Page 8 - Go55s summer web

Lifestyle

THE DAY THE WHARFIE PINCHED MY BUM!

VETERAN STAR OF STAGE AND SCREEN NOELINE BROWN TALKS TO JOHN McNAMEE ABOUT HER LATEST
BOOK EXPLORING THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE SIXTIES….AND A CERTAIN BRUISING ENCOUNTER

“It didn’t last long and there was a bit scantily clad strippers with not much on
of blood and a black eye here and there, except tassels on their upper extremities,”
nothing too serious,” Noeline said. she laughs.
Were you wearing something Noeline, who sprang to fame in the
provocative, I asked her, in the spirit of early days of television in Australia in the
historical research. hugely-popular satirical series, The Mavis
“No, I don’t think I was but at that Bramston Show, has a treasure trove of
time there were a lot of strange ideas about memories of those heady times.
women’s clothing. “I’d done quite a lot of stage work before
“I remember trying to walk into a I landed the Mavis role and I think I was
nightclub in King’s Cross with a friend starring in television before I even owned a
and they refused me entry because I was TV set,” she says.
wearing slacks! Noeline has just published her second
“It was hilarious, women customers book called Living The 1960s and it
weren’t allowed to wear slacks but the covers everything in those days from the
whole place was covered in posters of turbulent era of politics from Menzies to

Noeline Brown in her saucy role as Lady of Fortune Melinda in ABC-TV’s 1964 production of the
recruiting officer...she says the pipe was real but she wasn’t sure if she inhaled.

hen 22-year-old budding actress already so I felt quite protected I suppose,”
Noeline Brown walked into the Noeline told Go55s.
Wpub on Circular Quay, she knew “The place was full of wharfies who’d
she was asking for trouble. presumably just finished their shift down at
At that time, in the early 1960s, women the docks so it was pretty lively in there.
weren’t allowed into the mens’ domain of “Just as I walked past one table, I felt
the Public Bar. one of them pinch me on the bum.
They were supposed to confine “Now growing up with two brothers I
themselves to the Ladies’ Lounge to sip was pretty used to the rough and tumble so
their shandies, gin and tonics and Bloody I didn’t worry too much or kick up a stink.
Marys. “But my gallant artist mates thought
“I wasn’t too worried, there were a whole they’d leap in and defend my honour and a Young protesters confront the police on the streets of Melbourne in a 1966 anti-Vietnam war
lot of my male artist mates in the public bar nasty fist fight broke out. and anti-conscription rally.

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8 Summer 2017 | The Go55s Newspaper