Australians in Hollywood

Venue: Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne

Dates: 4 June - 1 August

Price: Free

Exhibition website

California dreaming

Australians love a winner; and while traditionally that love affair has been restricted to the sporting field, we’ve started to warm to those artists who’ve made an impression overseas. In the world of film, there’s no bigger or better place to make your mark than Hollywood. In recent years, the trickle of Aussie actors and filmmakers in Tinseltown has accelerated; so that now two of the world’s biggest stars (in Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe) are Australians.

The National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition Australians in Hollywood brings together a collection of photographic portraits of Aussie icons, past and present.

The exhibition goes back to the silent era, with a picture of Annette Kellerman with a strange-looking bird – the style seems odd to us, but was quite in vogue at the time. The 1930s are represented by the man who came to epitomise the debonair action hero, Errol Flynn. Star of films like Captain Blood, Flynn was originally from Tasmania.

An interesting addition to the collection is Golden Era star, Merle Oberon. She wasn’t an Aussie at all – in fact she was Indian – but in the still racially-polarised US of the 1940s, the dark-skinned actress was the subject of unwanted speculation. To deflect that, she declared (under pressure from publicists) that she was from Tasmania. They figured few would know where it was and even fewer would know what the people there were like.

The years from the 1950s to the revival of the Australian film industry in the 1970s provided slim pickings, but in 1969, George Lazenby gained instant notoriety as James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It however proved to be a flash in the pan, and Lazenby didn’t portray 007 again. Still, he cuts quite a dashing figure in his NPG picture.

From there, things get much more interesting, with the likes of directors Jane Campion, Jocelyn Morehouse and Bruce Beresford gracing the walls.

The centrepiece though is the collection of current stars, including Hugh Jackman, Rachel Griffiths and Heath Ledger. Two highlights are provided by photographer Karin Catt and her portraits of Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana; while Peter Brew-Bevan’s study of 2004 Oscar nominee Naomi Watts is simply stunning.

Australians in Hollywood is perfectly timed to feed into the buzz generated by the Oscars, but the exhibition stands on its own merits. These are compatriots who have struggled and succeeded in the toughest market in the world. So while it’s fine to laud our sporting stars, let’s not forget that these Aussies are some of our highest achievers.

David Edwards

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