Australia (1977)
For weeks there were rumours that, like other wrongdoers before me, I would be sent to Australia. . .I did not know that this mad scheme had become a certainty until I was sitting at a lunch table opposite a Mr. Cook . . . He had chosen a profession in pursuit of which he traveled all over the world in search of entertainment that he could transplant in the Antipodes. While he was in America on one of these foraging sorties, he spoke with the Mr. Taylor who later brought Mr. Brynner in The King and I to England. Mr. Taylor had seen me at the Duke of York's Theater and advised Mr. Cook to do the same.
As we stepped off the plane in Sydney I reassured my companion that, it being only seven in the morning, we would easily be able to slip into our hotel unnoticed. Never was prophecy more spectacularly wrong. The moment that we wheeled our luggage out of the airport, we found ourselves in a lightning storm of flash bulbs, a thunder clap of interrogation. . . Once we were in our rooms, the hubbub that I had assumed would cease became worse. We discovered that a small documentary movie was to be made of our arrival.
In the ten weeks that I worked for Mr. Cook, I went to Orange, to Newcastle and, except for Darwin, to every capital city in his kingdom.
My tour of the Antipodes failed not because of any hostility from my audiences. No empty beer cans where thrown on the stage. I foundered on their indifference.
In Melbourne the reaction was the same. I stood . .. waiting for a taxi while near at hand two young men discussed whether they had or had not seen me on television a few days earlier. When they decided that they had, one of them approached and shook my hand. After the usual exchange of pleasantries, he said, 'So you're homosexual. Big deal.'
The sophistication of Australia was so complete that it did more than set the people free to come and see me; they felt sufficiently liberated to stay away.
As we stepped off the plane in Sydney I reassured my companion that, it being only seven in the morning, we would easily be able to slip into our hotel unnoticed. Never was prophecy more spectacularly wrong. The moment that we wheeled our luggage out of the airport, we found ourselves in a lightning storm of flash bulbs, a thunder clap of interrogation. . . Once we were in our rooms, the hubbub that I had assumed would cease became worse. We discovered that a small documentary movie was to be made of our arrival.
In the ten weeks that I worked for Mr. Cook, I went to Orange, to Newcastle and, except for Darwin, to every capital city in his kingdom.
My tour of the Antipodes failed not because of any hostility from my audiences. No empty beer cans where thrown on the stage. I foundered on their indifference.
In Melbourne the reaction was the same. I stood . .. waiting for a taxi while near at hand two young men discussed whether they had or had not seen me on television a few days earlier. When they decided that they had, one of them approached and shook my hand. After the usual exchange of pleasantries, he said, 'So you're homosexual. Big deal.'
The sophistication of Australia was so complete that it did more than set the people free to come and see me; they felt sufficiently liberated to stay away.