Article: Sunday Age, November 11th, 2007
In Movember, the mo maketh the man William McInnes
William McInnes
ONE Melbourne Cup some years ago I sat with my mother drinking too much champagne and backing not enough winners. It was fun. To a point. It was more like being at the football. My mother - like all of our family - loved yelling. Mostly she yelled at me.
I had for the sake of my acting career started to grow a moustache for a role as Robert Drewe's father in the miniseries of his memoir The Shark Net.
People would say hello and take in the sprinkling of hair on my upper lip. They were too polite to say anything but thankfully my mother took care of things.
"What does the boy look like?" She would boom. "It's like he's got an anchovy on his lip!"
She was matched by a man who owned the television network who sponsored the tent we sat yelling in.
"Jesus, Willy, don't tell me you've turned gay on us!"
"I'm growing it for a job I'm doing at the ABC," I said.
The magnate considered me.
"Things can't be that bad, mate."
"Do you mean the job at the ABC or the mo?"
The magnate blinked. "They're as bad as each other."
In the end my efforts came to no end. My head was shaved and so was my mo - it was deemed by the producer of The Shark Net as being characterless. Thanks very much.
I must admit that a part of me was let down. Perhaps it was growing up in the '70s , the decade when hairy was cool, when everyone who was cool had one, from opening bowlers and movie stars to the fellow down the road who could do trick dives off the end of the jetty. I even had a GI Joe doll who it was claimed had realistic face and chest hair, complete with kung fu hand grip.
Joe did look decidedly dodgy, and my mate Reg Worth and I would drape a fishing line down from my back veranda and place a wire coathanger on it so hairy Joe could be sent by flying fox down to the big gum tree in the backyard, providing a bearded target for Reg's air rifle.
Joe never flinched. My father though wasn't impressed. "Why do they have beards on this thing? It is a toy!"
He wasn't a fan of facial hair. "Never vote for fella with a beard or a mo. The bastard is either bald and making up for it or is hiding something!"
"Yes," echoed my mother.
What about Deakin? Or Lincoln?
"Just a fad!" Yelled my father, staring at GI Joe.
An old actor's trick is to grow a mo and beard when nothing else is happening in your career.
"Makes people think you're doing it for a job," a bearded acquaintance said to me with a wink at an awards ceremony. It was the year that the movie Ned Kelly was being shot, and every actor worth his salt was hairy.
I sadly was hairless on the melon. But now in November, , if you see a fella with a mo, give him a break, he hasn't got a stray anchovy on his lip. It's Movember, when men grow mos for charity.
So donate to the cause and remember the words of my father: "Never vote for a fella with a beard".
William McInnes
ONE Melbourne Cup some years ago I sat with my mother drinking too much champagne and backing not enough winners. It was fun. To a point. It was more like being at the football. My mother - like all of our family - loved yelling. Mostly she yelled at me.
I had for the sake of my acting career started to grow a moustache for a role as Robert Drewe's father in the miniseries of his memoir The Shark Net.
People would say hello and take in the sprinkling of hair on my upper lip. They were too polite to say anything but thankfully my mother took care of things.
"What does the boy look like?" She would boom. "It's like he's got an anchovy on his lip!"
She was matched by a man who owned the television network who sponsored the tent we sat yelling in.
"Jesus, Willy, don't tell me you've turned gay on us!"
"I'm growing it for a job I'm doing at the ABC," I said.
The magnate considered me.
"Things can't be that bad, mate."
"Do you mean the job at the ABC or the mo?"
The magnate blinked. "They're as bad as each other."
In the end my efforts came to no end. My head was shaved and so was my mo - it was deemed by the producer of The Shark Net as being characterless. Thanks very much.
I must admit that a part of me was let down. Perhaps it was growing up in the '70s , the decade when hairy was cool, when everyone who was cool had one, from opening bowlers and movie stars to the fellow down the road who could do trick dives off the end of the jetty. I even had a GI Joe doll who it was claimed had realistic face and chest hair, complete with kung fu hand grip.
Joe did look decidedly dodgy, and my mate Reg Worth and I would drape a fishing line down from my back veranda and place a wire coathanger on it so hairy Joe could be sent by flying fox down to the big gum tree in the backyard, providing a bearded target for Reg's air rifle.
Joe never flinched. My father though wasn't impressed. "Why do they have beards on this thing? It is a toy!"
He wasn't a fan of facial hair. "Never vote for fella with a beard or a mo. The bastard is either bald and making up for it or is hiding something!"
"Yes," echoed my mother.
What about Deakin? Or Lincoln?
"Just a fad!" Yelled my father, staring at GI Joe.
An old actor's trick is to grow a mo and beard when nothing else is happening in your career.
"Makes people think you're doing it for a job," a bearded acquaintance said to me with a wink at an awards ceremony. It was the year that the movie Ned Kelly was being shot, and every actor worth his salt was hairy.
I sadly was hairless on the melon. But now in November, , if you see a fella with a mo, give him a break, he hasn't got a stray anchovy on his lip. It's Movember, when men grow mos for charity.
So donate to the cause and remember the words of my father: "Never vote for a fella with a beard".
posted by WilliamWatch at 8:55 PM
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