One Way or Another (15 page)

Filming for
Dead End Drive-In
commenced the same week as Sex-on-Legs left on tour. It was a well-timed distraction, and one I hoped would mark a new stage in my acting career.

Hoping to build on my first proper film role, Suzie Maizels had lined up an interview for me with the acting agency Bedford and Pearce, just over the Harbour Bridge.

‘If you're serious about a career in film, you need an agent. I've put in a good word for you,' she enthused. ‘You'll need to take a head sheet of photos.'

Billy arranged for a friend of a friend who was a professional photographer to do a photo shoot. I was nervous and self-conscious, but Billy lent me his leather jacket, complete with jagged patches where his older brother had come off a motorcycle, as a comforter. The few shots the photographer took of me in the jacket were by far the best.

With my new photos and a resume listing nothing more than a few high-school productions and eisteddfods, I turned up at their offices and was met by the gracious Shirley Pearce, an older woman with a head of grey hair and a youthful twinkle in her eyes. She had an inviting Pommy accent and I liked her straight away. The fact that I had already scored a small role in a feature film can't have hurt, and she agreed to put me on the books for a three-month trial. As I left, I perused the headshots of the shiny happy clients adorning the walls and was pleased to see more than a few familiar faces from TV and film. I felt another step closer to my date with Oscar.

*

My role as Shirl the Girl was not a large part, nor was it a very good part. I played a two-dimensional futuristic punk hairdresser who operated out of a public restroom. Nice! My character belonged to a small gaggle of girls and the other three actresses were a lot of fun. While I had few lines, we four girls were required to be in the background of many, many scenes. We were live scenery. There were no egos at all on set, not even from the leads, Net and Natalie, or from Wilbur Wilde, who probably had one of the bigger profiles of the cast thanks to his regular gig on
Hey, Hey, It's Saturday.

We filmed on location in Matraville, a southern beachside suburb of Sydney. The set was a derelict drive-in that had been transformed by the crew into a punk wonderland. Hundreds of cars were decked out like makeshift little houses, adorned with clotheslines, deck chairs and antennas. A giant cinema screen hovered over the dusty lot like an ominous big brother. A colourful apocalyptic tableau, this crazy landscape was to be my home away from home for the next month.

On our first day on set, Brian sent us all to the wardrobe department, which was housed in the former cafeteria. A bubbly team of seamstresses and costume designers measured us up and gave us outfits to try on. Dressed in tracksuit pants and a loose jumper, I was horrified to be handed a tiny skirt made of woven seatbelts – only about four seatbelts wide. What horrified me most was that I was not wearing knickers. Too embarrassed to mention my predicament, I went into the change room and slipped into the clunky buckled number, which barely covered the lower curve of my bum. Topped with a hot-pink boob tube and a midriff leather jacket, I shuffled out to face the wardrobe mistress, my legs cemented together. She was ready and waiting for me with a Polaroid camera.

‘Just turn around and let me get a back shot,' she smiled.

I turned to the left. Turned to the right. I could not bend over at all, not even an inch. After a lengthy examination and much discussion, I shimmied back into the change room and breathed a gushing whoosh of relief.

Safely back in my trackies, I met up with the others and we were ushered to the catering tent, where a generous lunch was waiting. I was on a film set, in a catering tent, hanging with professional actors as though I was one of them. I was a pre-fessional actress and it felt grand.

*

When it came time to film my scenes, everything I'd learned from Ray Lawrence went out the window. The stark reality of the set – lights, camera, action, and an audience of ten or twenty cast and crew just metres away – was unnerving for a novice. My awkwardness came across as shocking over-acting. Even worse, we had to go back into the studio a few months later to dub it thanks to poor sound quality on the original takes. Dubbing nearly always dilutes or distorts the original performance; while you can get the words to match the mouth, it can be hard to recapture the mood and significance of the moment. I guess it didn't matter ultimately, seeing my scene lacked any mood or significance to begin with! In true Ozploitation style, an assortment of stark-naked models soaped themselves up in the showers behind me while I fussed with another actress's hair at the sink. For any Australian film from this era with serious aspirations, some measure of gratuitous violence and/or nudity was essential.

