The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 25

THE SUNDAY AGE 12 JANUARY 1997 Agenda Features Hundreds of people list their occupation as actor, but that doesn't mean they are making a living in a precarious craft. Ian Munro finds that even familiar faces sometimes have to struggle. WARNING! GRAPHIC SEXUAL MATERIAL ON CLEAR DISPLAY (NON VXXfrff EROTICA) SHOULD EXPLICIT SEXUAL MATERIAL BE OFFENSIVE TO VOU PLEASE DO NOT ENTER I Ml. 'lillWOBUOlWil vVil iiciiu i. jsiwips wimtnH itwtisu unworn twM! T4L''5.

RESTRICTED yV RESTRICTED ADMITTANCE PERSONS UNDER MAY ENTER NO CAMERAS PERMITTED NO PERSON MAY SHOW RESTRICTED MATERIAL TO ANYONE UNDER Bml IS 1 CD msm mm 0 Roto-playlng: Michael Carman says, "People recognise you and you can see them working out: 'Aaaah, times must be tough because you're working in a shop like this' picture: james bodoington "Considerable Government resources are directed to training actors up to entry level into the profession and yet we have massive levels of unemployment and appalling income levels," the state secretary of the MEAA, the actors' union, Howard Manley says. "What's really the problem is that there's minimal government funding going into training actors in the profession. Once you are in, most of the funding for training is provided by the actors themselves." Federal Government cuts to the arts cut into employment prospects as well: it's one thing to have blockbusters like 'Sunset Boulevard', but the ability to stage them does not come out of a vacuum. Slice away at the wider performance industry and you destroy the skills base for the blockbusters, Manley says. Still, it can be a deceptive trade for newcomers.

There's often plenty of work for young actors, but that work often disappears along with youth. Most professions value experience and afford some recognition to people in their "middle The recognition actors often get is from casting agencies declaring they "know your To which an actor responds: But they don't, they know only what you have done, not what you could do. Women actors often complain of the dearth of good roles but even for male actors of a certain age there are few roles other than dads and uncles, Michael Carman says. "People want to see stuff that's healthy, young and vibrant, on a screen anyway, that's why 'Neighbours' and all those kinds of shows work, they're full of young kids." "There haven't been many shows like 'Widows', 'Band of Gold', shows set around middle-aged people, written in this country. There's a heap of middle-aged actors around, silt in' there, doing other jobs." Phelan, also of a certain age, echoes him: "Look at England.

They celebrate their old actors. They actually write stuff for them. 'Prisoner', that was a beautfiul example. You've got a whole mob of sheilas there, no make-up, plain as poop and look at it. People say why was it popular? "Lots of reasons, but basically the fact you had an extraordinary talented core of actors and it didn't matter what age they were, whether they were fat or skinny or ugly or beautiful.

They were actors male and female and you think, Why can't they see this? "Probably 10 or 15 years ago a lot of actors wouldn't have done soap now they'd jump at it." Sue Jones initially rejected an approach to work in 'Neighbours', fearing it would mean selling her theatrical soul. Angered at missing a part in a play she reneged and discovered she had an audience of 49 million. "And there I'd been playing to six at l.a Mama thinking I was changing the world," she says. "I came out thinking soap is not going to go away. Rather than knock it on the head we should embrace it and make it better and treat it as a particular genre of our work." As she says this, Sue Jones is preparing to apply for the dole.

Chris Haywood has just completed a feature film 'Kiss or Kill' and is preparing to workshop a second series of the SBS sitcom, House Gang. Anne Phelan is looking forward to a play reading with the possibility of a major part and a long run, but is also about to apply for the dole. Michael Carman is in lounge-rooms across the country, despairing in front of a broken-down ute in the outback and reaching for a Yellow Pages. He is also in the sex shop. LTD Mo) IN A sex shop, everyone's got a role to play.

Michael Carman, out-of-work actor, is in his day job sales assistant. Almost everyone else is improvising. When he is Michael Carman, actor, might spend several weeks" rehearsing, experimenting, building and reconstructing a part. But as a sales assistant he has customers who do likewise in the time to take a breath, pause, and push through the swing doors of the St Kilda porn store that underwrites his acting career. Their workshop is the cupboardlike space between the plastic vertical blinds fronting Acland Street and the doors that open into the shop proper.

