
consciousness; others that it provide a sink of sexual lasciviousness in which
one may wallow; and yet others that it be both pretentious and boring a
la
Patrick
White and Christina Stead. It is none of these things. It is in the old
tradition of being a non-doctrinaire, wellconstructed, interesting, coherent and
enjoyable narrative.
No influence of Freud is evident. Nor of Marx, and little enough of James Joyce.
That is what Trollope wrote, so did Barbara Pym and Elizabeth Taylor; so, for
that matter, did Turgenev.
Ian Callinan has done remarkably well in this worldly tradition.
EDMUND CAPON
Edmund Capon has been the Director of the Art
Gallery of New South Wales for 25 years. Lucky, lucky New South Wales.
To gauge the extent of our luck, it is necessary to remember what the Gallery
was like before he came on the scene.
To begin with, the Gallery was almost entirely empty of people, no matter when
you went there. Perhaps there were a few derelicts who had wandered in from the
park, and, if you were especially blessed, a handful of school-girls as well.
Nowadays, more people attend the Gallery than they do cricket matches. (And this
comparison will become even more true in the future if the Australian cricket
team cannot do better than it did in the 2003-2004 Tests against India).
In the pre-Capon days, no really serious art was ever purchased. In those days,
there were more regular purchases from England of portraits of admirals and
generals, each looking like the other, and all looking like boiled codfish. Not
until about 1925 was any European art ever bought, and when it was it was not of
high quality. Since Capon arrived the Gallery has acquired major works of Henry
Moore, Picasso, Kandinsky, Kirchner, Bonnard (twice), Degas, and others.
In the long reign of Hal Missingham, the main acquisitions were dreary oil
paintings by his friend Tom Cleghorn.
To put his achievement in focus, it must be remembered to the eternal shame of
both Labour and Liberal Governments, that the Gallery receives no public money
to fund acquisitions. It means that the Director must perforce squeeze the funds
out of private donors.
In the pre-Capon days, the directors were, to put it mildly, of little
consequence: In fact, mediocrities. None of them had ever published any work of
importance (whereas Capon has published quite extensively). None of them knew
anything about Oriental art, whereas that is an area where Capon
—
who, incidentally, is an accomplished Oriental linguist
—
is an expert, and which has had a whole section of the
Gallery devoted to it. Today, the word of the director of the Gallery really
matters. It was not always thus.
Personally, he is charming, witty and amusing; gregarious; and with exactly that
degree of English impishness which appeals to the natural larrikinism of
Australians. His wife, Joanna, is an expert in early Australian pressed-metal
ceilings, and has done great things in promoting art at the Children’s Hospital,
Westmead.
Amongst the important principles he has espoused are: (a) always remain
horizontal, (b) never stop smoking Havana cigars, (c) never become a Single
Issue Fanatic, and (d) respect his “recreations”, one of which is “giraffes”.
TERRENCE CLARKE
Terence John Osborne Clarke was born on 10
February 1935 in Sydney. He was an only child. His secondary schooling consisted
of 5 years at All Saints Bathurst and 5 years at Sydney Church of England
Grammar School at North Sydney.
In 1952 he proceeded to Sydney University, where he resided at St. Paul’s
College.
He got a first class honours degree in Music and topped the year in that
subject.
He married Lynne, talented daughter of Sir Russell Drysdale.
Since leaving University he taught mathematics (The International School,
Cranbrook), which he abandoned for the theatre. He is, and always has been, the
darling of the theatre world. He has produced, directed and acted in dozens of
plays. He introduced Australian audiences to Harold Pinter. He knows more about
Stravinsky than anybody in Australia.
But he will always be chiefly remembered for his musicals. Indeed, he has been
the progenitor of the only Australian musicals ever written which matter
artistically: “Flash Jim Vaux” (with Ron Blair, author of “The Christian
Brother”), and those with Nick Enright “Variations” (his own favourite), “The
Venetian Twins” (my favourite, and the most popular), and “Summer Rain” (perhaps
the most ambitious). “The Venetian Twins” seems to me to be a work of pure
genius; the Goldoni plot, the merry tunes, the swift-moving, exuberant music,
the irreverent lines (like “honi Soit qui pense a Mal” referring to one of
Australia’s former prime ministers), put it almost into the ranks of good
Rossini.
He is charming, witty, punning, well read, gregarious and adored.
He loves rich living.
He is a dedicated Marxist
MIKE CONNORS
I first met Michael Benedict Connors in January
-
February 1950. I have been a close friend of his in the
half century which has elapsed since then. He was then, as he remained for the
rest of his life, happy, cheerful, amusing, witty, irreverent, intelligent and
well-read. He was also kind and sensitive. To have known him at all was a great
blessing, to have know him well for over 50 years was an extraordinary
privilege.
