Hugh Jackman

by Anthony Bunko

  Peter’s friends and family members came to see the show. One woman who particularly touched Hugh was the mother of Peter’s long-term lover Greg, who had also died of AIDS. He found it very sobering to have people in the audience who knew the characters so intimately. Generally, they seemed thrilled that Peter was being remembered on Broadway because Broadway, in many ways, was his great love and his dream. The fact that Legs Diamond, the 1988 musical starring and written by Allen, didn’t work there was one of the greatest disappointments of his life, and so The Boy From Oz was a fitting tribute to the showman. The people who were closest to Peter appreciated Hugh’s uncanny and amazing depiction of the exuberant showman.

  The resemblance was particularly noticeable when Hugh, like Peter, interacted with his audience. And the great thing about playing Peter Allen was that the character gave him permission to do things he wouldn’t normally do. Hugh’s strict, Catholic upbringing ensured he was polite and respectful to people, but he did things in the show that he still can’t believe he could actually do, never mind get away with: ‘Peter was pretty brave as a performer and it brought out the outrageous side of me that I was too nervous to do in the beginning, and then I began to relish it, and really look forward to doing it.’

  At first, he was a little nervous of ad-libbing and interacting with the audience as Peter Allen had done. He knew New Yorkers could be quite brutal and was afraid that he might be heckled by someone in the audience and that it would leave him stumped for a response. Still, after a while he realised it didn’t matter – the audience loved the personal interaction, funny or not.

  Within no time at all, he started to pull off the impromptu act quite brilliantly. Something happened in one of the first performances. Peter Allen was famous for dancing on top of the piano: he treated it like the vault in gymnastics, jumped all over it. Hugh would dive across the top of the long grand piano, finishing in a position where he’d be lying across it, going ‘ta-dah!’ He’d been doing it for a month, and one night as he slid across, he knew he was going too fast. It was a really slippery surface and he ended up on the floor. He got up, laughing hysterically; the audience absolutely loved it. But he wasn’t content to leave it there.

  ‘I stopped the band and said, in character, “Okay, I don’t know what they’re mixing with the cleaning fluid. Jason, get out here!” Jason was from the stage crew, and he was terrified. I said, “Jason, mate, you’re cute, but listen, I almost broke a bone. What did you clean this with?” He said, “I cleaned it with water” and I said, “Bullshit, show me!” I made him take off his little tool belt and take a run at it. He went right off the piano, and the audience went nuts. That was the beginning for me, as Peter Allen, of breaking down the fourth wall with the audience.’

  He built it into the show, later pulling Sarah Jessica Parker, Sean Combs, Eric Clapton and Steven Spielberg up onstage. Another time, he dragged Matt Damon and Barbara Walters on stage and while she sat there frightened, Matt and Hugh gave her a very sexy lap dance.

  He would also stop the show if interrupted by latecomers and force the offenders to stand up while he playfully ripped them to shreds or just chatted with them. One group of women who were late because they had been shopping were forced to stand up and show off the new fake Kate Spade handbags they had bought in Chinatown.

  However, Hugh was also on the receiving end sometimes, mainly from women. ‘I’ve had some pretty full-on ones,’ he admitted. ‘Once, a woman ran down to the front of the stage and said, “Hugh, I’ve always wanted to do this,” and lifted her top. She had these massive tits. I just pissed myself laughing and said, “I’m glad you got that off your chest!”’ Another time a woman in the middle of the show yelled out, ‘I want to bite your ass!’ Hugh thought he would silence her by calling her bluff. So he hung his butt over the edge of the orchestra pit, but instead of sitting back down she raced down and bit his derrière. Some even threw their underwear onto the stage as he became the ‘Tom Jones’ of Broadway. ‘It’s a little strange when you’re on stage and people fling underwear at you,’ he smiled, sheepishly. ‘By the way, I made the ultimate error the first time it was done. I said, “Oh, is that for me?” and I put them on. From that moment on, in every show something flew my way.’

