Guy Pearce glad his pop career flopped
The Memento star shot to fame on Australian soap opera Neighbours in the mid-1980s and after leaving the show he followed in the footsteps of his former co-stars Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan by attempting to carve out a career in the music industry, but Guy failed to set the charts on fire as his 1989 single Call of the Wild limped into the Australian singles countdown at number 156 and he was left in the "wilderness".
He told the Guardian newspaper: "After I finished Neighbours, there was a period where people would say: 'Didn't you used to be Mike from Neighbours?'
"Then one day, this 10- or 12-year-old kid came up to me in a shopping centre and said: 'Didn't you used to be Guy Pearce?' I thought: 'Wow, that's the most profound thing anyone's ever said', because, in a way, it was true."
He went on to add: "I always knew I wasn't just a soap opera actor. I was just stuck in that cycle. Prior to Neighbours, I'd done 10 years of theatre, which made playing the same character for four years frustrating.
"I wanted to delve into a wider variety of personalities and behaviours. But when I finished Neighbours in 1989, I was in the wilderness because no one wanted to employ the guy who was in Neighbours, and I struggled to find work."
Guy eventually put pop on the backburner to continue acting - joining rival Australian soap Home and Away for a short stint and going back to his theatre roots - and his perseverance eventually paid off as he landed his breakout Hollywood role in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert in 1994.
Now Guy admits he doesn't regret missing out on being a 1980s pop sensation, telling the publication: "I went back and did some theatre, a little bit of Home and Away and then, in 1993, I got to do Priscilla. So, yes, I'm really grateful that my 80s pop career didn't take off!"
Guy did eventually return to music two decades later when he released his first album, Broken Bones, in 2014 and he followed it up by released his second record The Nomad in 2018.
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Sydney Morning Herald
13 minutes ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Col Joye was first teen idol that sparked riots, made girls swoon but ‘silly' parents loved him
Signed to Festival Records in 1959 by A&R man Ken Taylor, Col Joye & the Joy Boys debuted on vinyl with a rudimentary version of Lloyd Price's Stagger Lee. The first hit came with single two, Bye Bye Baby, which streaked to the top three, followed by Rockin' Clementine (No.2) and Oh Yeah Uh Huh (No.1). The latter made him the first Australian pop artist to have a No.1 record Australia-wide. Joye would score a tally of 16 chart entries, enjoying an unexpected No.1 in 1973 with the country-ish Heaven Is My Woman's Love. This achievement placed him in a rare category, along with Jimmy Barnes, Johnny Farnham, O'Keefe and Sherbet/Daryl Braithwaite. In the studio, the accomplished Joy Boys, like JO'K's Dee Jays basically made up the rules as they went along. Technical shortcomings were more than compensated by unlimited energy and exuberance. Original gems such as Going Down Town (To See Miss Brown) were knocked off on the way to gigs or between takes in the studio. Like O'Keefe, Col was a competent if not necessarily spectacular singer and was prepared to turn his tonsils toward anything that took his band's fancy. Ever-smilin' Col Joye was born Colin Frederick Jacobsen on April 13, 1937, in the Sydney suburb of East Hills. Upon leaving school at 14 and working as a salesman for a wholesale jeweller, he met impressive young player Dave Bridge, who persuaded him to take guitar lessons. Joye was quite prolific, with a new single every couple of months and a regular flow of albums, such as Jump For Joye, Songs That Rocked The Stadium, Joyride and The Golden Boy. Some charted, some didn't, but it hardly mattered. As the centrepiece of 'the Bandstand Family' for 14 years, Col became an incredibly popular national figure, loved by both parents and their daughters. He also enjoyed significant