Carman sees their entrance from his corner, formed where -the wall of fleshy magazines and videos meets the shelves of sex still coyly described as marital aids. If, him, they are theatrical people; actors or directors, and at risk of being recognised, they might turn -on their heel and walk out. Otherwise, they perform. There's the I've-never-been-in-a-place-like-this-before routine; the what's-all-the'-fuss about number, and the aggressive I-don't-give-a-damn affectation. have been an actor for 25 years.

This was the first job I've had outside acting," Carman says. "It's part-time but it is a relief to have a regular income to put into your 'It's something actors don't get a lot of unless you're in a long series-." In the past 12 months, he has appeared in two Melbourne Theatre Company productions. He has completed a series of 'Shark a cable television comedy. He is recording the voices of three characters Tor an animated film still in production, 'The Silver Brumby''. He has made a television advertisement 'for Yellow Pages, recorded several-radio plays and book readings.

It sounds like regular work. Who needs to flog porn? But then he details his time, ticking off each job on his fingers for emphasis. Index finger: "The Yellow Pages ad was two days." Middle finger: "One day a month for the cartoon series." Third finger: "Uh, three days maybie for an episode of 'Blue He spreads both hands: "If I counted it up I would have worked maybe-120 days, maybe less. It's patchy, very patchy and it looks like staying that way. "People recognise you and you can see them working out: Aaaah, time's must be tough because you're working in a shop like this.

AndXve had to go through that in my mind and say: Well, I'm simply working to pay the bills for a home that 1 own. "And I'm supporting an industry I am passionate about, that's the theatre and film and TV. I'm supporting it by working in as low life a job, that's if that judgmental thing Is there, as an adult book shop. Others would say: Good on you." ANNE Phelan is seated on the back verandah of the weath--ij. erboard church she has converted-into a home in Romsey, a semi-rural hamlet north of Melbourne.

This is her retreat, this verandah overlooking a leafy, green guliy, although right now she would say she is seeing too much of it. For years she was an actress for weeks' at a time, sometimes even months and years, working two jobs simultaneously, filming 'Bell-bird1 during the day and performing in theatre-restaurants at night. And at the end of each season she would into some other job. Until her next transformation she would' be a switchboard operator, I Rofe call: My life as an actor so and so? You think: Oh, if only, if only." liven comparatively minor jobs can assume an extraordinary significance if they offer regular work. Sue Jones for five years worked one day a week reading children's stories for a radio program for $60 "That was terrific.

Kven though it was $60, it was going to come in every week. "l-'or a show at l.a Mama with four weeks' rehearsal and a three- Hers is not an isolated case. In 1990, the Sydney actor Steve Bisley. more recently the star of TV series 'Police Rescue' and 'GP won an API award for his role in 'The Big Steal'. He was back at work the next day, driving a taxi.

John Wood, the regularly working star of the country's top-rating show, 'Blue Heelers', lists "enforced redundancy" as his greatest fear. Last year Phelan's paid acting work totalled about 13 weeks, most opinions of others, work is always precarious, even if the frustration of unemployment is the same. Nor does it seem there ever is a good time to stop working. The Welsh-born, Australian actor Sue Jones had four years' regular work on 'Neighbours': 48 weeks a year, up to 12 hours a day. When she left the show the doom and gloom tales of "Do soap and you'll never do anything else again" were disproved.

She went back to the stage, then into the TV drama 'Correlli', then filmed her second advertisement for the TAG she had been the distraught mum who attacked the drunk driver in the casualty ward of the first of that series. She worked steadily, showing there was life after soap. Hut early last year she returned briefly to Wales to visit her family and the spell was broken. She has barely worked since. "I had a dream run for 18 months.

Whether going away made a difference she lets the thought drift for a moment "but since coming back it seems to have dried up." Phelan won an Australian Film Institute award in 1988: Best Leading Actress in a Mini-Series. She was on the dole the time. She was pulling beers in a country pub when she won another award and had to beg a night off to receive it. She wouldn't have seen the show go to air but for a friend with a video recorder who taped it while Phelan worked the Lancefield Motel. TV studios and greasepaint.

