Re: On The Beach

["Mike Alexander" <malex@bigfoot.com>]

Now, who really did say that

 By NEIL JILLETT

 I remember it as clearly as if it happened only 19 years ago, not 20. In
the finest traditions of crusading journalism, I sought to correct a
long-standing wrong and to expose the culprit. But my effort fell on blind
eyes. The editor I was then working for said: "You've written an excellent
piece, and it's of considerable historical value, but it doesn't do any good
to let people know newspapers make mistakes. "When I moved to The Age a few
months later, I continued to be troubled by that old injustice and my failed
attempt to set the record straight. But I had even more pressing matters on
my mind and, I must guiltily admit, put that particular fight for the truth
to one side. It refused to stay there. Newspapers, radio and television
regularly referred to it. There were even mentions in a few books. These
repeated references served only to reinforce the original wrong. So, adding
new information uncovered by my research, I rewrote the story that had been
so misguidedly rejected in 1977. The Age published it, to the stunned
amazement of all who read it, in 1982. The truth my story revealed was so
significant that Stephen Murray-Smith recorded it (with a scholarly
footnote) in his Dictionary of Australian Quotations. The story also became
a controversial topic on talkback radio. It still is, as a call from station
2GB Sydney has just reminded me. The story is back in the news because the
81-year-old American actor, Gregory Peck, now visiting Melbourne, has
declared that Ava Gardner was just joking and didn't mean any harm when she
made a disparaging remark about Melbourne in 1959. That was when she and
Greg were here to star in a film based on Nevil Shute's novel On the Beach.
The remark was not made, as has been alleged, during a newspaper interview.
It was made because Ava refused to give any interviews. At the time, I was
working in the Melbourne office of the Sydney Morning Herald. Its Sunday
sister, the Sun-Herald, told me to write a story about Ava. Unable to talk
to her, I and other reporters were reduced to speculating about her love
life Down Under and listing the numbers of bottles of Scotch and cartons of
cigarettes delivered to her South Yarra flat. Not yet having shifted my
parochial allegiance from Sydney to Melbourne, I ended my story: "It has not
yet been confirmed that Miss Gardner, as has been rumoured at third hand
from a usually unreliable source, if given the chance, would seriously
consider whether, if she managed to think of it, she would like to have put
on record that she said: 'On the Beach is a story about the end of the
world, and Melbourne sure is the right place to film it'." In my youthful
innocence, I assumed that my superiors at the Sun-Herald would appreciate
that the last paragraph was a hoax and remove it before publishing the
article. But they thought I was just being my usual wordy self. They reduced
the preamble to "Miss Gardner said" and retained the fake quote. As I wrote
in my confession for The Age in 1982, the quote was repeated by newspapers
around the world, not to denigrate Melbourne so much as to provide evidence
of Ava's hitherto unsuspected qualities as a gag-writer. It also became
obligatory for overseas journalists to include it in any article about
Melbourne or even Australia. Injustice was continually being done - to me. I
still get upset whenever Ava is named as the author. It is not easy to live
with the fact that in 45 years working as a journalist, I have only once
written anything worth repeating - and someone else usually gets the credit.
Ava compounded the offence during a visit to Australia a few years ago. She
said she remembered being annoyed at the time, although she had forgotten
exactly how the comment had been coined. "But it's a funny quote," she
added, "and I'm quite happy to be given the credit." After Peck's media
conference this week, a reporter from AAP, the agency that gives newspapers
a back-up coverage, checked my 1982 confession with me. His accurate account
of what I told him appeared in the Herald Sun as part of a story under the
byline of a Herald Sun reporter who had not consulted me about my
half-witting attribution of my own joke to Ava Gardner. AAP didn't get a
credit. Perhaps, following the line taken by the late Ava, the HS reporter
will eventually convince himself that he was the author of the words wrongly
attributed to him.



"Daniel Bowen" <dbowen@custard.REMOVE.net.au> wrote in message
W57d6.90527$xW4.690054@news-server.bigpond.net.au">news:W57d6.90527$xW4.690054@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
> "David McLoughlin" <davemcl@NO***damned***SPAMiprolink.co.nz> wrote in
> message 3a74d2f0@news.iprolink.co.nz">news:3a74d2f0@news.iprolink.co.nz...
> > Ava Gardner fanously said she couldn't have imagined a more fitting city
> > to set the end of the world in.  Melbourne's come a long way since then!
>
> She never said it. It was made up by a journalist, who admitted it decades
> later. I think his name is something like Neil Jillet - now works for The
> Age.
>
>
> Daniel
> --
> Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia
> dbowen@custard.REMOVE.net.au
> Melbourne public transport FAQ http://www.custard.net.au/melbtrans/
>
>