Japanese popularity, touring there several times in the '60s. He also played in Papua New Guinea and Vietnam. It's hard to come to grips with just how many magazine covers, newspaper headlines and television time was devoted to Joye over a 10-year period. Ordinary Australians felt secure with this regular bloke who never attempted to big-note himself. ' Bandstand was very important to my career,' Joye would later concede, 'because we didn't know how to be anything more than what we were and that was fine with Brian Henderson [the host]. We felt that we might not have been that good but we weren't bad either. We never got parents off-side and we weren't controversial – we didn't know how to be. If we did anything wrong at home we got the strap! But yeah, we did rise to some pretty great heights in this country. I have to say that.' Not that he failed to take advantage of all the perks that stardom provided. I recall him once admitting to me: 'O'Keefe was 'The Wild One' and parents would keep their daughters away from him. But I was the Golden Boy, the 'Mild One' you might say, and so they had no problems there. Silly parents!' He got on well with visiting singer Connie Francis. The Bandstand family included Judy Stone, Noeleen Batley, the DeKroo Brothers, Patsy Ann Noble, the Allen Brothers, Tony Brady, Little Pattie (who married Keith Joye) and Sandy Scott. National exposure made them almost as popular as 'leader' Col. Loading In the days before a publicity manager was de rigueur for entertainers, he achieved a most remarkable level of exposure. From Win A Date With … to TV's £50,000 Bachelor to milk ads to a set of gloves emblazoned with his signature, the market was consistently bombarded. Joye discovered the Bee Gees in Surfers Paradise. He brought them to Sydney, to be managed by Kevin, and signed Barry Gibb to Joye Music — his first publishing contract. (He would also nurture and launch the career of Andy Gibb 15 years later.) In 1963, they put the trio on a Chubby Checker tour and Col recorded Underneath The Starlight Of Love for release as a single – one of the first songs by Barry Gibb to be released by another artist. When the first flush of popularity ebbed, the Jacobsens used both their clout and experience to establish a talent agency which would grow into Kevin Jacobsen Productions, one of Australia's largest and most diverse talent organisations. In June 1981, he was appointed an AM for his entertainment and philanthropic work. In 1989, he was back on deck musically with the high-powered single Take Me Back To Rock'n'Roll, taking his place on national concert stages with Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Lesley Gore and the Supremes' Mary Wilson on a revival tour that his company presented. In 1988 he was inducted into the first class of the ARIA Hall of Fame. In 1990, while pruning a neighbour's tree with a chainsaw as a favour, Joye slipped and fell six metres onto brick paving, striking his head and falling into a coma as well as sustaining serious lower back and shoulder injuries and losing his sense of taste. Initially given a poor prognosis, he recovered and tentatively started performing and touring again in 1998. But all was not well in the Jacobsen camp. In May 2007, Kevin and Col descended into an abyss from which they did not emerge. Kevin had filed for bankruptcy over massive revenues from the Dirty Dancing musical. The dispute arose after Kevin's son, Michael, and Col's daughter, Amber, joined the business. They have battled it out in the British High Court and in the US, as well as at courts in Australia. There was almost no scandal attached to Col Joye, who gave an enormous amount of his time to good causes (usually showing up with his trusty ukulele) but in 2013, Australian pilot Malcolm Hansman claimed that he was Col's love child, saying that his mother, Ingrid, was a long-term girlfriend of the star. Col Joye married Dalys Dawson in 1970 in a joint wedding ceremony with his sister Carol Jacobsen and Sandy Scott in Fiji. He was married for the remainder of his life. They had two children, Amber and Clayton.