If he is not performing, he is hassling his agent or conceiving new opportunities, he says. "This profession suits me because every time I am out of work it's a fantastic challenge to find a new job." In the past six months he has completed one feature film, worked a couple of days in another, voiced two documentaries and appeared in a couple of episodes of 'The Man From Snowy River'. In the six months before that he was doing radio commercials. "I don't think there's enough preparation of people going into this profession," Haywood says. "There are something like 50 institutions that have acting courses which is far too many.

It's long been my opinion that the courses are inappropriate to the demands of the industry and in preparing people to manage themsleves. "I am at a stage of a more than adequate income but witli no guarantee that that income is there from one week to the next other than that I manage myself." PICK a day, any day, and up to 85 per cent of actors in Australia are not working. It used to called resting, but no one says that any more. Resting could imply enough set aside to take a holiday, and few lay claim to that. Work, when it is there, is episodic, unpredictable and precarious.

According to Australia Council figures, the average actor earns around $11,000 from the craft, but manv earn about half that. or a clerk or a barmaid. But now those jobs have disappeared. "Once upon a time you could just go into any sort of job. liven five years ago I could have given you the names of 20 actors she's cleaning houses, she's waiting now that casual work has dried up.

"Once upon a time there weren't 30 other people waiting for that job. Now the whole employment situation has changed and there are so many non-actors out of work. "You resist going on the dole. It's almost as if once you go down there you are admitting you can't get work. It's not good for the self-esteem." She recalls an episode from a previous trip to the unemployment agency: "The room was quite small and this middle-aged couple walked in and she was supporting him.

I mean physically as well as emotionally. You could see the shame they were feeling and I wanted to say: Don't. "I was quite close and could hear the conversation. He had been retrenched. It was just awful and I thought, Gee, I have got nothing to whinge about.

"I had three pubs I used to work at and it was often a matter of 'Oh, you've finished filming, want to start work Saturday The sort of jobs I used to get are now done by a daughter or a son-in-law because they can't afford to pay. There may not be the same stigma or shock attached to unemployment among actors. In a trade in which success is decided by the I have been an actor for 25 years. It is a relief to have a regular income to put into your bank. It's something actors don't get a lot of unless you're in a long series.

99 of it an eight-week season in a Queensland Theatre Company production. The rest was patchy: a few days with 'Blue Heelers', 'Neighbours', 'The Man from Snowy River', a children's film. "That's the irony: this public perception that you are a star, for want of a better word, and earning heaps of money and I can't tell you the number of times strangers have walked into a pub and they think 1 own it. "liven to this day people come up and say: Do you still own the pub at week run, you might end up with $600." In November last year Sydney actor Chris Haywood was running a $30,000 overdraft. That's out of the way now.

In acting, it's always been feast or famine, he says, and actors have to run themselves like a small business. He has not had a non-acting job in 20 years, but keeping going means seeking out places where an actors skills are useful: voice-overs, narrating documentaries, commercials all have their place alongside Sue Jones, 49 Aime Phelan, 48 No. 1 for Classifieds CLASSIFIEDS ftj I VSt' IraWegsE 15 Acting' I WV School (London) Trains No. Trafataj: Singing and m'V urval Laacnna AT 1 4 1Mrt St Martin's -i Theatre and Atf Swinburne Film and FfSJi Television School Credit: TV: 'Correlli', GP', 'Halifax f.p.',' 'Blue Heelers', 'Neighbours', 'State Coroner', 'The Far i CtmMkTV: 'GP 'Prisoner', 'Mother and Son', 'The Flying Doctors', 'Bellblrd', Credits; TV: 'Water Rats', 'House Gang', 'GP', 'Sun on the Stubble', 'The Boys TV: -fen? From The Bush', 'Rafferty's Rules', 'Carson's Law', 'Special Squad', 'Cop Shop', 'Five Mile Creek', 'Waterfront', Poor Man's Orange', The Harp In the South', 'Descant for Gossips', 'Blue Heelers', "M-aw of the Land', 'Good Guys Bad Guys', 'Simone de Beauvolr's Babies', EriemyVf Masse 'Sweeney Todd'. 'GleP (Queensland Country', 'Homicide', 'DMslon 4', 'The Sullivans', The Flying Doctors', 'Holiday island', 'Bellblrd', 'Col'n Carpenter', 'Power Without Glory'.