We met at the entrance of St John’s College, Sydney University. He, born l5t1
March 1932, was 2 days older than I. He had been educated at the Christian
Brothers School at Manly. We studied Arts and Law together. We shared a room in
the Right Tower, which, by the time we parted, contained 11 tables, littered
with essays, lecture notes, stray publications, empty wine glasses, half filled
coffee cups and the dottle of his endless pipes. Whilst appreciative of
scholarship, he did not work at his studies with an entirely unremitting fervour.
Considering his cast of mind, it is hardly surprising that he had been from 1944
to 1948, a quiz kid. It suited him, since he knew almost everything that could
be known about anything.
If he wanted to, he could have joined the Bar and ended up as a distinguished
QC, or alternatively entered into academia and ended up as a famous professor.
He did neither, because he considered, and rightly so, that it was more
important to devote himself to domestic happiness and leading a decent social
life.
He had married, in 1957, the beautiful and aristocratic Mary Candrick. I
remember it well because I drove him to the wedding in my motor car which broke
down on the way and we were forced to continue our journey by tram. We were all
as poor as church mice, and I joined five of his friends in giving him a pop-up
toaster to celebrate his nuptials.
He and Mary had dozens of children, and he, with his powerful intelligence could
distinguish between them, knowing each one by its name. They, in turn, loved
him. I can remember him once saying to me, “The best
way to get friends is to breed them.”
He never paid an active part in politics, although for
some years, from 1953 to 1954, he was a follower of Mr B.A. Santamaria, a figure
who has in the fullness of time become more important, and more impressive, than
people other than Michael Connors realized at the time.
He took a significant part in public life. In 1967 he became a Charter Member of
the Rotary Club of Dee Why. From 1973 to 1974 he was President of the Club, and
later held various positions. He is a Paul Hanes Fellow.
For many years he was a member of the North Sydney Conference of St Vincent de
Paul.
Although from 1958 onwards he attended every day to his work as a solicitor on
one of those Northern Beaches of Sydney, he also found time for other
professional work, and by giving his services to the Law Society of New South
Wales bestowed a modicum of distinction on that grubby body. For many years he
was on one of its Legal Aid Review Committees.
But his chief interest outside his family was undoubtedly St John’s College. He
was a student there for about 6 years and in 1974 was elected a Fellow. In the
course of its recent tumultuous years he became its Rector for a while. What, I
think, appealed to him about the place was the colour, the fine buildings, the
tradition, the whiff of scholarship, the camaraderie and the absence of
partisanship or self-interest. Mary also worked tirelessly for the College.
When I look back on his life, there are three things which jump out. The first
is his learning. It is nearly impossible to describe just how learned he was in
so many fields. To have a conversation with him was an education in itself. You
came away more informed, exuberant and sorted out. In the last few weeks of his
life, I discussed with him the foreign policy of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
1810— 1820; the rival merits of Chesterton and Belloc; the importance of the
elevation of Archbishop Pell to the Cardinalate. He also took time off to
explain to me that Menai is not the same suburb as Arncliffe. On one of these
occasions, tempted by a private whim, he gave me a football jumper.
The second thing was his great wit. He was one of the most amusing men I have
ever met, although in such a spontaneous way that it is now difficult to recall
any of his brilliant aphorisms. Recently he was in convulsions of laughter at
the thought that the 50,000 Australian sheep floating around the world’s oceans
might be dumped in New Zealand as war brides.
The third, and most important, thing was his devotion to his religion. He did
not merely believe in the Faith, not only practise it, was not only devout; but
the Faith was actually part of his very fabric.
And now choirs of angels will sing his beautiful soul to its eternal rest.
ROSS EDWARDS
Ross Edwards, the composer, was born in Sydney
in December 1943, and from a very early age was always interested in music,
although in a singularly unsystematic way. In fact, all his early life seemed to
be a succession of fits and starts. In 1963 he enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts
degree at the University of Sydney, but abandoned it the following year. In 1966
he commenced a Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Adelaide. He took
his degree, and later still obtained a Master of Music degree. From then on he
became busy either writing or performing music.
Several influences have been detected in his work. One is his attachment to the
modern European composers. Roger Covell mocked his mastery of “the fashionable
‘tricks’ of the avant- garde”. A second influence is Oriental music,
which he developed with his master and friend, Peter Sculthorpe. A third is the
music of the Australian bush, of which he became enamoured when he retired for
some years to Pearl Beach: this led to his so- called “sacred style”.
