Maggie: I guess I was just born a show off, it seems to be. It was the same all the way through school. I was always the class clown. Not brilliant academically, in fact I only did well in things that interested me, which was English and history. Never, ever, did I pass maths, ever, not ever, but English and history I shone. But always the distractor, would always find some way to get out of work in the classroom and distract the teacher, or be sent out of the classroom. Showing off.

Richard: So Miss Kirkpatrick left school without an academic record?

Maggie: Yes. Margaret Anderson left school at the age of 14 and 10 months, because I couldn't stand it. And yet I remember, so clearly, the day I went to the headmistress with papers to be signed, and she said, "Oh my dear, it's girls like you we need in this school!". I said, "you should've told me that three years ago". She had made me feel quite unwelcome, I felt.

Richard: 50 years on from three, and you're still performing. Why?

Maggie: Well I don't know how to do anything else. I've passed the point of no return, well and truly. I don't think anyone wants to retrain an old thespian of 57. Yes, I'm still doing it Richard, it's a love hate relationship, it really is. It doesn't get any easier. My expectations of myself become greater, and other people's expectations of me also become greater. Where once upon a time an opening night, for me, was a fun thing, an opening night for me now is total trauma, it's hideous. But yet I love it.

Richard: You've always said that, haven't you?

Maggie: Yes.

Richard: That you'd like to do something else, but there's nothing else that you can do.

Maggie: Not really. Years ago all I wanted to do was be a nurse. But then that was in the '50s when, if I had gone ahead with that, I would have had a profession for life, as people did growing up in the '50s. We were very fortunate. I don't think we thought we were fortunate at the time, we all seemed to rebel against it and think it was a grey period. In essence, we had such employment here and if I had chosen to be a nurse, or a teacher, or a lawyer, or a doctor, I would have had that career for life. Heaven knows, I'd have been a dried up old hospital matron by now probably. I always wanted to do something like that and I guess the bleeding heart is there.

Richard: Or you could have been a prison warden!

Maggie: Ha! ... Never!

Richard: Which brings up... We have to talk about that early on, 'The Freak'.

Maggie: Sure. Sure. A most important part of my life. Opened a lot of doors for me. I shall never deny it. I just wish that the world-at-large remembered that I do do other things. But then that's just the power of television, you see.

Richard: When was it? Let's put it back in context.

Maggie: 1982. It was four and a half years out of 37. So it really is a little drop, isn't it?

Richard: But it became... why did it become such a cult?

Maggie: Oh god knows! People's need to love-to-hate. There's the whole success of the series isn't there? I guess the voyeurism of women behind bars, or whatever. I had no idea that it would be the huge success that it became, or that my character would be. I signed a three month contract.

Richard: Why did you think particularly your character became so... You must have done it well.

Maggie: I like to think that I did. It was awfully hard work. Not so hard finding that character, because let's face it, put an ugly uniform on me and slick my hair back and there's the physicality of it. What I tried to do with that character was find areas... I mean, nobody is all that bad, not even Joan Ferguson. And I know that there are prison officers like her, but there are also prison officers like the Meg Morris character. There are the caring, nurturing prison officers, I believe. Ferguson, my brief was to play a sadistic, corrupt bull-dyke screw, in the words of the creator. But I also had to show some vulnerable sides to her, and thankfully the writers enabled me to do that. And then there was the political correctness, or incorrectness, of playing a lesbian. A lot of people didn't care for the way I portrayed her. They thought it was stereotypical. I didn't think so atall, because the writers introduced a love interest, and when that love interest broke up I refused to use hackneyed words, or stupid words that the male writers seemed to think I should use. I said 'look, the breaking up of a relationship is the same, no matter whether it's a man and a woman, two men, or two women. The pain is the same,' So I felt very true to that aspect of this sad creature's life. I think she was a pathetic creature, let's face it. A born loser in personal life, and, ultimately, a loser within the system that she adored so much, for some inexplicable reason.

Richard: And then you became this icon in the gay community.

Maggie: Seemingly.

Richard: And then at the Tilbury Hotel, I think, in Sydney, you came out as a heterosexual!

