It was just a week ago that we were reading about yet another performance fiasco where Amy Winehouse slurred and pitched around the stage in a drunken, confused state. After all those pictures of her in the Caribbean last year looking so relaxed and well seemed to give hope to her fans that maybe, just maybe, this wonderfully talented young woman was finally on the straight and narrow – that she had beaten her chemical demons and was ready to start living again. Did any of us though really have the feeling she had done it…? I think we wanted to believe it – but it was not to last.
Sadly Amy Winehouse is dead at the young age of 27 – found beyond help this afternoon in her home from what appears to be a drug overdose. The devastating journey of self-destruction finally completed and what a loss she is the world of popular music. What a loss it is for her parents to lose their daughter in such a tragic, though not unpredictable way. Maybe now it is time to identify and go after those cretins who corrupted this young woman at a time when she had the world at her feet – those who sold her the drugs which reduced her little body to that of a wasted skeleton and ate away at her talent turning her into almost a caricature of her former self. They are out there, somewhere, and they must be known. I hope they pay for their part in this young woman’s tragic departure from this world.
Australians to a man are proud of the great talent that was our Bill Hunter, and now we have lost him to cancer. His screen career was launched as an extra in ‘On the Beach’ filmed in 1959 in Melbourne with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner, and his talent proceeded to rise in stature and class during a time when the Australian film industry was beginning to earn the worldwide respect it so deserved.
Bill Hunter was as Aussie as the Opera House, Uluru, the Simpson Desert and the Holden Kingswood. Each character he portrayed – whether the stoic and dependable Major Barton in Gallipoli, or a shady two-timer such as Barry Fife in Strictly Ballroom, or Muriel’s corrupt politician dad in Muriel’s Wedding – you saw a strength in the man, an innate quality that made you wish he was one of your mates. A fine actor and a very fine Australian, I’m not sure he’d be all that fussed about being referred to as a legend because everything about Bill Hunter was real and genuine. I reckon he’d prefer everyone just have a beer on him and toast a man who was very much one of our own.
Bill leaves us with so many fine moments on screen but for me, his portrayal of Major Barton preparing to lead his young Anzacs in the doomed ‘over the top’ assault at Lone Pine in the final scene of Peter Weir’s film, Gallipoli, embodies just what an instinctively fine actor he was.
In 1986 the ground-breaking film about the Vietnam War – Platoon – introduced movie fans around the world to a very talented young actor by the name of Charlie Sheen. The surname was familiar enough; Charlie was the son of actor Martin Sheen. Platoon made Charlie a huge star and rightly won him fans all over the world, many predicted at the time that the young actor would one day win an Oscar. So what happened…? When you are a famous and successful actor Hollywood falls at your feet, nothing is beyond your grasp – whatever you want is yours…the women, the money, the fame, the best tables in the best restaurants. You can imagine a young man living such a life as if it would never end. But that’s the thing, it CAN end and very quickly and tragically too; think River Phoenix, think John Belushi, think Brad Renfro and Heath Ledger. All as talented as Charlie Sheen, all living the Hollywood dream and all dead before the age of 40. The common thread…? drugs. Are you listening Charlie-boy…? I can understand these young guys taking full advantage of the privileges that being a Hollywood star can bring, I can understand if Charlie Sheen wants to avail himself of the services of every two-bit hooker who crosses his path – their lives are on collision-course anyway. I can also respect Mr Sheen’s choice to leave this world at the peak of his career surrounded by dime-a-dozen floozies while lying in a pool of his own drug-induced vomit…if that’s what puts a smile on his face then by all means let him go for it and good luck to him. What a way to go eh guys…?
But after yet another drug-fuelled-orgy episode which has recently seen him left fighting for his life – again – I think someone needs to read this moron the riot act. This man, who treats life as though it were like a bottomless jar of marshmallow fluff, is the father of several young children. Like it or not this 40-something juvenile has responsibilities and obligations to people other than himself – very young people who need their father a hell of a lot more than he needs blow jobs from his series of rent-a-bimbo’s. Charlie Sheen needs to decide once and for all does he want to live or does he want to die. He has long since crossed the line from being young and reckless to being middle-aged and increasingly pathetic. It ain’t attractive Charlie. I suggest he make up his mind pretty damn fast because I feel his luck is quickly running out – and I would not be surprised if the obituaries have already been written.