But a fourth, and far more potent, influence is his development of the Maninya
style, characterised by “an abstraction of insect and bird sounds, living tempos
and rhythm, angular pentatonic melodies and simple drone-like harmonies”. (Nina
Appollonov). This was put to spectacular use in the violin concerto of 1988, a
work which was commissioned by the Australian Broadcasting Commission to
celebrate the nation’s bicentenary. It was first performed in the Sydney Opera
House in August of that year, with Dean Olding as soloist. It has three
movements, the first and third being in the Maninya style, and the second being
a quiet, soft, serene Intermezzo. The total effect is of a driven, intensely
ecstatic work, equal to the violin concerto of William Walton, worthy of
comparison with the violin concerti of Shostakovich, and approaching the famous
violin concerto of Sibelius. It is clearly a masterpiece, and possibly the only
real masterpiece any Australian composer has produced. Other potential rivals
look a little thin (like Peter Scuithorpe) or nonexistent (like Anne Boyd).
More Please.
SIMON FIELDHOUSE
He was born on 25 March 1956. He was educated at
Geelong Grammar School and the University of Sydney.
His father, Carnegie Fieldhouse, is a well-known “boutique” solicitor, i.e. a
solicitor who will only work for the immensely rich. He, in his time, acquired
the famous rural property Invergowrie at Exeter, New South Wales. He had
five children, of whom Simon is one. The others are depressingly responsible.
Simon dabbled in Arts and Law. Perhaps characteristically, he studied everything
but what he should have. By rights, he should have entered the Faculty of
Architecture. He did not; but the loss is the Faculty’s, not his.
He has an outstanding knowledge of architecture, both instinctive and learned.
He discarded the trappings of rural wealth and devoted himself to architectural
draughtsmanship. He went to the office of Messrs Rice and Daubney for two years
(1989-1990) and created models for architectural buildings. He then left, and
spent his time drawing buildings, trains, ferries, university processions, legal
occasions and other national events. In the tradition of Osbert Lancaster and
George Molnar, he has given birth to hundreds of architectural drawings of great
wit. The production continues. He has become almost morbidly fashionable.
The present book is his first extended exercise in portraiture.
He adores Sophia Loren and Mick Jagger. A worry, this.
He lives with his pretty young mistress in a flat at Darling Point.
ROBIN GIBSON
There are only three of the important, established, well-known
private art galleries left in Sydney: Robin Gibson, Rex Irwin and Frank Watters.
The greatest of all the private galleries, the Macquarie Galleries, was driven
into insolvency and closure by its pretty director, Eileen Chanin. Barry Stern’s
gallery is still limping on, but at a low level. Rex Irwin sells fashionable
foreign artists at enormous prices; and Frank Watters sells mounds of earth and
dirty football boots to the chattering classes (he is in training for the Turner
Prize). Robin Gibson sells good art to discriminating purchasers. He never seeks
to boost sales by exhibiting poor art. Some of his trade competitors do, putting
on displays of Bob Dickerson, or even David Boyd.
He was one of a family of six children, born at Ipswich in 1943. He left
Queensland in 1963 and worked in the David Jones Art Gallery under the legendary
Robert Haines until 1968, when he took a job with the Bonython Gallery in
Paddington. When that gallery closed in 1976 he opened his own gallery in Gurner
Street in a pretty little terrace house, which he abandoned in 1982 to purchase
a much grander affair, a four story building at 278 Liverpool Street
Darlinghurst where he established his present gallery, which has been
flourishing on that spot ever since. It was built in about 1850 as the town
residence of John Rae, who, amongst other things, was Sydney’s Town Clerk, the
Commissioner of Railways, a photographer and a watercolourist.
Over the years he has represented dozens of artists. Three of his past protégés
were Brett Whitely, Elwyn Lynn and Brian Westwood. Two of these names
demonstrate the difficulties of catering for artists. During the years 1976 to
about 1990 Robin virtually made Brett Whitely: there were annual exhibitions,
mixed exhibitions, celebratory dinners, and infinite kindnesses lavished on that
labile drug addict. Yet, as soon as it was commercially safe to do so, Whitely
cut the painter, dispensed with Gibson’s services, and sold directly to the
public from his studio. As far as Westwood was concerned, there was another
problem: Westwood borrowed gigantic sums of money from Robin and never paid them
back. In neither case did Robin complain.
One of the most important sculptors he now represents is
Clem Meadmore, the grand old man of Australian sculpture.