Maggie: (Laughing) Wasn't that amazing? You see, you can't win in this life. Yes, I was attacked by the gay press for standing up there, talking about ex-husbands, ex-lovers, grandchildren, cooking, gardening. I mean, it was just appalling, the reaction rom that particular little rag. That was not the reaction from very influential, senior members of the Sydney gay and lesbian community, they were appalled by that. There was talk of my taking action against them, and then I though, 'No, why give them any publicity?' Who's ever heard of them anyway, in the world of journalism? It did get a bit sticky when a quote was printed in one of the tabloid daily press, and the quote was that I had "passed myself off as a lesbian in order to gain an audience". Now that is really impuning my integrity as an actor. It hurt me until I realised just how petty and stupid. Simply two people, in the entire Sydney community.

Richard: What did they actually say?

Maggie: Oh they castigated me for being straight. How dare she? How dare she be straight? Nobody in the Sydney gay and lesbian community was ever under any other impression, other than I was this straight old Sheila, with the grandchildren, who ran around like a fool every Mardi Gras period raising hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Richard: There'a an irony there, isn't there? After having raised money for the AIDS community.

Maggie: Yes. My relationship with that community has been a love affair for years. I met some of my best friends, the bravest people, truly bravest and most dignified people I've ever had the good fortune to meet. Sadly gone now but there's still an army of people battling this dreadful disease called AIDS, and living with HIV, and doing very well. But years ago when I became involved with them it was not such the case. There was a lot of fear, there was a lot of prejudice, a great deal of prejudice. And enormous ignorance, and, of course, from ignorance comes fear and prejudice. I just felt that perhaps given the notoriety, or the public face, I had that I could be of some assistance.

Richard: You have said that in this business people expect you to be all sorts of certain things, and you tried to live that out. Now you don't really give a damn!

Maggie: No, I guess not. Maybe it's late age maturity. I don't know.

Richard: It can't be the truth. Being a performer you do...

Maggie: I give a damn about what people think of my performance, naturally, because that's bread and butter to me, and I always do my work to the best of my abilities. Sometimes a project will extend me a little further than I had ever thought I could go, other times it's a little more calmer. But just in terms of my personal life, I used to feel I had to be a hell-raiser, I had to be grand, I had to be whatever, I don't know. I think it was just a personality default that I lived with all my life, and now I guess, what you see is what you get! I'm more comfortable with me, much more comfortable as I am.

Richard: Why?

Maggie: I never was, I just never was. I never felt secure about my role as a woman, as a mother, as an actor, certainly as a partner or a wife. I never seemed to be very good at any of those things.

Richard: You were married and then divorced.

Maggie: Yes. I was married to Caitlin's father. We were married for 15 years, 12 good ones. But I think my greatest achievement is my daughter, really. Somewhere I went right. My friends have said to me, 'Where did you go right?' She brings me great joy, and we're terrific friends. We have a tremendous amount of reliance on each other even though she has her own life and her own family, we're joined at the hip, I think.

Richard: Are you still ambitious to be a great star?

Maggie: No, just a great actress. I feel that there are lots and lots and lots of things for me to do. It's just finding the opportunity to do them. The sad part about being over a certain age, I'm not alone in this, you hear actors of my age complaining about this all the time. Yo ureach a certain point in your career, where you've honed your skills and you feel as though you've got something to offer, and the work's not there. Certainly not in television, where almost everybody has to be, seemingly, under 25. With a token oldie here and there. But work of any substance is few and far between. In the theatre, then the scope is not as great, there's just not the population here to accommodate all the fabulous, mature actors that we have in al the wonderful works that have been written.

Richard: Let's talk about some of those very good Australian plays you've been in.

Maggie: At the moment Shoehorn Sonata is probably top of the pops for me. Written by John Mistow. That was a wonderful experience for me, and for Melissa Janfarr. To play two women who had survived a Japanese prisoner of war camp, and they are brought together for the first time in 50 years. That, to me, was a truly great piece of story telling. It was thoughtful. It was challenging beyond belief, I was playing a 79-year-old. To be able to conjure up the memories of a woman of that generation, and to impart that story to people was wonderful. It was old fashioned story telling at its best. Patrick White's work I've had small cameos, feature roles in. That's always tough going. I've not played any of his major ladies.

