Still flying
Michael Mcgirr
It is fifty years this year since Charles Tingwell, better known as ‘Bud’, appeared alongside Richard Burton, James Mason and Chips Rafferty in the feature film The Desert Rats. At that time, he was offered a lucrative Hollywood contract. He decided to return to Australia. Since then, he has done more than most to enhance the culture of this country. His acting credits read like a history of the Australian film industry. Of recent times, they include The Castle, The Craic and Innocence. Off camera, he has worked as a director, producer, teacher and supporter of other film makers.
Yet all of this may have been cut short. Bud was a member of the RAAF during World War II and flew Spitfires and Mosquitoes. He had some narrow escapes. On one occasion, the plane he was flying went into a spiral dive. He realised that he was about to hit the water.
‘In that moment, I experienced the most wonderful feeling of calm. It is deeply embedded in my memory. It was actually a beautiful moment.’
Somehow or other, Bud managed to pull out of the dive and get himself back to base.
There has only been one other occasion on which Bud has had a comparable experience of tranquility. This was about six years ago when his wife, Audrey, died of cancer. The couple had been married for 45 years and had known each other for ten years before the wedding, since they were teenagers.
They had delayed marriage because Bud had been unable to find a flat for them to live in. Bud laughs that, by the time they did get married, Audrey was enjoying her career as an air hostess for TAA, which later became Ansett. In those days, getting married meant Audrey had to leave her job. So when Bud told her that he had, at long last, found a flat, her response was a little wry.
Bud says that humour was one of the most sustaining features of their relationship. He recalls that Audrey once went with a friend to see him perform in a role which required him to kiss an actress on stage.
‘Aren’t you worried that Bud might be enjoying this?’ asked the anxious friend.
‘I’d be more worried if he wasn’t’, said Audrey.
Bud comments that humour like that conceals tremendous wisdom. He was with Audrey when she died in 1996. For the second time in his life, he felt an indescribable calm.
‘It was the same as when I nearly crashed. It was about as divine as you can get. I was just holding her hand. There was a transmitted calmness between us as she went.’
It was an enormous loss and Bud says that he sat and cried for days afterwards. He was thankful that he started work on The Castle, in which he played the role of the sympathetic lawyer, about a month after the funeral. Some of his experiences of loss are reflected in The Carer, a one-man show that he began touring to full houses in 1999. Bud believes that a play about such a tender topic as ageing and infirmity could not have worked without comedy.
Bud’s is a quiet, understated kind of Christian faith. It has been with him for a long time. Born in 1923, the family attended an Anglican Church in Sydney’s Coogee where Bud was teaching Sunday School at the age of 14. He stopped teaching when his seven-year-old brother joined the class. He thought it was hypocritical to fight with the boy at home and then try to teach him Christianity at church. Bud’s father had a win in the lottery which enabled him to send his sons to Sydney Grammar, although Bud felt the separation from his friends who went to Randwick High School.
As is so often the case, an enlightened school teacher made a difference. An English teacher allowed Bud and a friend to waste time writing scripts for a new medium called radio. Bud’s father wanted him to be an accountant but was supportive enough to draw Bud’s attention to an advertisement for a cadet radio announcer. At the age of 17, Bud was on the air at Sydney’s 2CH, a station which was owned by Christian churches.
‘They refused to run advertisements on Sundays. They played classical music all day. It affected their ratings but that strong sense of values wouldn’t go astray a few places these days.’
During his time in the RAAF, Bud picked up work in radio while on leave in different parts of the world. Afterwards, he got a speaking role in a film about Charles Kingsford Smith, Smithy, because he could supply his own uniform. Work kept coming his way and, at the age of 79, it still does. Recently, he accepted an invitation to go up with the Roulettes, the airforce’s formation squadron. He found that the experience of flying after so long touched some painful war memories, but he was delighted when one of the pilots handed over the controls to him.
‘The instructor actually complimented me on my flying. It was a shot in the arm for an old bloke. Sometimes I feel that if I can get up in the morning, I’m doing OK. But after something like that, I’m on cloud nine.’
Bud urges older people to enjoy every moment of life. One of the roles that has meant most to him was that of Andreas Borg in Paul Cox’s Innocence (1999). In the film, Borg rekindles a relationship with a woman called Claire (Julia Blake) whom he had loved forty years before.
‘The film showed that your physical abilities might change with age, but your inner feelings don’t. You can fall in love as deeply at 70 as you can at 20.’
Churchgoing has remained part of Bud’s life. He has accepted responsibilities such as that of being a church warden. These days, he frequents the Anglican church in Melbourne’s Mont Albert. He once described the role of the clergy as something akin to a ‘bit like having a marvellous wise tribal elder’. For him, a good service will create a sense of calm. He isn’t fond of modern versions of the Bible but relishes telling a story about an inquisitor during America’s McCarthy period being presented with the Sermon on the Mount disguised in modern language. The inquisitor decided that the author had to be a communist.
‘Of course I pray. It’s been comforting. Especially after Audrey died. When I pray, I do sense somebody is listening. It’s hard to describe. It’s a bit like surround sound.
‘I find it hard, despite all the rational evidence people put forward, to accept that "there’s nothing there". It’s hard to resist the idea that something started all this. The universe is just such a great bit of design.’
Bud believes that some of the most Christian behaviour he has witnessed has been on the set of a film.
‘You see unbelievable giving on a film set. Real unselfishness. People going to great lengths to help each other.’
Indeed, contrary to the popular image, Bud believes that the best film sets are quiet, gentle places. That’s when he sees people giving their best performances.
Bud describes himself as ‘a rough old comic at heart’. He is delighted at the way in which humour has enabled him to relate across generations and feel close to a much younger group, such as those who made The Castle.
‘Great drama should have as many laughs as possible to enable the audience to accept the drama.’
There are some ways of thinking, it seems, which pass the test of time.
CURRENT ISSUE | ABOUT | ADVERTISING | PREVIOUS ISSUES | LINKS
Reproduction of material from any Jesuit Publications pages
without written prior permission is strictly prohibited.
Copyright 2002 Jesuit Publications
PO Box 553 Richmond VIC 3121 Australia
Tel +61 3 9427 7311, Fax +61 3 9428 4450