1 StafK 'Kldstakes', 'Wet and Dry', 'Some Night In Julia Creek' (Melbourne Theatre Co), 'No Worries', 'Ravages', 'Blood Brothers', 'Shadowland' (La Mama), 'A Night in the Arms of Raetene', 'The v. 4' She SuNrvans', 'AH Toe ttvars Run', TrucMet', 'Blue Heelers', iNeittour', -'Mercury. 'Sharks, 'Against The WMr TJie Genie From OowA Undtr'.) ttajp 'Arcadia', 'A Raa ft) Her Car, -Oft Our Selection' (Metjoume Theatre Co); Let' UajCons Danfefsuees', 'ftt-jed Trousered Philanthropists', The Man From' Mwidnupin'(Tr)ettre Company), and 'KlniUar', 'FtaMnwV 'Pinna. Sort', Plagrourrf, 'Silver CUV. The Chant at' Jimmy Blacksmith', 'Raw Deal'.

sVvS saving jourlife, Bushfire Return to Eden The Sullivans 'A Country Practice', 'Bluey'. Start: 'The Rise and Fall of Little voice', 'Summer of the Aliens' (Sydney Theatre Company), 'Kookaburra', 'Tooth of Crime', 'Glnge's Last Stand', 'Going Home' i (Nlmrod), 'The Legend of King O'Malley', The Removallsts', 'Arturo Ui 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', ') flaae 'Shine', 'Lust and Revenge', 'Muriel's Wedding', 'Exile', 'A Woman's Tale', 'Burke and Wills', 'The CotCola Kid', 'Razorback', 'Manof Ftowers', 'Strikebound', 'Breaker Mdranf, 'Newsfronf, Wariarf Is last 12 woaBii; 34 weeks performing. Theatre Co), 'Aftershocks', 'The Grapes of Home'i'Twelfth Night', "A Cuckoo In the Nest' (Melbourne Theatre Co), Gentlemen 'Let Me In, Away' (Ptayoon); Days'', 'Cabaret', 'Dinkum Assorted VA Hard Act to Follow'. FIr 'I Uve WtthMe Dad', 'Hard Knocks', Trie Devil's Playground', 'The Balanced i Particle Freeway' (children's film still In JparWls ssst 12 smites; About 14 weeks. Perfectionist', 'Travelling North' (Stage Co.

Adelalde), 'One Day of The Year', 'Doctor In Love', 'Butterflies of Kalamantan'. fhrn 'Evil Angels', 'Doln' Time', 'Mullaway'; 'Blood Money', 'Once Upon A Weekend', 'Dead Man's Float'. WtrkW Is pest 12 swaths: 13 weeks (also three months travelling) MUmMhn wwte plant nursery sales assistantreceptionist. Wafts Ii seal 12 mmm About 24 weeks. vsris shop assistant sisal last In the times Barmaid.

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THEJfeAal.AGE Melbourne newspaper Penjuln Best Actress In a mintaeries, Penguin Best Actress In a serial. CaaeMemtfaaMaganalJeM Because this veer was bad I got to slow ebb. That's when you think, I've got all these awards and I arrfalriy welkespected the Industry and here I am scraping the fhent jar to buythe paper this Isn't right. But then I Wr I don't know any other Job I would want tt(towrienlt ialVrx)iis(iowntolt. Actress 1988.

CsasMms1 tstbag a real Job? You reach a point where you wonder what else you can do. When you are working and it's going well i. somehow it makes all the time In between worthwhile. There's Just so much more satisfaction in doing one play well than working 48 weeks of the year In an v'" Icecream shpp. 'J Best Supporting Actor, AFI Best Actor, Logle Best IndMdual Male Performance, aaaMiw tMat real Wt I wouldn't want one.

This is a life of adventure because you don't know from one week to the next what you will be required to do or where you will -be required to go, Dates: Hth I ISth Jan: 25th 26th Jin: 1st Feb ev! i 1 tvJ ((, tfr ltd i Venn: Mefcouma Unrvirslty Trinity Cofegt af 4-dvumtiutHstninlottliiilnntgolntmYltH 11, 11. i.