Richard: Why was it tough going? Does he understand women?

Maggie: Not terribly much. Except that I was very lucky with the women that I was able to play because they were kind of eccentric sides of Patrick, quite eccentric sides of Patrick. And that was poetic stuff. I've done Alan Seymour, One Day Of The Year, another great character. I'm very lucky to be of a generation that's very close to that generation, that's my mum's generation. Those wonderful people, born during the First World War, came through the '20s to the depression, and then lo and behold, another World War! I adore those women and  I try so hard to present them faithfully, honestly, and try to show the heart and the strength that they brought to this country. I'm talking about women like my mum, who is 80. She's one of those women. A war widow at 23, left with a six month old baby to get on with her life. great people.

Richard: Is there anything different about Australians to the English?

Maggie: Oh god, yes! I do believe we are very different. We're certainly not as anally retentive as the British. It's been lovely growing up, since the '60s, and becoming passionately aware of Australia, and loving it as I do.

Richard: Is there a favourite play?

Maggie: Usually my favourite play is the one I'm doing at the time. A rich tapestry of female characters, absolutely. And all terribly, quintessentially Australian. By all those wonderful men. That's the real thing they all have in common, it might not tell you a lot about ourselves but I think in their way's, and their generations, they have told us a lot about the women of this country.

Richard: Yo usay Patrick White didn't really understand women.

Maggie: He was a bit British. But eventually fiercely Australian, as we all know. An absolute Republican, renouncing all that family history of his. It was great to have met him on several occasions. I did two plays and a film that he wrote, the las tplay being A Ham Funeral, and by then Patrick was fairly frail. He came to the first morning of rehearsal, and the role I played in that was just one scene - two old bag ladies rummaging in the rubbish bin - we had our first morning's reading and Patrick presented me with a funny little hat that had been worn by the actress who played the character in the first production, all those years ago in South Australia. When it came to do the reading Patrick read opposite me and I said, 'You've got to put the hat on to do this, Patrick'. So there he sat, this little old man with a funny little old lady's hat on, reading a fairly eccentric old bag lady, opposite me. I wish somebody had had a tape recorder. It was a glorious moment in my personal history, it really was. he also came on the set of a night shoot, at three or four in the morning, to hear me deliver one line. He said, 'I've been waiting to hear that line.'

Richard: Do you remember the line?

Maggie: I do indeed. I had to say to the late Doris Fitten, 'I met a divine communist once, he was a plumber. He came to blow me pipes, and stayed to indoctrinate.' And Patrick sat up till four in the morning, waiting to see that one line done, and then roared with laughter, upset the sound system, and we had to do it again!

Richard: It's really the humour that tells us about ourselves. That's what distinguishes us.

Maggie: Yes, very much so. Our sense of irony, our taking the mickey out of each other, which we do terribly well. I hope we don't ever lose that. I think all that comes from the Irish.

Richard: It hasn't always been humour and fun, beer and skittles, has it?

Maggie: Oh god no. Whose life has been?

Richard: Stuart Wagstaff said about you. That you were a fun-loving, raunchy lady but there was an underlying sadness.

Maggie: Oh I wouldn't say sadness. Probably an underlying guilt, for mistakes made, but not to any great neurotic extent. I refuse to wallow in the mistakes of my past because it's too tough.

Richard: What are some of the mistakes?

Maggie: Loving the wrong people. Drinking too much. Thinking that I was Lady Bountiful

Richard: You did make a lot of money.

Maggie: And spent it too, on a lot of people.

Richard: You have a reputation of being extremely generous. Which is not a bad reputation.

Maggie: To the detriment of my own life, though. That is just foolish.

Richard: How did it cost you?

Maggie: Cost me emotionally. It cost me financially. I found myself into bankruptcy. It kept a few unsavoury people well dressed and out of jail.

Richard: How much money did you have?

Maggie: Oh I don't know. We're not talking millions here. But for a jobbing actor a lot of money was wasted.

Richard: How much? Did you lose a home?

