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After more than fifty years as an actor Nick Tate recalls the opening night of Don’s Party at the Old Tote Theatre in Sydney on 20 September 1972 as ‘thrilling’ and ‘extraordinary’. Standing on stage at the curtain call alongside Pat Bishop, Wendy Blacklock, John Ewart and the other cast members, Tate felt a sense of pure pride and satisfaction ‘to be involved with an Australian production of that quality… It was a huge landmark in my life’ Tate recalls. The success of the production was gratifying, particularly as he had very nearly given away the chance of playing Don, and had so many misgivings initially. Tate was thirty years of age when he appeared in the Williamson play. From that day on he did not question his future.
When he first read the script of Don’s Party he loved it. It was outrageously funny and full of colourful language, no shock to Tate’s ears. However several actors had been charged by the police for using obscene language in public, when they appeared in The Boys in the Band in May 1969. Nick feared a similar fate may befall the cast of Don’s Party. It wasn’t just the fear of a prison term, or an ugly court case, that put him off accepting the role. Tate laughed hysterically at the lines and found that he liked the character of Don, but he baulked at the crassness of the men and the way they ‘break down from cultured to their animal [selves]', he told me. To further complicate matters he had been offered a great role in the television series Boney, being shot outside Alice Springs, and he was keen to go. He reluctantly declined Don’s Party and headed to Alice. A month later when Nick arrived back in Sydney, Don’s Party was once again offered to him. This time Tate said ‘Yes’. Two weeks later Don’s Party opened at the Old Tote to rave reviews and full houses. Tate says ‘It is probably the funniest play I have ever been in’. It was a joy also because the season ran through the next year. But there was something else about it for Nick that was significant: the confidence and charismatic charm of Don reminded Nick of his father, the well-known actor John Tate.
Nick Tate spent his childhood around actors. His father John and his mother Neva Carr-Glynn worked on the stage, radio, television and film. Neva was the daughter of a vaudevillian performer whose stage name was Arthur Glynn, and was adored by audiences and critics alike. John Tate was a radio star. Later he went on to appear in various television series and films including On the Beach (1959), The Day of the Triffids (1962), The Avengers (1963-4), The Power Game (1966) and Dynasty (1969). In his lifetime Nick recalls that John Tate was regarded as a ‘strong actor’; he had large and rather piercing blue eyes, a soft round face and gingery blonde hair. In spite of several invitations to work in Hollywood John Tate refused.
Nicholas Tate was born in 1942, and when he was just two years of age, he went on tour with his parents to New Zealand where they appeared together in various plays including Arsenic and Old Lace.(1) When Nick was nine years old, his parents parted. Their marriage had been tumultuous. Neva was the most popular actress in Australia at the time, and had won several awards for her work in radio and on the stage. She was also the ‘leading lady’ with the John Alden Company. Neva took young Nick on tour, with his grandmother, Marie. They set off for Melbourne where they settled into the Waterside Hotel on the corner of King and Flinders Streets, and close to the port. It was a rowdy ‘early opener’, with nowhere for a young boy to play, and so Nick spent most of his time at the theatre, mainly back stage. He looked on as his mother and the other actors rehearsed King Lear (1951) and then he attended every performance of the play, sometimes twice in one day, ‘watching the Duke of Gloucester having his eyes torn out every night’, he recalls. Nick saw his mother play Goneril in King Lear 1951, Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1951), Portia in The Merchant of Venice (1951) and Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor (1951). Every night he watched his mother performing, studying the actors as they laboured to perfect their own acting, and taking in the rich language and the stories of Shakespeare’s plays.
My Brother Jack
At Manly Boys High School in Sydney, Nick starred as KoKo in the Mikado, and Amahl in Amahl and the Night Visitors. When he finished school he took a job at ABC television as an assistant and began training as a director. However he was offered a supporting role in the Australian television drama series The Purple Jacaranda (1964). Soon after that he accepted another leading role in the television adaptation of George Johnston’s novel My Brother Jack. Tate embraced the opportunity to play the young writer, David Meredith. He had thought he wanted to learn the art of television directing. But in playing Meredith, Nick recognised immediately in the character, a more attractive and more organic side of his own personality. Tate brought a distinctive strength and emotional depth to the role. He recalls that he found it liberating to play a role for which he had been chosen without having to compete.
