Dear Me

Today, another spot. Bugger it!! And tomorrow, another audition. It seems like all I seem to be doing is going to go-see's. I'm sixteen, and I've been in show biz for a whole bloody year.

So, I audition for a play. In South Yarra, Melbourne, and it's called a Bunch of Ratbags.

That sounds like me. I have to read, cold read, this embarrassing monologue about pubic hair. Which I'm discovering in all the oddest places. Around my willy, balls. Wow. So I can relate.

But I don't get cast.

I read for The Devil's Playground, the movie, for Fred Schepsi, along with a gazillion other teenage brat boys, all going through puberty blues. It's held at Film House, Fred's Fitzroy production HQ, where he does all those ad's for the telly. I fucked it up. Nerves. But, I don't give up.

The Getting of Wisdom. That's the plight of a sixteen year old bloke trying to be an actor. Or do I want to be an artist, like my dad? Mum disapproves of both. Anyway, I go ahead and audition for the film, called The Getting of Wisdom, as a postman or something I can't even remember. Barry Humphries is in the cast, so I really want to be in it. I'm not.

Instead, I play schoolboys. I change from my own grey trousers, white shirt, green tie and school shoes (Bata's) into another school boy uniform. I'm in Homicide, playing a kid who murders both of his parents. For the ABC, another telly show, Frank and Francesca, another schoolboy I play. Talk about type-cast.

What do I expect? I have no training as a thesp.; look weird (big nose, pimples and wiry hair. Oh, and I am skinny. Too skinny).

I do get to play footie, in Bellbird, also for ABC-TV and in my earliest "role" I play......

a schoolkid, in Alvin Purple, at the Caulfield Race, where I get lost and stuck in the bloody rain. I worked my bum off, and ended up getting left on the editing room floor.

Never give up. I am only sixteen, after all. I am going to be an actor one day, and be taken seriously. At least I can be a member of Actors Equity. Hey, how many other bastards can lay claim to flunking so many auditions, and be a working stiff, ah, extra on all these things?

No worries. Onward and upward, mate. You can do it.

See ya in the mirror. Bring the clearasil,

Gordon Durich aka Mel Gibson to be??

(I am now 52, live in America, and am a writer and oft act in theatre, darling).