Maggie: No. No, no, no, I didn't lose a home. I lost a lot of self respect and that's worse than losing a house. It caused me to think very lowly of myself. I must have thought lowly of myself anyway, to indulge people the way I did. It seemed as if I was trying to buy friendships, and buy love, and buy sex. I don't care anymore about that sort of thing. As  I said to you, 'What you see is what you get'. Did I feel that I had to play a "television star"? I don't know, Richard.

Richard: You were getting international publicity. Hard to accept that fame?

Maggie: Perhaps it just went all to my head, and my cheque book. Or my Amex card, who knows? I think in the self searching, I don't navel-gaze a lot, but I think it was low self esteem on my part. Suddenly you've shot into the public eye. It's like, - 'Why do these people want to know what I had for breakfast?, Oh, they're going to give a nice rock for that photo-shoot! Oh, I'm dining here, I'm dining there, I'm getting best tables in restaurants!' - maybe this little girl who started singing in the bar of her grandma's pub had never really come to terms with who she was at that point in her life.

Richard: How did you get from then to now? This programme is called Life Changes, people are interested in how people, not only cope with success, but with failure.

Maggie: Failure is really hard to cope with too. When  I say failure, it was not the failure of one specific job, it was just the work flow drying up.

Richard: Is that a terrible sound, the sound of the phone not ringing?

Maggie: Oh, it's hideous. it's hideous. And it all came as I approached 50, so it was not an easy period. Not an easy time, '91, '92. I went off to England and did appearances in clubs all over the UK. That was ridiculous, that's enough to drive a girl into a whiskey bottle.

Richard: What was that like? They remembered you?

Maggie: Oh, mobbed. Ridiculous. But down the track  I went back again in '95, and that was great fun. That was the West End, that wasn't little bingo halls in the North of England. It was the Queen's Theatre in the West End. Schlocky show, but what fun, what fun? And at least I was there.

Richard: So getting from then till now. It's basically a process of letting things go?

Maggie: Letting things go, and letting things happen. I sweat over the bills, of course. That's a constant in one's life, but it's okay. I've still got a passion about my work, I have passion about my life. I think when we lose our passion, then curl up your toes. I'm passionate about my garden, about the plants, the birds around me, and especially my grandchildren.

Richard: What about men? Are you over men?

Maggie: I'm pretty circumspect about that. Hey, look, if he's out there and he's absolutely independent, and can put up with me and mine.

Richard: There are qualifications?

Maggie: There are huge qualifications. I don't think he's out there, I just don't think he is. They say that there is for all of us, but if he isn't it doesn't really matter. I have great friends. I like my own company and that's why I don't think  I could really tie up with anybody anymore. I've become too set in my ways, as they say.

Richard: What about reviews? I've just read a review about a play in Perth. It was kind, but it wasn't overwhelming.

Maggie: No. Was that for A Passionate Woman that I recently did? So lukewarm, and yet the reviews for my one-woman-show, aside from that person we won't mention, I couldn't have bought them they were so fabulous. One of them in 'The Australian' made me almost cry. It was as if I had spent my life getting to that point of appreciation. And it was appreciation, it wasn't just going on and on about how fabulous Maggie Kirkpatrick is. It was true appreciation, of me, and my contribution to the theatre, and it was so lovely. And then you do something as difficult as that wonderful English play that I did over there, and it's almost a ho-hum!

Richard: I think it was Katharine Hepburn who, when she was asked what were the good things about getting old, she said, 'nothing'!

Maggie: That's disappointing. I would have thought that such as positive role model for women and for actresses would have had something a little more uplifting to say. I'm sad about that.

Richard: But you don't feel as though you're getting old?

Maggie: Oh, lord no, no. My bones tell me from time to time, but up here, and in here, no. In fact I have to pull myself short from time to time, and think, 'Come on, you're not 18 anymore,' I don't know how I'm supposed to feel as I'm getting older.

Richard: What I like most about this interview is that you've come through. You're now at the optimistic period of your life.

Maggie: Yes. Let's hope it lasts.

Richard: I think it's a nice time to say goodbye, and thank you.

Maggie: Thank you, Richard.
 

Originally broadcast on Australian TV in 1998.

Return to top of page