The Naked Truth is the very personal story of Graeme Blundell - Australia's first sex icon (by chance), a founder of the Melbourne's theatre groups La Mama and Playbox, which showed audiences that actors could speak in Australian English, and now an acclaimed writer and journalist. From his a childhood in Melbourne's working - class outer suburbs Graeme passionately followed his dreams, conjured up through the books he spent so much time reading and the sports stars he loved to watch, to becomes a central part of Australian popular culture. He has worked in films, TV and theatre. The hit movie Alvin Purple made him Australia's first permissive pin - up, and he became a symbol of the early seventies - an era everyone still wants to be part of. Actor, director, producer, biographer, critic and journalist, Blundell established theatre companies and was there when they closed, watched the film industry through its many renaissances, and television as it became an addictive digital environment. In The Naked Truth Blundell writes about Australian life in the 40s, 50s and on with the insight of someone who was always part of the action - whether he wanted to be or not. He also takes us into his life - the early years of truly independent Australian theatre, the wild local film industry in the 1970s, to the rise of local television programs. Writing in the same accessible and engaging style that made King, his biography of Graham Kennedy a bestseller, Graeme tells us so much about our country over the past decades.
Personally, he is a fine man. Professionally, he is one of the best television performers I've ever seen.' Bob Hope on Bert Newton. The millions of Australians who have watched Bert over the years would whole-heartedly agree. TV and radio host, compere, interviewer, all round media personality, Bert Newton is one of Australia's favourite performers. But who is this moon-faced man we've loved to watch for decades? Whose jokes we have laughed at while he compered the Logies once again? Who we've delighted in seeing on stage in productions ranging from THE WIZARD OF OZ to WICKED and GREASE? We know he's married to the wonderful Pattie - theirs was the first wedding to be broadcast on TV here, and programs such as IN MELBOURNE TONIGHT, THE DON LANE SHOW and GOOD MORNING AUSTRALIA, have all showcased Bert's signature style. They've shown his witty eloquence and, at times, acerbic interview techniques, and, like television itself, his ability to offer something new to each generation of viewers. But what about his life behind the camera? In the hands of Graeme Blundell, journalist and bestselling author of KING: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GRAHAM KENNEDY, this is a meticulously researched and compelling account of Bert Newton's off and on screen world. It's also the fascinating story of Australian television itself as it moved into our homes and our lives.
THE NAKED TRUTH is Graeme Blundell's personal insight into the early years of truly indepedent local theatre, the wild film industry of the seventies, the controversial rise of Australian television, and his role in each of them.
Graeme Sharp is quite simply an Everton legend. Second only to the immortal Dixie Dean as the club's top goalscorer, he netted 159 goals in over 400 appearances for the Toffees. Sharp became a Goodison Park hero during the halcyon days of the '80s, when Everton won two League Championships, the FA Cup, the European Cup-Winners' Cup and came within an ace of a historic treble in 1984-85. Partnered first by his boyhood idol Andy Gray and then by England hero Gary Lineker, Sharp established a reputation as one of the finest strikers in the world and notched up 12 caps for his national side, Scotland. Although his eventual departure from Everton left a sour taste in his mouth, he continued to score goals for Oldham Athletic before becoming manager of the Lancashire outfit. But off-the-field frustrations blighted his tenure in the hot seat, and a spell as a manager in non-league football brought the curtain down on a magnificent career that ended with triumph for Bangor City in the Welsh Cup. In Sharpy: My Story, the former Everton star reveals all: the highs, the lows, the big names, the victories, the disappointments, the heartache, the lot!
A remarkable wartime memoir, unusually personal and frank, chronicling the bleak and arduous journeys onboard an anti-submarine trawler in the Arctic ocean during World War IIGraeme Ogden's memoir is the story of HMS Lady Madeleine, an ocean-going trawler converted to an antisubmarine role as part of the convoys to supply the Soviet Union as it faced the savage onslaught of the German army. This was a voyage fraught with storms, icebergs, and subzero temperatures in peacetime alone, but now the convoys faced worse—the fearsome gauntlet of German aircraft, submarines and surface raiders strung out along the coast of Norway, waiting to meet them. Ogden commanded the vessel in question, keeping diaries of his harrowing experiences of those years, which also cover his time on the equally perilous Atlantic convoys. These accounts were rediscovered and published as a memoir in the 1960s, illustrated with exquisite line drawings by Richard Elsden, who also sailed on these voyages. This is a very different kind of war memoir, vivid and bittersweet, in which the human elements take centerstage against the backdrop of great events.
This third edition of a popular text offers an accessible overview of the central themes: language, semiotics, Marxism and ideology, individualism, subjectivity and discourse.
