Billy Hunter has shuffled off this mortal coil.
Young Billy Hunter was a state champion swimmer with Olympic potential who doubled for Tony Perkins in that great 1960's flick ''On the Beach' and decided to take acting. Old Billy Hunter, the country cove from Ballarat,had become a double entity. On screen he was gruff man of the people playing an astonishing
range of interesting Australian characters. Off screen he was lover of the Australian vernacular that enjoyed ordinary Australian people At the farewell to Billy Show held on last Thursday at the Princess Theatre
in Melbourne on a wintery day in this city of toffs and lefties where the poor wear beards and the rich well cut suits. We were treated to yarns of Billy's great claim to fame as a bullshit detector without peer. Not for this nationally know screen star the coffee bars of Carlton or St Kildare but the old school worker’ pubs such as the All Nations at Richmond where those of us without wives or husbands gathered for a drink or three after the hearse had gone its way.
Billy always asked for 'walk around money' when he was on a film. It drove producers mad but fuelled a thousand friendships with strangers who approached the lone Billy at the bar. A few minutes with him made a person feel noticed and over the years there was hundreds of us on and off set who were taken in by this gruff man with a warm heart and a shallow pocket.
Young Billy Hunter was a state champion swimmer with Olympic potential who doubled for Tony Perkins in that great 1960's flick ''On the Beach' and decided to take acting. Old Billy Hunter, the country cove from Ballarat,had become a double entity. On screen he was gruff man of the people playing an astonishing
range of interesting Australian characters. Off screen he was lover of the Australian vernacular that enjoyed ordinary Australian people At the farewell to Billy Show held on last Thursday at the Princess Theatre
in Melbourne on a wintery day in this city of toffs and lefties where the poor wear beards and the rich well cut suits. We were treated to yarns of Billy's great claim to fame as a bullshit detector without peer. Not for this nationally know screen star the coffee bars of Carlton or St Kildare but the old school worker’ pubs such as the All Nations at Richmond where those of us without wives or husbands gathered for a drink or three after the hearse had gone its way.
Billy always asked for 'walk around money' when he was on a film. It drove producers mad but fuelled a thousand friendships with strangers who approached the lone Billy at the bar. A few minutes with him made a person feel noticed and over the years there was hundreds of us on and off set who were taken in by this gruff man with a warm heart and a shallow pocket.
I remember acting in a scene with him and there was this sense of being dragged down the corridor in the wake of a dirty but powerful tramp steamer who was not going to wait for nobody so you had better swim fast if you wanted tostay in the same breathing space.
A man’s man who abandoned his loving child at four coming back into her life only to leave her again with his death. His forty-plus son mumbled drunkenly adoring the ceremony realizing he would never get Bill’s attention.
I liked him and thousands of others real, or fantasied feelings, were like mine. A good funeral with lots of good footage. Thanks Bill it was nice to have bumped into you, mate.
A man’s man who abandoned his loving child at four coming back into her life only to leave her again with his death. His forty-plus son mumbled drunkenly adoring the ceremony realizing he would never get Bill’s attention.
I liked him and thousands of others real, or fantasied feelings, were like mine. A good funeral with lots of good footage. Thanks Bill it was nice to have bumped into you, mate.
Stepehen O’Rourke