Amongst the many painters in his stable are Lawrence Dawes,
Simon Fieldhouse, Geoff Harvey, David Eastwood, Max
Lieberman and Catherine Fox. Amongst potters, he has his
talons on Lex Dickson.
He is charming and gregarious. A dear friend.
MURRAY GLEESON
Murray Gleeson has always been
at the top of every institution he has graced. As Chief Justice of Australia, he
is now at the top of the High Court; before that he was, as Chief Justice of New
South Wales, at the top of the judiciary of that State; some years before that,
he was President of the New South Wales Bar Council, and as such the leading
barrister in New South Wales. In these circumstances, it is not surprising that
he has become accustomed de haut en bas.
He was educated at St Joseph’s College and
the University of Sydney. A visiting monk who saw him at school wrote: “He is
known as the Basilisk. He has a sharp mind and practices a rather Calvinistic
piety. These his great parts are attended with tartness of writing; very sharp
the nib of his pen, and much gall in his ink.”
His principal attribute is his possession of a cruel, cynical and austere mode
of thought which, when combined with superlative intelligence, has resulted in a
brilliant, but not noticeably caring, performance as a lawyer. He has been
compared to many things:
a block of ice, a fire, a stone, a lump of steel, a weapon of mass destruction.
He is sometimes likened to Savonarola, sometimes to Robespierre.
His house is painted grey. The fishponds leading up to it are filled with
piranhas which glide amongst the bones of those who have displeased him. He is
known as “the smiler” on the lucus a non lucendo
principle, as amongst the ancient Greeks the
Furies were called the “Kindly Ones”. Even bereavement counsellors look
cheerier.
He could be said to be a basically conservative lawyer, although in some
respects he is prepared to be “innovative”. For example, he seems to welcome the
birth of the new right of Privacy.
He is a brilliant, and original, thinker, and it is earnestly to be hoped that
his speeches will be collected and published. Mercifully, they lack the unction
which so characterised the utterances of his predecessor, Sir Gerard Brennan,
and the self-conscious avant-gardism of Sir Anthony Mason. He never utters an
unnecessary word.
He has written nothing outside his professional work.
He takes no interest in either music or art.
He does, however, like flowers. He stares at them to make them wilt.
KEN HANDLEY
Mr Justice Kenneth Robert Handley, generally
known as “the Saint”, is now a senior member of the New South Wales Court of
Appeal, after a long and distinguished career as a leader of the New South Wales
Bar. He has published major works on Res Judicata and Actionable
Misrepresentation. He loves Fiji, where he feels at home.
Even a year spent as tip staff to that judicial dullard Mr Justice MacFarlan did
not obliterate Handley’s famous knowledge of black-letter law.
All his colleagues are worried about him as he looks daily whiter and whiter,
thinner and thinner, leaner and leaner. What, they ask themselves, is wrong? The
answer is sanctity. He was the Advocate of the (Anglican) Diocese of Sydney from
1970 to 1980, and has been Chancellor of that Diocese since 1980. As well, he
has been a member of the Appellate Tribunal of the Anglican Church of Australia
since 1980. He loves prayer meetings. At any time of the day or night you can
hear him flinging himself on his prayer mat in God-bothering frenzy. His
sanctity expands diurnally.
One is reminded of George Eliot’s meditations on the Rev. Mr Tryan:
“On some ground or other, which his friends found difficult to explain to
themselves, Mr Tryan seemed bent on wearing himself out. Hisenemies were at no
loss to account for such a course. The Evangelical Curate’s sanctity was clearly
of too bad a kind to exhibit itself after the ordinary manner of a sound,
respectable sanctity.”
And so the heavenwards imprecations continued.
One of the unfortunate consequences of this spiritual activity was that Ken has
begun to lose, certainly, his subtlety and perhaps his sense of humour as well.
I can remember on one occasion Sir Gerard Brennan recollecting that, in his
younger days, an old lag said to the Magistrate who sentenced him to a
fortnight’s gaol: “You have a face like a Mongolian racing duck’s. And may your
dunny burn down.” Ken said to his Honour: “Oh no, Chief Justice, you must have
got it wrong, he couldn’t have said that because there is no logical connection
between the two sentences.”
He is culturally illiterate. However, his wife is not. She owns Picassos,
Braques, Monets, Marie Laurencins. His eldest son David is almost
single-handedly responsible for the renaissance in Sydney in the 1990’s of
sculpture.
Another son is married to the painter Corinne
Handley.
DYSON HEYDON
On 14 February 2000 Mr John Dyson Heydon was
sworn in as a Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and a Judge of
Appeal.