Born in September 1891, Arthur Graeme West was a quiet and self-effacing youth with a passion for literature, who went on to become a keen Oxford scholar. When war broke out in 1914, for some time it left him untouched. However, in January 1915, in a rush of enthusiasm, he enlisted as a private in the Public Schools Battalion. From that time, until his death in April 1917, his life was a succession of training in England and fighting in France, with short intervals of leave. West joined due to a feeling of duty and patriotism, but the war was to have a profound effect on him. He developed an intense abhorrence of army life and began to question the very core of his beliefs — in religion, patriotism and the reason for war. This growing disillusionment found expression in two particularly powerful war poems, God! How I Hate You, You Young Cheerful Men and Night Patrol, which stand deservedly alongside those of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. In August 1916, he became a second lieutenant in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Shortly after, he wrote to his CO renouncing the war and any further part in it — but he could not bring himself to post the letter. Less than a year later, on April 3rd, 1917, he was shot dead by a sniper's bullet near Bapaume. Written with complete frankness and sincerity, Diary of a Dead Officer gives voice to West's struggle to come to terms with the realities of war and is a poignant tribute to a lost generation of soldiers.
Letters from Timor provides a very different and personal perspective of Australian Military Operations. Through the compilation of excerpts of his experiences in Timor, Graeme Ramsden, a chaplain in the Australian Regular Army, has portrayed, with passion and clarity, an engaging account of what it means to serve God, soldiers and the civilian population during a military action.
FIRST TO CARE: 125 YEARS OF THE ORDER OF ST JOHN IN NEW ZEALAND, 1885-2010 brings to life the history of one of our most ubiquitous and vital charitable organisations. The heavily illustrated book provides a vivid account of public-spiritedness, enterprise and innovation by people involved in St John over the past 125 years, peppered with occasional disputes and setbacks along the way. St John invented and popularised 'first aid' as we know it. It provided medical assistance from the sidelines of our sports fields from as early as 1891 and it played a leading role in disaster relief from its formative days. From humble beginnings it established a nationwide ambulance service that today is the envy of the St John fraternity worldwide.
This book explores the concept of cultural spaces, their production and how they are experienced by different users. It explores this concept and practice from formal and informal arts and heritage sites, festivals and cultural quarters – to the production of digital, fashion and street art, and social engagement through cultural mapping and site-based artist collaborations with local communities. It offers a unique take on the relationship between cultural production and consumption through an eclectic range of cultural space types, featuring examples and case studies across cultural venues, events and festivals, and cultural heritage – and their usage. Cultural production is also considered in terms of the transformation of cultural and digital-creative quarters and their convergence as visitor destinations in city fringe areas, to fashion spaces, manifested through museumification and fashion districts. The approach taken is highly empirical supported by a wide range of visual illustrations and data, underpinned by key concepts, notably the social production of space, cultural rights and everyday culture, which are both tested and validated through the original research presented throughout. The book will appeal to students and researchers in human geography, arts and museum management, cultural policy, cultural studies, architecture and town planning. It will also be useful for policymakers and practitioners from local and city government, government cultural agencies and departments, architects and town planners, cultural venues, arts centres, museums, heritage sites, and artistic directors/programmers.
Paperback release of a biography of Australian television personality Graham Kennedy. Traces Kennedy's career from a working-class Melbourne background to becoming a regular host on Australian television, before moving into film. Looks at the way Kennedy examined humour traditions and invented new comic genres for television. Includes photos, endnotes, bibliography and index. Author is an actor, director, producer and writer who has previously co-authored the biography of Brett Whiteley, 'An Unauthorised Life', and edited 'Australian Theatre: Backstage with Graeme Blundell'.
Graeme Leith-electrician, Italophile and jack of all trades-joined Melbourne's theatre collective at Carlton's famously innovative Pram Factory theatre and said, 'Let there be light.' And there was: Graeme Blundell, Jack Hibberd, Max Gillies and many others produced over 140 new Australian plays in ten years. Like many of his generation, Graeme left suburban Australia in the 1950s, bound for London and Europe. After a stint in Britain's atomic weapons industry he rode his Lambretta scooter to Perugia in Italy, where he had his first taste of 'ethereal' wine and fell in love. But Graeme had also fallen for the idea of making wine, and in the mid-1970s he and his partner Sue Mackinnon established Passing Clouds, a vineyard in Victoria's Spa Country that produced award-winning wines from the beginning. Then tragedy struck. In 1984 Graeme's beautiful and talented daughter Ondine and her boyfriend David vanished en route to the South Coast of New South Wales. Ten days later their ute was found in Kings Cross, where it had been abandoned by their killers. Heartfelt and heartbreaking, humorous and hilarious, Passing Clouds tells of a life fully lived-a life embracing the experience of fatherhood, of triumph and disaster, of joy and tragedy, of ingenuity and sheer hard work and, above all, an unquenchable optimism.
Biography of one of Australia's best known modern artists. Brett Whiteley was born on 7th April 1939 and died 53 years later on the 15 June 1992 of a drug overdose. Material for the biography was drawn from media reports and information available on the public record. The Brett Whiteley estate is controlled by the Whiteley family and the authors were not granted the right to reproduce his artwork or to quote directly from his notebooks or broadcast interviews. Includes a bibliography and an index. Margot Hilton has written plays, film scripts, speeches, articles and three books. Graeme Blundell is an actor, director and producer.
Biography of well-known Australian artist, published in 1996, based on contemporary media accounts and interviews with major figures in Whiteley's life, including childhood friends and adult influences. Discusses the development of his career and his tragic death. Includes references, a bibliography and an index.
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