Tate was offered the role by the series producer, Storrie Walton, and when he met George Johnston and Johnston’s wife Charmian Clift, who wrote the screenplay for the television drama, he felt as though he had been ‘anointed’, such was the extraordinary feeling of being given ‘permission’ to shape the role, and the knowledge that the key people believed he had the capacity to do it well, he told me. The actors experienced the difficult task of ‘re-enacting’ real (rather than purely fictional) lives. Johnston, on whom the character of David Meredith is based, was involved in the writing and production of the series. For the actors, this immediacy created an additional layer of responsibility: they had to portray the characters based on real people with veracity. There were other challenges: Johnston’s real brother Jack, and sister-in-law, took considerable time to give the producers the all-important clearances before the program could be broadcast.
In 1964 the Prime Minister Robert Menzies introduced conscription for males aged twenty, in a ballot system, and a year later Australians were informed that troops, would be sent to Vietnam. Debate raged about involvement in the war. Charmian Clift openly opposed it and the series she adapted from her husband’s novel, offers a critical perspective on the effects of war, that is resonant today, making the series as significant now as it was in 1965 because of the way it sets nationalistic narratives in historical perspective.
The television adaptation of My Brother Jack, produced and broadcast by the ABC in 1965, was a landmark in Australian television drama. Nick Tate was central to the success of the series: and through it he discovered both his and power and passion as an actor. Tate played David Meredith as urbane and emotionally remote. Prior to this in 1963 he had joined 1RNSWR Commando, earning the Green Beret, yet he had no desire to make the Army his career. When conscription came in 1964 he was 22 and therefore not eligible. However his character Davey feared conscription above all, and was not warrior material like his brother Jack. It was a demanding and complex role in which the inexperienced Tate portrays ambivalence and fear, but in his role as war reporter he also reveals complicity with the war stories he publishes, in which he finds solace and reward. His eventual treachery to his class is subtle but powerfully conveyed. In this significant television production Tate found his metier. Unfortunately in 1965 film and television drama production was in its infancy in Australia, so on the day My Brother Jack wrapped shooting, Tate sailed for London to seek work in the fertile British entertainment industry.
Marion Johns as Mum Meredith, Chris Christensen as Dad Meredith, Nick Tate as Davey and Rosalind Seagrave as Helen in the 1965 ABC series. NAA
For the next four years Nick worked as an actor in London, gaining roles in theatre, television and film. In 1969 Tate was asked to audition for the smash hit British musical the Canterbury Tales by the London office of Cyril Berlin. Tate won the role and was brought back to Australia to play with his name in lights at the Theatre Royal in Sydney. During the rehearsals in Sydney Tate discovered that he was the only member of the large cast receiving rehearsal pay. It was standard practice in the UK to pay actors throughout the rehearsal period. Yet in Australia, actors routinely rehearsed for four or five weeks without any remuneration. They were exploited and vulnerable. The rehearsals were sometimes twelve-hour shifts, and there was never any guarantee of how long a season would last, making it almost impossible to earn a living as an actor.
During his time in England Nick had worked in theatre and television, observing first hand how effective and powerful the British Actors Equity Union had become. Courageous leaders like Vanessa Redgrave, who spoke so cogently at meetings, inspired Tate, who felt a real sense of responsibility that he must carry that same message back to his fellow Australian actors. He knew that talented Australian actors were dedicating themselves to productions without being paid. Tate talked to some of the actors about the situation, finally encouraging the entire cast of Canterbury Tales (32 actors) to go to a local Equity meeting in Melbourne where they out numbered the 20 member actors attending and voted to change the order of the day. Ultimately it was agreed they would conduct a series of rolling stoppages. They enlisted the aid of every actor working in theatres in the major cities. The actors and their friends stood in the foyers of theatres in Sydney and Melbourne holding banners aloft and chanting: ‘“The actors that you are about to see in this play worked for five weeks for no pay… tonight there will be a stoppage”’, Tate recalls. Rolling stoppages across Australian theatres followed, with the actors postponing the starting time of their play in protest against their conditions, without notice, on random nights. Tate and his cast locked the stage manager out of the dressing room during the first stoppage of Canterbury Tales. JC Williamsons threatened Tate and some of the other actors, stating that they would never be offered work again. For five weeks actors all over Australia carried on the stoppages, until rehearsal pay was finally adopted as the industry norm. It was a major victory for performers and marked a huge change in the professionalisation of acting in Australia.