He was a son of the distinguished diplomatist Sir Peter Heydon. He was born in a
fashionable house on Leninsky Prospekt in Moscow. He was educated at Sydney
Church of England Grammar School. He thence proceeded to the University of
Sydney and in 1964 was awarded a Bachelor of Arts (with First Class Honours) and
the University Medal in History. Awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, he went to Oxford
and did a BA (Jurisprudence) degree, in which in 1966 he took the top
first-class honours and was awarded the Martin Wronker prize. He then undertook
a BCL course, in which he received the highest first class Honours. He also was
awarded the Vinerian Scholarship.
This accomplished, he immediately embarked on an academic career, in which he
excelled as brilliantly as he had in his student career. He was a Fellow of, and
Tutor at, Keble College at Oxford from 1967 to 1973. He also lectured in
evidence and trusts at the Inns of Court School in London from 1969 to 1972,
where his distinguished students included the present Mr Justice Gray from the
Federal Court of Australia. In 1969 he was a visiting lecturer at the University
of Ghana, where he befriended the genial Dr Nkrumah.
He then wrote a series of books, all of which have gained high academic and
judicial esteem. The first was Restraint of Trade Doctrine in 1971, which
was referred to approvingly by the English Court of Appeal at least three times
within the next five years. The second was Economic Torts in 1973, which
sold out almost as soon as it was published. In his preface to the second
edition, which was published in 1978, he drew attention to a comment made by
some bedint person that “the treatment was difficult to understand”, responding
politely “there cannot be any account of an economic tort which is
comprehensible without effort.” in addition to being masterly statements of the
law, both books are splendid examples of English prose.
These books were followed by a steady stream of books and articles on Equity,
Evidence, Commercial Law, Company Law and Restrictive Practices.
In 1973 he was appointed Professor of Law at the University of Sydney Law
School. In 1978 he was made Dean of the Law School, in the days when it was
thought that only the most eminent lawyers should hold that position.
Tempora mutantur.
In 1981 he came to the Bar, and established
chambers on Eighth Floor Selborne, then as now the most distinguished set of
chambers in Sydney. From his first day at the Bar he enjoyed an enormous
practice, and in 1987 took silk.
He was a member of the Bar Council from 1981 to 1986.
He edited the New South Wales Law Reports, the Federal Law Reports, the
Australian Bar Review, and probably many more journals and reports.
When Gaudron J retired from the High Court, he was appointed to fill the
vacancy. Just as well: otherwise we might have been saddled with a woman, or
(even worse) a South Australian.
He is well-liked, amiable, charming, extraordinarily well-read (in non-legal
fields as well as in law) and very amusing.
His politics are left-wing, but this went unremarked by the Press until his most
recent appointment.
He has substantial pastoral interests, a huge cellar, and a vast art collection
(including more than 200 Jean Appletons).
It is said that he likes sport.
ANNE LAMBERT
She is very beautiful. That is
the first and most important thing to say. In a classic way she
has long blond hair and a pretty pink-and-white complexion and a charming smile;
“jeure
fille au fleau”. But she also has another more important form of beauty as well,
she echoes
the looks of some the great women of history and mythology, Cleopatra, Ophelia,
of fair
Amaryllis in the shade. She is both gentle and impressive.
She is one of Australia’s most important cinema actresses. And, which
Australia’s cinema
greats do not usually, she speaks gently and softly, whereas in most of the
countries
accadamies of dramatic arts young dumbos are trained to bellow.
Nor does she owe her high status to racial discrimination, to the fact that she
has a black
grandmother, or to any left wing affiliates. She brushes off lesbian advances,
she disdains
money, and she rejects Whitlam’s amouris advances.
She has not had it easy.
She was educated at the famous International School at Sydney where the
headmaster was
the renowned educationist Bill Eason where Terry Clarke and Charlie brown were
masters.
Some of the products of that school included Simon Fieldhouse, David McKay,
Debra
Osbourne and Cressida Campbell. Since the school believed in self-expression,
the absence
of discipline and the unimpotance of learning it is a wonder that she did not
end up in the
prisons and dosshouses inhabited by most of her fellow colleagues.
Her great performance of the screen is Miranda in Picnic at Hanging Rock, a film
about a
party of schoolgirls who go on an outing Valentines Day to visit an eirie and
sinister rock
formation from which three of them including Miranda, do not return. This comes
from a
story by Joan Lindsay, although so strongly is it etched in the Australian mind
that most
people think it is historical fact. The power of the film is derived from its
tension, imaginative
horror, despair, guilt, anguish and the pity of the crushing of young beauty.
She also played with great
distinction in The Draughtsman Contract. She believes in fairies,
Perhaps she is one.
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