  During his conquering run, Dr Gibbs from WAAPA and wife Carole flew to New York to see their protégé. Hugh memorably dragged Gibbs on stage to accompany him in one of the song-and-dance routines. ‘It’s the only time I have ever seen him quiet,’ Hugh recounted. ‘I said, “Thanks for not upstaging me, Geoff,” and he just went red and tried to rush off.’

  His interaction with the audience was one of the best parts of the show but a flippant comment nearly landed him in deep trouble when he performed in a one-off for the opening of Wynn’s Casino in Las Vegas. Hugh pulled Elaine Wynn, the owner’s lovely-looking wife, on stage. While he danced with her, he said out loud, ‘You know, darling, underneath that wonderful gown you are wearing, you are just G-string trash.’ As soon as he said it he thought, ‘Oh God, I’m going to be buried in the Nevada Desert in less than three hours!’ But when he looked down into the audience, her husband was howling with laughter. At that moment, Hugh knew that under the guise of Peter, he had a free ticket to do and say whatever he wanted.

  Phil McKinley, the Australian director of the show, described Hugh as a dream to work with and predicted great things for his leading man: ‘When an actor ad-libs, it can be a disaster, but Hugh did it so well. He’s going to have this amazing career where he truly will be an all-around superstar performer.’

  Hugh’s performance came as a massive shock for many fans, especially the Wolverine ones who arrived to see the macho Logan and were presented with a very different persona, particularly in the scene where he kisses another man. There was one famous performance when someone stood up and shouted as Hugh was about to lock lips with the other male actor, ‘Wolverine… no, don’t do it!’ The producer and Jackman knew they could never have written that sort of reaction or made up the resulting publicity that it generated. For weeks after, the story was splashed all over the entertainment pages of the newspapers.

  Contrary to what one might think about the physical requirements of playing a gay showman, Hugh was in the best shape of his life. He had to be, in order to sing and dance his way through the rigorous regime of 21 songs per show, eight shows per week. And he never missed an appearance, even with a broken foot. He described it as one of the most satisfying stage experiences of his career but admitted that he had really had to work hard for it: ‘The show was pretty full-on for me. It was a tribute to Peter Allen, and frankly, I don’t know how this guy lived his life, given the energy he put out. He used to do two shows a night! He just wanted to live life at Mach Five all the time. I really had a ball, but it was like jumping into the deep end every night.’

  The healthy regime he followed to help him through the demands of the role was the modern equivalent of living the life of a monk. That year, Hugh said he didn’t do much outside the show except sleep, eat and rest. They nicknamed him ‘Grandpa’ around home because he was always in his slippers and napping. The upside of the gig was that he was home during the day to pick up Oscar, who had just started nursery school, leaving him the opportunity to sleep in and spend some time playing with his son before going to the theatre.

  To get into character, Hugh would often dance and sing the show songs at home. At the time, his then three-year-old son Oscar liked seeing his dad dancing while he made breakfast. In fact, the little boy enjoyed it so much he often asked his dad to do an encore: ‘Oscar loved dancing with me. When I first started rehearsing Peter’s songs, he seemed to pick up on their emotional impact very early. Sometimes when I was singing, while I was getting breakfast he’d tune in immediately. He called them “Daddy’s sad songs”. He would come over and give me a hug, and say, “Daddy is so sad.”’ To show him everything was alright, Hugh would knot his tie around his chest and dance around singing ‘I Go to Rio’ which,
of course was ‘Daddy’s happy song’.

  The show, which fully embraced Peter’s homosexuality, turned Hugh into something of an icon, and the gay community championed him as their new pin-up. ‘I’ve never been threatened by playing a gay character, although ultimately, I find it a pretty boring way to describe someone. Peter wasn’t defined by his sexuality; he was a performer. The key to playing him was not playing him gay, but like a little kid, because he was up there. Fearless,’ he observed.