As only a small percentage of the time on a film set involves actual filming, we had plenty of idle time on our hands. We filled it energetically, playing handball, pranking the older cast members and getting into the props for madcap productions of our own. Lusty unions took place between the cast and the extras, sometimes, rumour had it, in the little house-cars that dotted the set. It was a riotous atmosphere, enhanced by the explosions and other special effects. Security was constantly turning away petrol-headed hoons keen to crash the constant party.

Dead End Drive-In
was a strange and complex work of art that I never really understood. The script seemed stilted, our performances were tripe and the whole thing was so kitsch it was impossible to take seriously. And yet the director did. Shakespeare this was not, and no Oscars would be won, but when it came to the action shots Brian Trenchard-Smith was a visionary. And in the finished product the clunky acting and stiff dialogue seem strangely appropriate. Crass and trashy, the film had a certain crazy charm, ensuring it a place on the ‘cult classic' shelves.

By far the most memorable moment on set was the wrap party, which followed shooting of the final scene. The fire brigade was standing by and we were all required to gather for the bonfire of the century. A group of us had caught the bus out from the city, drinking a bottle of vodka on the way and well stocked with champagne to get us through the night. We'd been warned that the party could only begin after the final scenes were in the can and that this might take hours.

The shout of ‘It's a wrap,' came not long before dawn. We had spent the last scene racing at a fire, pretending to put it out. We were screeching with laughter, which was supposed to be hysterical terror. Nearly everyone was drunk and we were all highly flammable; it's a wonder we didn't explode on set.

Once the fires had been doused and the burnt-out skeletons of cars lay steaming in the eerie first light, we straggled to the dressing rooms and took our garish outfits off for the last time. The whole place looked like it had been visited by the horsemen of the Apocalypse.

It was a surreal introduction to the world of movie-making. I had always loved the theatre, but film was fascinating and vibrant and if the cast and crew were right it was like being at a month-long party. It was with a heavy heart that I said goodbye to the Matraville drive-in.

*

On the domestic front, Billy, Joey and I were sad to farewell Jock from Boystown. He was headed home to the greyer but more lucrative pastures of the UK. We auditioned a host of potential new roomies before settling on a lighting man who went by the name of Virgil. In his late twenties, with a mop of brown curls that (despite his protestations) I always suspected was a perm, Virgil was new to the rock and roll life, having packed in a desk job to follow his dreams. He took to calling me ‘Mum', a habit soon adopted by the other housemates. It was strange at first, but grew on me.

Billy and I were spending more and more time with Rhett, whose quick wit made me laugh more than anybody ever had. He was a clown, but there was a complex and sometimes insecure man behind the big brown eyes, a side he kept hidden most of the time. He was always good for a high, a low, or anything in between. We bumped into him one afternoon on our way home from Paddington Market.

‘Come on back to Boystown with us,' I suggested, and he did.

After a few drinks, Rhett reached into his pocket.

‘Hey look, guys, I've got a few tabs of acid. Forgot they were even there.'

Billy and I exchanged looks. I'd never tried it, but Billy had experimented years ago, before he met me. I'd heard about flashbacks and bad trips. People went mad on this stuff.

‘Well, I'm not working tonight and we're not doing anything tomorrow,' Billy shrugged. ‘I'm up for it if you are.'

‘Yeah, what the hell. You only live once.' I said it like I didn't mean it, but I didn't want to be the one left behind while these two became silly.

‘That's the spirit.' Rhett gave me a cartoon wink, located some scissors and began to cut up a sheet of paper that looked like a child's sticker set. He gave us each a tiny square with a picture of a little toadstool. It looked so innocent, like something out of my youngest sister's Holly Hobby books.

‘Just put it under your tongue and leave it there for a while,' Billy said to me, popping one in his mouth. ‘Then chew it up.'

I did as instructed and waited. I had another drink. After about ten minutes, I was getting a tad impatient.

‘Nothing's happening.' I looked at the boys.