TV Make it Australian Campaign… and Making a Living as an Actor
In 1972, Gough and Margaret Whitlam came to see Don’s Party twice, in Sydney and in Canberra. Their clear enjoyment of the play meant a great deal to the actors. Gough Whitlam was elected in December 1972 and supported the arts in every possible way. This support was particularly important for Tate and other actors who were now beginning to agitate for more Australian drama on television and on film. At the time there was very little Australian drama on television and not much Australian film. With the success of the rehearsal pay victory, the actors took heart, and began a new campaign. The focus of the ‘TV: Make It Australian’ campaign, was to ensure that Australian television networks screened Australian drama that featured Australian actors and was made by Australian crews, and that the government legislated for it. Tate worked in Sydney on the campaign with Jeff Ashby and Bob Alexander, who was General Secretary of Australian Actors Equity. Simultaneously Crawfords supported the campaign, and gave the Melbourne-based activists, Teddy Hamilton and Terry Donovan a room and printing facilities.
The actors supported Whitlam loudly in his election campaign of 1972, and their ‘TV: Make it Australian’ campaign paid off in the burgeoning world of television when it became mandatory for the networks to screen two hours of television drama every week. At that time the offerings of Australian drama were meagre: the Seven Network had Homicide (1964-1977) made by Crawford Productions and the Nine Network had Division 4(1969-1975), also made by Crawfords. Channel Ten had no Australian content. Their answer to the campaign, once legislation was introduced, was to produce Number 96 (1972-1977). The ABC operated under a different charter. The changes marked the beginning of a new era for the actors and for Australian audiences who were accustomed to watching cheap American situation comedies and quiz shows in the formative years of Australian television. For Tate it was a significant victory for actors and for audiences. He had helped transform Australian television at a critical time in the cultural history of the nation. There is no doubt that the successful productions that emerged from this era on television, developed by Australian writers, producers, directors, technicians and actors, helped the burgeoning film industry in Australia too.
When the English actor Robert Morley saw Don’s Party in Sydney he requested a meeting with the entire cast. After the show one night they stood in a line to shake hands with him. Morley was convinced that Don’s Party, with its Australian cast, should play in the West End and on Broadway. So, Tate took himself back to the UK in 1973 only to discover that Morley’s plans for the show had stalled; he found himself knocking on agents’ doors once again.
Nick’s new London agent, Peter Croucher, arranged an audition for the role of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, which would open in Nottingham. Tate landed the role. But before the rehearsals commenced, he took the opportunity to meet the television producers Sylvia and Gerry Anderson who were about to begin shooting a new television drama called Space 1999. Sylvia Anderson was a woman of enormous talent who was focusing on character development and costuming for this lavish new series. Although they had cast all the main roles, Tate was offered a small part as a spaceship pilot in the first episode. The problem for Tate was that his character, the pilot, would die in that first episode. He was torn. The chance to play Kowalski in the Tennessee Williams play was likely to be the opportunity of a lifetime and his agent urged him to accept it. The production would most certainly move in to the West End and Tate would have the opportunity to see what he could do with the character immortalised by Marlon Brando in 1951. Crouch couldn’t understand why Nick was hesitating. Yet Tate was drawn to the extravagant new sci-fi television series, even though his character was to die. Tate took a huge risk, turning down the lead role in the Tennessee Williams play, and accepted the small role in Space 1999, because Tate had a gut feeling that this was going to be something very special. They spent six weeks filming that one episode.