The Age
13 minutes ago
- The Age
Col Joye was first teen idol that sparked riots, made girls swoon but ‘silly' parents loved him
Signed to Festival Records in 1959 by A&R man Ken Taylor, Col Joye & the Joy Boys debuted on vinyl with a rudimentary version of Lloyd Price's Stagger Lee. The first hit came with single two, Bye Bye Baby, which streaked to the top three, followed by Rockin' Clementine (No.2) and Oh Yeah Uh Huh (No.1). The latter made him the first Australian pop artist to have a No.1 record Australia-wide. Joye would score a tally of 16 chart entries, enjoying an unexpected No.1 in 1973 with the country-ish Heaven Is My Woman's Love. This achievement placed him in a rare category, along with Jimmy Barnes, Johnny Farnham, O'Keefe and Sherbet/Daryl Braithwaite. In the studio, the accomplished Joy Boys, like JO'K's Dee Jays basically made up the rules as they went along. Technical shortcomings were more than compensated by unlimited energy and exuberance. Original gems such as Going Down Town (To See Miss Brown) were knocked off on the way to gigs or between takes in the studio. Like O'Keefe, Col was a competent if not necessarily spectacular singer and was prepared to turn his tonsils toward anything that took his band's fancy. Ever-smilin' Col Joye was born Colin Frederick Jacobsen on April 13, 1937, in the Sydney suburb of East Hills. Upon leaving school at 14 and working as a salesman for a wholesale jeweller, he met impressive young player Dave Bridge, who persuaded him to take guitar lessons. Joye was quite prolific, with a new single every couple of months and a regular flow of albums, such as Jump For Joye, Songs That Rocked The Stadium, Joyride and The Golden Boy. Some charted, some didn't, but it hardly mattered. As the centrepiece of 'the Bandstand Family' for 14 years, Col became an incredibly popular national figure, loved by both parents and their daughters. He also enjoyed significant Japanese popularity, touring there several times in the '60s. He also played in Papua New Guinea and Vietnam. It's hard to come to grips with just how many magazine covers, newspaper headlines and television time was devoted to Joye over a 10-year period. Ordinary Australians felt secure with this regular bloke who never attempted to big-note himself. ' Bandstand was very important to my career,' Joye would later concede, 'because we didn't know how to be anything more than what we were and that was fine with Brian Henderson [the host]. We felt that we might not have been that good but we weren't bad either. We never got parents off-side and we weren't controversial – we didn't know how to be. If we did anything wrong at home we got the strap! But yeah, we did rise to some pretty great heights in this country. I have to say that.' Not that he failed to take advantage of all the perks that stardom provided. I recall him once admitting to me: 'O'Keefe was 'The Wild One' and parents would keep their daughters away from him. But I was the Golden Boy, the 'Mild One' you might say, and so they had no problems there. Silly parents!' He got on well with visiting singer Connie Francis. The Bandstand family included Judy Stone, Noeleen Batley, the DeKroo Brothers, Patsy Ann Noble, the Allen Brothers, Tony Brady, Little Pattie (who married Keith Joye) and Sandy Scott. National exposure made them almost as popular as 'leader' Col. Loading In the days before a publicity manager was de rigueur for entertainers, he achieved a most remarkable level of exposure. From Win A Date With … to TV's £50,000 Bachelor to milk ads to a set of gloves emblazoned with his signature, the market was consistently bombarded. Joye discovered the Bee Gees in Surfers Paradise. He brought them to Sydney, to be managed by Kevin, and signed Barry Gibb to Joye Music — his first publishing contract. (He would also nurture and launch the career of Andy Gibb 15 years later.) In 1963, they put the trio on a Chubby Checker tour and Col recorded Underneath The Starlight Of Love for release as a single – one of the first songs by Barry Gibb to be released by another artist. When the first flush of popularity ebbed, the Jacobsens used both their clout and experience to establish a talent agency which would grow into Kevin Jacobsen Productions, one of Australia's largest and most diverse talent organisations. In June 1981, he was appointed an AM for his entertainment and philanthropic work. In 1989, he was back on deck musically with the high-powered single Take Me Back To Rock'n'Roll, taking his place on national concert stages with Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Lesley Gore and the Supremes' Mary Wilson on a revival tour that his company presented. In 1988 he was inducted into the first class of the ARIA Hall of Fame. In 1990, while pruning a neighbour's tree with a chainsaw as a favour, Joye slipped and fell six metres onto brick paving, striking his head and falling into a coma as well as sustaining serious lower back and shoulder injuries and losing his sense of taste. Initially given a poor prognosis, he recovered and tentatively started performing and touring again in 1998. But all was not well in the Jacobsen camp. In May 2007, Kevin and Col descended into an abyss from which they did not emerge. Kevin had filed for bankruptcy over massive revenues from the Dirty Dancing musical. The dispute arose after Kevin's son, Michael, and Col's daughter, Amber, joined the business. They have battled it out in the British High Court and in the US, as well as at courts in Australia. There was almost no scandal attached to Col Joye, who gave an enormous amount of his time to good causes (usually showing up with his trusty ukulele) but in 2013, Australian pilot Malcolm Hansman claimed that he was Col's love child, saying that his mother, Ingrid, was a long-term girlfriend of the star. Col Joye married Dalys Dawson in 1970 in a joint wedding ceremony with his sister Carol Jacobsen and Sandy Scott in Fiji. He was married for the remainder of his life. They had two children, Amber and Clayton.
