William McInnes
Sun Herald
Sunday September 27, 2009
The tv heart-throb, author and family man talks about raising kids, doing what you love and surviving life's challenges. 1. the youngest sonI grew up in Redcliffe, Queensland, the youngest of five kids, with a six-year age gap between me and the next oldest. I was an afterthought. My mum, Iris, always said the closest my dad ever got to winning an election for the Labor party was when he got done by postal votes. She felt sorry for him and nine months or so later, I came on the scene. The postal vote special. This is me in 1971 when I was seven. That's my dad, Col, who was out the back paddock making a fence. He was a carpenter and a builder. I came out to tell him Keith Stackpole was batting on the radio. Dad was a lot of fun and had a big character, but wasn't someone to share or tell us of the darker places he'd been, such as during the war, and there are whole tracts of his life I have no idea about. He went a bit crook after I went to drama school. Got Alzheimer's. He died when I was about 27. 2. a lucky escapeThis photo shows my mother's parenting skills at work. I was about 12, and I'd been whingeing about having nothing to do on the school holidays. I remember I'd been watching a Tony Curtis movie where he played Houdini. So I asked Mum to tie me up to see if I could get out. She also gagged me and she was playing up to my sister, Lorraine, who was taking the photo. But I just started freaking out because this little toad jumped on my foot. I have a pathological fear of them. I nearly strangled myself but they just thought I was getting into it. Mum was always the life of the party and she still is. She recently had her 80th birthday and we had a talent quest at the party. She's that sort of a mum. 3. creative partnershipI first met Sarah [Watt] in 1989 in Sydney, in a house by Bronte Beach with no windows. She opened the door and we had an argument about beer. Then she laughed when I did a Cary Grant impersonation. I knew then. Sixteen years later, she made [the 2005 film] Look Both Ways, which I was in. This photo was taken in Melbourne around the time. It was full-on and confronting to make a feature film together and we decided we wouldn't do it again, mainly because it meant our kids, Clem and Stella, had to be sent to my brother's in Sydney. Sarah got crook with breast cancer during editing. Considering the film's subject, it was one of those awful quirks of fate. She finished the film and treatment at the same time. It was inspiring. Sarah just took it on the chin and got on with life. She's been good since, thank goodness.4. not-so-fancy dressWe are settled in Melbourne where I'm enjoying acting and writing. I'm not the greatest writer in the world, and I'm not the greatest actor, but I enjoy it, and I enjoy acting more since I've been writing books. I'm lucky I get to spend a lot of time with the family at home. This was taken in 2007, before I went off to the Logies. We had a fancy-dress party and I was a Russian weightlifting coach. Some say midlife crisis, I say midlife party. 5. have a crackFor a long time, Clem and Stella [15 and 11] didn't know what I did. I just talked a lot on the phone, then took off for a bit. Now they know, me being on TV doesn't faze them. I'm still the guy who rushes off to the newsagent in the morning in his pyjamas to buy The Age. I have a lot of fun with the kids; we yell and carry on. This is Clem and me this year in my study. I believe in my children expressing themselves, and Clem is doing so here with a fantastic pull shot. I'm enjoying relating to them as they get older. I don't have any set philosophy to hand down. Maybe what my parents taught me - that you're a long time dead, so have a crack. It sounds blokey, but that's what they taught me.William McInnes is a Books Alive 2009 ambassdor.
© 2009 Sun Herald