The American director Lee Katson, was determined to make a series that would surpass Star Trek (1966-1969). Space 1999 is set more than twenty-five years into the future and the story intrigued everyone: it imagined the explosion of nuclear waste stored on the dark side of the moon which caused the inhabitants of the space station Moonbase Alpha to career off into space. It was the most lavish production Tate had ever seen or heard about, and the most expensive television drama series to be made so far in Britain. The sets were elaborate works of art, and the camera team used the most advanced 35mm Panasonic cameras, setting it up as though it was a full feature film. The costumes for the astronauts included figure-hugging short tunics in thin fabric over flared trousers for men and women. The American actors Martin Landau and Barbara Bain were cast in the lead roles. At the very least, Tate reassured himself, he would have the opportunity to watch these two great actors at work. Both of them had trained with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio in New York. Nick could not resist the lure of this series and what it might promise.
The director took a liking to Nick during the six weeks shoot of the pilot episode and decided not to kill off his character. In fact, there had been a problem with casting an Italian actor to play the Chief Astronaut Alphonse Catani and so Nick Tate became Chief Astronaut Alan Carter. And as Carter, Tate became a sci-fi hero, and star of this visual masterpiece of television, receiving thousands of fan letters every week from adoring viewers. He was technically in a supporting role but garnered intense popularity and still commands a massive cult following that continues to this day.
Tate as Chief Astronaut Alan Carter in Space 1999
When the first series of Space 1999 was in its final phase of shooting, Tate accepted an invitation to be part of a film directed by the Australian Fred Schepisi. Nick had appeared in a couple of commercials directed by Schepisi a few years earlier and Fred had mentioned at that time that he was writing a film about the two years he spent at a Catholic seminary as a young teenager.
There was much in his character, Brother Victor, that Nick recognised: the constant drinking of men he knew, the adoration of sport and the genuine warmth of the man. But Tate had only second hand knowledge of Catholicism, through stories his mother told him of her strict upbringing in a Catholic Convent. Schepisi stripped all of the adult actors of ‘any vanity they may have had’ Nick recalls, asking Tate to wear thick black spectacles in some of the close-up shots, and shaving off his long, silky blonde hair. Tate had been labelled the Robert Redford of Europe and this came as a bit of a shock. The actors workshopped their scenes with Schepisi, using a small camera, and immersed themselves in the language of Roman Catholic liturgy and culture, as well as its repressive and punishing extremes. The result was an exceptional naturalism in the film. For Nick it was ‘the most joyous relationship with the other actors’ that he had ever experienced, mainly because of the rapport Schepisi established with and amongst the cast. It was not easy to achieve this as at least half of the cast members were teenagers
In a film brimming with extraordinary performances, Simon Burke (playing the 13 year-old Tom Allen) and Tate are exhilarating to watch, with their gentleness and depth in the two key roles, their restraint and subtlety as actors, and their optimism as characters in the face of paralysing guilt and fear. Tom represents something Brother Victor can never imagine having – a life beyond the seminary - and he delights in encouraging that life in his young charge. Tate and Burke were awarded Best Actor in the AFI awards for their work in a film that transformed cinema in Australia.
Playing Real People on TV and Film
Tate returned to London after the filming to do the second season of Space 1999. Then after his AFI award, he was invited back to Australia to play the lead in Summerfield (1977) a haunting, visually spectacular film written by Cliff Green and filmed on Churchill Island in Victoria. Now back in the UK Tate was offered a lead role in the West End stage show Don’t Bother to Dress. During the run of the production Nick married his girlfriend of two years, Hazel Butterfield who was 24 years old. They continued to move between the UK and Australia for many years. Tate appeared in a key role in Scales of Justice (1983), a television drama portraying organised crime in New South Wales, and corruption at all levels of the judicial system from the police up to the top. He played the likeable, reformist Attorney-General in a role that was quasi-real. If there was real life model for this character it was Frank Walker QC. The series offered a new kind of television drama, presenting a compelling documentary style of character-linked episodes. The storylines were powerful and controversial because they were so close to real events in the state of New South Wales.