7NEWS
43 minutes ago
- 7NEWS
Edwina Bartholomew shares support for Seven AFL commentator Abbey Holmes after return to work backlash
Man is good at his job. Man has baby. Man goes back to work. Nothing unusual about that. Woman is good at her job. Woman has baby. Woman goes back to work. Cue the outrage. When I saw Abbey Holmes back on our screens, I cheered. It wasn't for the footy she was commentating, it was for the statement she was making about how working mums just make it work. Sadly, there wasn't the same enthusiastic reaction from everyone. Comments online passed judgement on Abbey's return, seven weeks after having her son, Braxton. Was it the right time? Why isn't she at home? The judgement kept coming. It was so blatant that other prominent mums came to her defence. 'Absolutely outraged by some of the commentary online about Queen @abbeycholmes being back on our screens as a new mumma', wrote Steph Claire Smith on Instagram. She added: 'Honestly over people having a public opinion on what a woman should and shouldn't do as a new mum'. I couldn't agree more. To all the complainants out there, most of them also women, how and when a mother chooses to return to work is really none of your business. I remember that first day back after having my first baby so vividly. I was hosting a function and it gave me such a wonderful feeling of freedom. I adore my kids and I love being a mother but it felt so good. It gave me a break from the endless nappy changes and exhaustion, gave my husband a chance to bond with our baby and gave me back a bit of myself. I got dressed in proper clothes, put a bit of lippy on and felt human again. I took this photo when I got home because it felt like a momentous milestone I wanted to remember. It was 9.19pm on a school night and I was over the moon to have nailed my first night out as a working mum. Like Abbey, I am lucky to have a job that has flexibility so I didn't have to return full-time, I could come back on my own terms. Now, as a mum of two young kids, I can honestly say that coming to work every day makes me a better mother when I get home. I need the space to think and have some time to myself away from cooking spag bowl, folding washing and picking up Lego. Without it, I would have gone absolutely bonkers and I know I'm not alone. Australian women are having fewer children, and we are having them later in life according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. By the time we have kids, we have already spent many years building careers we value and done a lot of hard yakka. This is certainly the case for Abbey, who parlayed a storied AFLW career into success at Seven as one of our country's most admired sports broadcasters. It's true for Steph Claire Smith, who has built a multimillion dollar business while successfully raising two beautiful children. It's also true for me and the millions of working mothers in Australia who balance the demands of home life while providing for our families. Speaking exclusively to Abbey reacted to the controversy. 'There's certainly a small minority of people out there that feel that they have the right to tell you what you should be doing and how things are to be done, which is never the case,' she said. Holmes said one of the comments that annoyed her related to her husband Keegan, who Holmes refers to as a 'super dad'. '(Someone said) 'oh dad's on babysitting duty'. I'm sorry, but dads don't babysit their own children, they're 50 per cent of the parenting duo,' she said. Abbey can come back to work two days a week. She told me her caring colleagues at Seven Sport set her up with a private space for breastfeeding at the stadiums on game day and have made travel arrangements around her son's routine. If only keyboard warriors were as considerate.