  Although Hugh denied being gay, by the end of the show’s run a fairly substantial rumour was circulating about his own sexuality. ‘I only know that because my wife told me. Every time Deb would go to the ladies she’d hear people saying, “Is he or isn’t he?” She’d yell out, “He isn’t!”’ He let out a deep, chesty laugh. ‘I just took it as a compliment to be honest. Maybe I’m doing a good job of it.’

  Openly, he admitted that playing a gay man didn’t really make him more sensitive towards gay issues in politics. Being in show business, he has had many gay friends and he’s never really made a huge distinction based on someone’s sexuality. In fact, he deliberately tried not to play Peter too gay. He knew Allen was camp and had fun, but it was also a part of his joie de vivre; he was like a kid in a candy store. And Peter was quite deliberately non-political because he believed he was an entertainer and that once he crossed the line into the political arena it would hurt him. Even in his controversial time, with the Stonewall riots and everything that was going on in the gay community at the time, the gay movement was really calling for poster people. Yet Peter consistently refused.

  In making such a choice to attempt to play someone like Allen, Jackman stepped aside from his peers and showed himself to be one of the world’s most unusual and potentially important superstars. As The New York Times put it: ‘In Hollywood, where typecasting remains very much a force, Mr Jackman retains a slight stigma.’ In the film industry, straight men often shy away from playing gay characters, while stars who are actually gay often keep their sexuality under wraps rather than admit to it. Paranoia rules, along with the fear that fame and fortune will suddenly be snatched away if an actor is tarred with the wrong brush. So for Hugh to take the role on Broadway and embrace it in all its glory proved that he was not only talented, but courageous enough to ignore Hollywood’s common bigotry. Which was plain to see when the executives at Fox Studios LA worked hard after the production finished to reposition him into his macho image, calling him a younger, rough-hewn Clint Eastwood.

  Even today, when asked to name the biggest three rumours about him, Hugh simply replies. ‘Gay, gay and gay.’ However, he is starting to tire of the Chinese whispers. ‘I just think the whole idea of judging someone based on their sexuality is ridiculous. In Australia, we’re much easier on all those fronts. I was playing a gay guy. I actually took it as a compliment. I’d be happy to go and deny it, because I’m not. But by denying it, I’m saying there is something shameful about it, and there isn’t anything shameful. The questions about sexuality are asked more here in America than anywhere else, because it’s a big hang-up and defines what people think about themselves and others. It’s not a big issue in Australia.’

  However, Hugh did have the courage to confess that at one point in his life he had pretended to be gay to pick up girls: ‘I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but I remember when I was about nineteen, me and my mate used to go to these dance parties which were 80 per cent gay guys, and where the girls were sick of heterosexual guys hitting on them. We would go there until two in the morning, and by then the girls were really drunk and they would wish the guys weren’t gay, and that’s when my mates and I would swoop in like vultures.’

  Gay rumours or not, the show played to packed houses every night for the entire year. And although critics were not particularly kind, Hugh received the highest marks for his demanding role. He also generated an enormous following. A group of devoted fans, who called themselves the Ozalots, went to see him perform some 20 or 30 times in a row. By June of 2004, he had created such a stir that it came as no surprise when he won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical.

  On 10 May 2004, he woke up to find out that his new film, Van Helsing, was the No. 1 movie in America and he had received his first Tony nomination as Best Actor for The Boy From Oz. ‘My wife walked in and said, “The studio’s on the phone. You just got nominated for a Tony and your movie’s made over $50 million.” I just thought, I should record this and put it on an alarm clock and I’ll wake up to this every day.’ Indeed, it was a Groundhog Day any actor would die for.

  As a matter of fact, the opening weekend of Van Helsing had ten times the viewing audience of the entire run of The Boy From Oz. ‘And that’s a year’s work,’ observed a stunned Hugh.

  The night of the 2004 Tony Awards saw the biggest stars of Hollywood and Broadway come out to celebrate and by then it seemed everyone was rooting for one man, Mr Hugh Jackman. He was also host, as he had been in 2003, and later in 2005. Fellow Aussie Nicole Kidman had been given the honour to announce the winner for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. Hugh was up against strong competition including John Tartaglia in Avenue Q, Alfred Molina in Fiddler on the Roof, Hunter Foster in Little Shop of Horrors and Euan Morton in Taboo.