Tate has played real people several times in his career. Six years later in the first docudrama produced in Australia, the landmark telemovie, Police State (1989), he played Tony Fitzgerald QC who presided over an inquiry into corruption in Queensland that brought down the government and the longest serving premiere. Tate as Fitzgerald peered over gold-rimmed spectacles at Gerry Connolly who was playing Joh Bjelke Petersen, as he floundered, squirmed and filibustered through his evidence. Tate played the calm, patient but steely commissioner with flair, his eyes darting around the room as he listened to the preposterous answers, drawn directly from the transcripts, delivered in the witness box by Bjelke Petersen, Terry Lewis (played by Max Phipps) and others.
Perhaps the most difficult ‘real person’ role for Nick came with A Cry in the Dark (1988) (also known as Evil Angels) in Fred Schepisi’s film adaptation of John Bryson’s book, portraying the trial of Lindy Chamberlain who was accused of the murder of her baby Azaria. The difficulties were inherent: firstly Charlwood was a younger than Tate by almost ten years, and secondly playing a real person is daunting, especially somebody with any kind of public profile. In the Chamberlain case, the most prominent case ever prosecuted in Australia, every member of the police prosecuting team became familiar to Australians, who had fixated on the murder case for eight years.
Schepisi shot the film in reverse chronological order with all the court scenes first. Tate told him that he thought it was unclear in the film why Lindy Chamberlain hated the police so much, and why she was so angry with them. He and Schepisi argued because Schepisi had decided not to shoot a particular sequence that Tate believed held the explanation for why Chamberlain loathed the police so vehemently. It was a scene in which Charlwood drives Lindy Chamberlain to the police station after the case is reopened. He is friendly and attempts to trick her into confessing to the murder of her baby: (with a mini recorder in his sock) ‘I’ve never asked you this before. Did you kill your baby? ... Come on, it’s just between you and me. Did you kill your baby?’ Taken aback, but quick in her reaction, Chamberlain (played by Meryl Streep) says: ‘If I’d done it, why would I invent such an unbelievable story about a dingo?’ Charlwood presses on in a beguiling manner: ‘Don’t sell yourself short’, and proceeds to tell her about some of the new findings that have caused the investigation to be re-opened. Charlwood is callous in his revelations, telling Chamberlain bluntly that the new evidence suggests the baby was decapitated. Chamberlain is shocked at the way in which she is ambushed in the conversation, and carries her hatred and disgust for the police with her throughout the trial scenes. Streep brilliantly portrayed Chamberlain’s refusal to perform for the trial, maintaining her composure and sharpness throughout. Schepisi joked with Tate and said: ‘You only want that scene back in because it’s good for you’. Nick replied ‘Yes, it is good for me, but it is even better for the character Lindy Chamberlain, to explain why she hates the cops so much’. Schepisi disagreed. A month later Schepisi phoned Tate after most of the filming had finished and said ‘I decided you’re right, I’m going to put that scene in … can you come to Mt Isa … we’re going to shoot it’.
Meryl Streep returned to Australia from the US to shoot the scene. Tate had always wanted to tell Meryl how much he loved her work. But Schepisi had warned him not to try to be friendly towards Streep, and that she had specifically asked that no actor playing a member of the prosecution team ever try to be nice to her. Schepisi explained that this was her way of maintaining the rage of the character. When Meryl walked up to Nick and asked abruptly: ‘Do you know why we are shooting this new scene?’ Tate replied quietly: ‘I guess Fred just decided it was too important to leave out’. He never let on that he had anything to do with it, but he knew that Meryl understood. Streep always assumed her character’s mood while on location. Tate smiled to himself as he knew that Streep would never have agreed to shoot the new scene if she did not regard it as valid and important. Executives at Columbia insisted that Schepisi cut twenty minutes from his director’s cut because they believed it was too long. But that scene remains in the film. Tate was vindicated. The episode demonstrates that it is actors who make a play or a film credible through the way they understand and portray character, situation and motive, and that their contribution to the credibility of a script can make a vital difference to the end product. The scene also explained the actual experience of Chamberlain and her treatment at the hands of the police.(2)
The next step for Tate was Hollywood. In the late 1980s he spent a lot of time shooting film in tropical Queensland for the tri-aquathon movie Coolangatta Gold/The Gold and The Glory (1984), an extreme sport film about surfing ironmen with Tate portraying the obsessive father and coach to two vying sons in a Cain and Able saga that took months of training in Queensland. His next role in the light and gentle American television drama series Dolphin Cove (1989) also set in Queensland, led to an invitation to meet with various casting directors and producers in Los Angeles. The upshot was that Tate landed a new series to be shot in LA called Open House. The family uprooted from Sydney to Los Angeles with their two children, Tom who was nine, and Jessie just three at the time. Nick and his family have settled in LA and he has gone on to appear in guest roles on US Network Television, in film and in the theatre, as well as a new career in Movie Trailer voice over work. In a way it was like starting again. At 50 years of age he returned to his roots on the stage and to comedy. Tate played a ‘po-faced vicar’ in an Alan Ayckbourn’s Woman in Mind opposite Helen Mirren in 1992. They performed in a 99-seat theatre, The Tiffany, in West Hollywood for twelve weeks, in the period before Mirren was known to American audiences. For Tate also, the play provided a useful path into the world of acting in Los Angeles. He particularly enjoyed playing Noodler in Steven Spielberg’s pirate movie Hook (1991).
