Quotes

All my life, I wanted to be a cowboy in films. I was born in Wee Waa, N.S.W., where my father was a linesman for the railways. Then we moved to Moree, where there was a film matinee every Saturday. For sixpence I could sit there and worship Tom Mix and all the other marvellous Western veterans until I nearly burst. For ninepence you could get the additional thrill of a hot pie. gravy and peas at the local café. I'd been riding a horse all my life because we had one to pull the sulky. Most of the time the poor thing was carrying me.

[on writing to the Rank Organisation at Pinewood Studios in the UK] They replied: "If you should ever happen to be round this way, pop in and see us." The fact that I was 13,000 miles away didn't deter me for a minute. I hung round the docks for a week until I could find a job on a ship pointing in the right direction. She was a Swedish cargo ship and I got the lowest form-of-life-type chores. Six months later. I finished up in Sweden.

Alter my discharge in 1945. the old determination to learn acting took over so I joined the Whitehall Academy of Dramatic Art in Sydney. I must have had the most bastardised accent in the business. one-third Aussie, one-third Canadian, and one-third Cockney.