Michael Pate, a Outstanding Aussie Actor 1920 - 2008

One would think I only do a post when a celebrity passes

on, as it’s been a while since I did my last post.

I had decided to have a spell from blogging, even before

Peter from Holtieshouse had decided also to stop blogging.

Mind you Peter only stopped for a short time before he

re-started with a different format.

I had a fairly long break, and I even stopped reading those

bloggers on my list, so I must do a little bit of catching up.

This post is about Michael Pate, an Australian actor who has

just departed into that great big studio in the sky. Michael is

well know by most of the “older” generation and properly

not know by today’s cinema going younger audience.

No doubt a lot of the American audience may remember

Michael as he spent quite some time living and working on

over 300 T.V. shows and appeared in over 50 movies

(of which a lot of those where filmed in the USA).

A lot of his films I have seen and he was a well known and

loved Aussie actor. Besides appearing in films he also

produced, wrote screen plays, and directed some movies.

He also appeared in a number of live theater productions.

Michael Pate was born on 26 February 1920 in Drummoyne,

Sydney. In 1938, he became a writer and broadcaster for

the Australian Broadcasting Commission. During World War II,

Pate served in the Australian Army in the South West Pacific Area.

After the war, Pate returned to radio, appearing in many

plays and serials. Between 1946 and 1950 he began breaking

into films. In 1949 he appeared in his first leading role in

“Sons of Matthew”. In 1950 he appeared in “Bitter Springs”

with Tommy Trinder and Chips Rafferty.

In 1950 he travelled to the U.S. to appear in a film

adaptation of Bonaventure for Universal Pictures.

This was released in 1951 as Thunder on the Hill,

starring Claudette Colbert and Ann Blyth. In 1956

he appeared in the film The Court Jester with Danny Kaye.

Pate spent most of the 1950s in the U.S., appearing in

over 300 TV shows. Most notable among these was a

1953 Climax! live production of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale,

in which Pate played the role of "Clarence Leiter"

(instead of Felix, in the credits), opposite Barry Nelson's

"Jimmy (James) Bond".

Pate also said he got a reputation in Hollywood for playing

Indians in western movies, even though they involved only

10 of his 50 film roles.

Michael enjoyed a successful career as a television

character actor, appearing repeatedly on such programs

as Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Branded, The Virginian,

Batman, Mission: Impossible ("Trek"), The Man from

U.N.C.L.E., Get Smart, Rawhide ("Incident of the Power

and the Plow"), and Wagon Train.

Just a few of the films Michael appeared in and as you

can see he co-starred with a lot of well know famous actors.

John Wayne was a close friend and he specifically asked for

Michael to appear as a Indian in the film “Hondo”.

“The Court Jester” with Danny Kaye.

“Hondo” and “McLintock” with John Wayne.

“Mad Dog Morgan” with Dennis Hopper.

A little bit of trivia: Hopper came to Australia to play the

role of Mad Dog Morgan, a bushranger, similar to the bank

and stage coach robber in the American west. On one

occasion Hopper was so high on drugs he was pulled

over by the police for apparent drunken driving and was

fined and forbidden to ever drive on Victorian roads again.

“Escape from Fort Bravo” with William Holden (the story

was written by Michael Pate).

“Julius Caesar” with Marlon Brando.

“Major Dundee” with Charlton Heston.

“Sergeants 3” with the Rat Pack.

“A Lawless Street” with Randolph Scott.

In the 1963 movie "PT 109" he played the part of Arthur

Reginald Evans,the Australian coast watcher who helped

rescue John F. Kennedy and his crew.

Cliff Robertson played the part of JFK and a host of

TV actors including Ty Hardin, James Gregory, Robert Culp

Grant Williams and Robert Blake also appeared in this film.

Michael Pate played the role of Lt. Reginald Evans.

In 1968, Pate returned to Australia and from 1971 to 1975

he starred as Detective Sergeant Vic Maddern in“Matlock

Police” which was an Australian TV crime drama series

revolving around the lives of a group of country based

policemen whose backgrounds and private lives were an

integral part of the series. At the time “Matlock Police”

had the biggest budget and was the most highly publicised

show. The town of Matlock was on the central Highway

about 100 miles from Melbourne and with a population of

17,300. Michael won a Penguin Award for best actor during his

four years on the program.

Two views of the cast of "Matlock Police".

Pate was associate producer for the Columbia Pictures film

of Norman Lindsay's “Age of Consent” with James Mason

and Helen Mirren. This film raised a few eyebrows when

released due to the amount of nude scenes of Helen Mirren.

In 1977 he wrote and produced “The Mango Tree”

starring his son Christopher Pate and Robert Helpmann

as the town drunk.

Michael in Indian costume with his son, Christopher.

Pate continued working in theater in both Sydney and

Melbourne. In 1979, he adapted the screenplay for “Tim”

from the novel by Colleen McCullough. The story is about

the relationship between an older woman (Piper Laurie)

and a retarded young man (Mel Gibson). For his adaptation,

Pate won the Best Screenplay Award from the Australian

Writers Guild.

Michael retired in 2001. He was married to Felippa Rock,

daughter of American film producer Joe Rock. He died on

1 September 2008 at Gosford Hospital, of pneumonia and

a chest infection and is survived by his wife and son

Christopher, both of whom are actors.

He leaves a large range of TV shows and movies, that with

the number of DVD’s available of movies he appeared in and

also of box sets on DVD of TV shows Michael will be with us

for years to come to watch and enjoy his many and varied

performances. He was an actor with a wide range of believable

characters and his experience in front and behind the camera

will be surely missed.

The Colonoscopy Journal

It’s been a while since I posted but I received this in an e-mail from Robyn at Kat’s Cradle and I couldn’t resist putting this in my Blog. For all the guys who have had this procedure one can relate to this quite humorous story.

It’s similar to the humour in the post Peter from Holties House did on the 2nd July on the story called “A women’s week at the gym”.

Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami Herald.

Dave Barry's Colonoscopy Journal:

I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at on point passing briefly through Minneapolis. Andy then explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, was because my brain was shrieking, quote, 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP MY BEHIND!".

I left Andy’s office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called MoviPrep, which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven.

I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to
say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America's enemies.

I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavour. Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, and then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.

The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose watery bowel movement may result.' This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.

MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but: Have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep. The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, 'What if I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.

At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked. Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got your self too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.

When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me roll over on my left side and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by Abba. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' has to be the least appropriate.

'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from somewhere behind me. 'Ha ha,' I said. And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like.

I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, Abba was shrieking 'Dancing Queen! Feel the beat from the tambourine' and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood. Andy was looking
down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that it was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.

(I would say 'Cheers', but somehow the expression 'Up Yours' had a more appropriate ring to it).