Nick Tate currently lives in the quiet seaside suburb of Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles. Both his adult son and daughter also reside in the US. He returns to Sydney frequently, especially when a role appeals to him. Tate played the rough diamond father of Art Watkins, (Richard Roxburgh) in the television drama East of Everything(2008), his arms heavily tatooed for the series, and has appeared in a range of American television dramas including the telemovie The Junction Boys (2002) in which his southern American accent as Smokey Harper is impeccable. In 2012 Tate returned to play the lead role in David Williamson’s stage comedy When Dad Married Fury, a part Williamson wrote for him. Tate has also appeared recently in several films, including the action crime thriller, Killer Elite (2011) as a member of a glittering international cast that included Clive Owen, Jason Statham, Robert De Niro and three fellow Australians: Ben Mendelsohn, Lachy Hulme and Firass Dirani.
Tate’s rich, melodious voice is in demand for voice over work in radio and film. He is well practised at the craft of the voice over, having perfected it over many years. He offered a powerful and moving narrative voice over for a documentary about Thomas Keneally’s life, God or Politics (1990), reading out passages from the writer’s novels throughout the film. In recent years he has also perfected the technicalities of delivering his voice over recordings from the comfort of his home in either Los Angeles or Sydney, and has become a preeminent voice over artist, delivering the eloquent introductions in numerous trailers, including films such as Jurassic Park(1993), Schindler’s List (1993), Braveheart (1995) and many others.
Nick Tate is one of a number of Australian actors who did not undergo formal training. He learned through observing and doing. He watched his mother Neva Carr-Glynn, his father John Tate and the likes of Paul Scofield, Vanessa Redgrave, Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. Tate studied the actors with whom he worked as he worked beside them. Tate is a highly appealing actor of immense range and depth, and has brought subtlety and nuance to a series of hyper-masculine roles on stage, television and film.
Footnotes
(1) Martha Rutledge, ‘Carr-Glynn, Neva Josephine Mary (1908-1975)’, Melbourne: MUP, 1993 http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography
(2) This version of events is presented by Lindy Chamberlain in her autobiography Through My Eyes, Port Melbourne: William Heinemann Australia, 1990, 180-181.
Image Credits
Header image: Nick Tate as David Meredith, the up and coming journalist and war correspondent. National Archives of Australia.
Image one: Nick Tate (Davey) and Ed Devereaux (Jack) talking outside the family home ‘Avalon’. The series was filmed in Campsie, Sydney in a house that resembled the actual house in which George Johnston grew up in Elsternwick, Melbourne. National Archives of Australia.
Image two: Marion Johns as Mum Meredith, Chris Christensen as Dad Meredith, Nick Tate as Davey and Rosalind Seagrave as Helen in the 1965 ABC series. National Archives of Australia.
Image three: Tate as Chief Astronaut Alan Carter in Space 1999. Courtesy of Nick Tate.
Image four: Tate as Chief Astronaut Alan Carter in Space 1999. Courtesy of Nick Tate.