  ‘As Nicole was reading the names, I couldn’t hear her. I was literally like a lip reader. My wife had been so confident that I would win that she promised she would run naked down Broadway if I didn’t. I thought, that could be kind of cool. I wouldn’t mind seeing my wife run down Broadway with nothing on.’

  Ultimately, Deb was saved from an embarrassing moment in her life as Nicole called out her husband’s name and Hugh received a standing ovation as he walked up to accept the award. He also won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical in that year. Isabel Keating won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical, while the show itself received nominations for four other Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

  The experience of performing in the show night after night taught Hugh so much about himself. ‘Acting had always been a kind of way to play someone else. Like to play someone else was easier to play yourself. And even though I’m playing Peter Allen, it has made me more comfortable with things like hosting the Tony Awards, just being on the stage without a script, just interacting and connecting with the audience. And also in a way it made me a little homesick for Australia.’

  When the show ended, he traded in his maracas to spend time playing dad to Oscar. ‘As soon as I finished with The Boy from Oz, I just hung out with Oscar. It was great. You know, the publicity people always say, don’t tell people this, but for me, hanging out with Oscar, meant gardening and stuff. I love gardening; I love cooking. I was in heaven. I suppose I was meant to say bungee jumping and all that.’

  He did dip into the closet to bring out the floral shirt yet again in 2006, however, to transform back into The Boy from Oz when the production went back to Australia for a series of special arena shows in his home country from 3 August 2006 to September of the same year. The arena show starred Chrissie Amphlett as Judy Garland, Angela Toohey as Liza Minnelli, while Colleen Hewett played Peter’s mother, Marion Woolnough. It was an extravaganza with a capital E, in the style Peter would have wanted. During the song ‘I Still Call Australia Home’, sung by Hugh, hundreds of kids were racing down the aisles, and with ‘Rio’ there were dancers as you’d find at the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. There was a cast of 160 and an arena that held up to 15,000 people: ‘It was all my rock-star fantasies come true, except I was in sequins, which is not exactly how I’d imagined it. The Boy From Oz was a celebration of not only a great Australian, but of what it means to be Australian, and it was great to celebrate Peter Allen’s life in a thrilling tour with a great Australian cast.’

  ‘I have been going to the theatre for some 60 years. I was there for Brando in Streetcar. But nothing prepared me for Hugh Jackman in The Boy from Oz.’

  William Goldman, renowned
screenwriter

  CHAPTER TEN

  Van the Man

  While Hugh was still strutting his stuff on stage in New York, a few films that he had completed prior to becoming the infamous Peter Allen were released in the same year.

  The first two were short art-house movies, which were seen by a much smaller and different kind of audience than he had become accustomed to. Standing Room Only was a short silent film written and directed by his wife, Deborra-Lee. It was her directorial debut and focused on a kaleidoscope of people queuing up outside a box office and waiting to get tickets for a sell-out show. The idea came to Furness six years earlier while she and her husband had themselves waited in line to get tickets to an Al Pacino performance (it was, of course, before they became rich and famous).

  Deborra-Lee recalled how it all came about: ‘We were in New York and Al Pacino was doing a one-man show and we wanted to go and see it, so three mornings in a row we got up earlier to get there to get in line to get tickets. And on the third day we got in line and we were among the first eight people there.’

  For the next few hours the incongruous group, which included a plumber and his wife from Jersey, Hugh and Deb from Australia and a woman from Spain, talked, joked and formed an invisible bond that got stronger the longer they stood in line. Eventually, they got the tickets and the strangers disappeared from each other’s lives. On the night of the actual performance by the great man himself, Al Pacino, Deb was so tired from getting up so early for three mornings on the trot that she actually fell fast asleep on Hugh’s shoulder throughout most of the show.