‘Be patient, lovely,' Rhett leered, and I noticed that his eyes looked bigger. Definitely bigger.

Soon I was finding everything he said funny enough to induce tears.

‘Where's your toilet?' he asked, and it sounded like he was speaking in a vacuum.

‘Third star from the right,' Billy whispered.

‘Upstairs and …' I fell into a fit of giggles. Rhett disappeared and I decided to put the television on. The news was being read and I was struck by how much the presenter resembled a Freddo Frog. Billy wanted to play some music but kept dropping LPs out of their sleeves onto the floor, which was even more entertaining than the news. Rhett came back downstairs.

‘Hello. Where did you come from?' I asked and we all fell about like lunatics in an asylum.

The memory of Joey coming home and yelling at us for the mess may be real or imagined.

‘Shit. What's the time?' Rhett suddenly panicked. By this point time was very, very abstract.

‘I've got to go up the road to see some friends. I promised,' he remembered, looking flustered.

So we all strode out of the house in single file, like the Beatles crossing Abbey Road. The sun was vicious and as we walked up Goodhope Street, my mouth was dry and I became disoriented. Clutching one arm each, Rhett and Billy almost dragged me up the slight incline. We ended up in a small side street where cars were parked on the footpath, wedged up close against one another.

‘Look, it's a traffic jam and everybody's abandoned their cars,' somebody said into one or other of my ears. The footpath came to life as I stared, noticing things I'd never spotted before. There was a wilderness of activity down there. Ants. Lizards. Butterflies and bugs that had only just been discovered, by me. Sprouts of verdant grass leaped from the cracks in the baked concrete. The gutter must have been like the Gap to these creatures. Keep away from the precipice, I warned them. Stay close to the jungle and the fences. As we neared a house in Paddington Street, Rhett announced grandly: ‘We are here.'

I sat on the footpath, still entranced by life in the gutter.

The door opened and Michael Hutchence stuck his head out, took one look at me and shook his head, smiling. Noise was spilling out into the street.

‘Come on,' Billy called, ‘there's a barbeque going on.' But I shook my head, rocking on the spot.

‘Noooooo,' I hissed. Billy sat down beside me and Rhett shrugged and disappeared inside. I couldn't go in there. It wouldn't be right. There would be wall-to-wall musicians and I'd be contaminated by rock-star germs again. I'd put all that behind me.

Billy and I basked separately in the sun. He felt the need to protect me, which was comforting. We were cats. I was Possum. The spirit of Possum had entered my soul and I lazed on the pavement, licking my paws.

Finally Rhett reappeared, looking wild-eyed.

‘Dull in there. What's happening here?'

I stretched languidly and I was no longer Possum; I was a cat-woman, like Natassia Kinski in
Cat People
. I was half woman, half cat, the same old me but with cat powers. I could leap and see in the dark and drink milk from a saucer. We wandered, arms interlocked, back down the hills and narrow streets towards home.

Suddenly I spied a kitten. It darted out through a gate and hid beneath a car parked on the road. It was a sign! Perhaps it was my kitten. Rhett laughed.

‘Let's get Nikki a kitten,' he said slowly to Billy, who nodded ponderously back.

The three of us got down on our hands and knees and tried to entice the little fur-ball out to us. Here, kitty. Good kitty. Rhett fell to his belly and tried to slither under the vehicle like a hairy snake. The kitten looked afraid and made a run for home, but I pounced and caught it with my feline superpowers. It wriggled and scratched, leaving a jagged wound dripping blood from my hand. Aghast, I let it go. Once it had tasted human blood, it would only ever eat human meat.

Next comes a long blur in transmission, and then we are at Benny's at about nine o'clock that night. The clock in the corner is making a tick-tock noise for the first time ever. The place is empty. We sit in a booth and order water, because we're not sure if we have any money. Where are all the people?

‘Maybe they're invisible,' suggests Rhett.

This makes perfect sense, so we begin to wave and say hello to them, so they won't know that we are tripping and can't see them.

Some time, possibly many years later, we emerge into the dark world outside to find a feathery drizzle wetting our faces.