Every Tuesday night for more than a decade, Dad would have dinner with the TV writer and producer, Ian Jones.
Ian was the creative force behind Homicide, Matlock Police and The Sullivans. He also co-wrote the mini-series, The Last Outlaw, as well as the films, The Light Horseman and Ned Kelly, starring Mick Jagger.
But Ian wasn’t just a film and TV guy, he was also the world’s foremost Ned Kelly expert, authoring the Ned bible: Ned Kelly – A Short Life. So even though he was heartbroken about Jagger playing Ned, it also provided him with a slew of dinner time stories that he told with the panache of a master dramatist, complete with impersonations.
Dad invited me over to the Tuesday night dinner a few times. And one of those times, I put a tape recorder in front of Ian and asked him about the Kelly film and how Mick came to be cast.
Ian took a breath.
The “saga”, he said, began with Oscar winning director Tony Richardson reading a book called Ned Kelly, Man and Myth, which contained some of Ian’s writings.
“For the first time I put forward the thesis that Ned Kelly was a rebel and the Glenrowan campaign was the first step in a revolution to establish a Republic,” Ian said. “Tony read it. And his company, Woodfire Pictures, flew me to London in early 1969 to write a script based on that premise.”
After a few days of plotting with Richardson, Ian locked himself in a room and finished the screenplay in two weeks. For those unfamiliar with how long it takes to write a feature film – that’s fast. “It was a hell of a gallop,” Ian said. “But Tony was on a deadline.”
Once Richardson had the script in his hands, he started searching for a Ned. “He met with Sean Connery, Peter O'Toole, Richard Harris, even Warren Beatty,” Ian said. “But he thought they were all too old. Then he auditioned a 29-year-old actor called Ian McKellan.”
For his audition, McKellan recited part of Kelly's Jerilderie Letter -- an 8000-word manifesto pleading the bushranger's version of events. Ian says McKellen's audition convinced him he was the right man to play Ned. Richardson agreed, and the actor was cast in the $2.5 million movie to be shot in Australia in July of ‘69.
“When I left London, McKellen had been given the role of Ned,” Ian said. “Tony shot his audition with make-up and costume in a stable. He was superb. He made a beaut Ned.”
But in the ensuing weeks, Richardson backflipped. He decided that McKellen was not rebellious enough to play Ned and recast Mick Jagger instead. That was a bitter pill for Ian. Here was the world's foremost Kelly expert being asked to accept that Jagger, a 169cm, 57kg singer, could play Ned, a 180cm, 76kg bushranger.
Ian: “Tony rang me and said he'd cast Mick Jagger. I said, `Mick Jagger?' And he said, `Have you seen him act? He's maaaaaarvelous!'
“I said, `He's not very big'. And he said, `Christ no. He's the smallest man I've ever seen. But he's got a very, very big head'.
“Tony had this admirable obsession of Ned as a young rebel. And Mick, to him, the embodiment of youth rebellion, was the perfect man to play him. It was an intellectual concept. It wasn't really a historical or dramatic concept.''
But Jagger’s then girlfriend, Marianne Faithfull saw the casting as a romantic concept:
“I think the main reason Tony chose Mick was because he wanted to have an affair with him.”
Even Richardson must have harboured doubts when Jagger visited Melbourne to inspect the bushranger's relics and wasn’t strong enough to pick up the headguard used by Kelly in his last shootout. In the film, Jagger wore an aluminium replica.
“Tony asked me one day what I saw when I thought of Ned Kelly,” Ian said. “And I told him that I saw a big, bearded man sitting on a horse. And he said, `I think you're wrong. The fact that he was big was no more significant than the colour of his hair. It's not an important detail'.
“I didn't argue the point. I should have. Because the fact that Kelly was big, the fact that he made a very impressive physical impact, was part of his tragedy. Tony didn't see that.”
From the moment Jagger and Faithfull arrived in Australia in July, 1969, there was trouble. Faithfull was to play Kelly's sister, Maggie. But when she arrived in Sydney, the recovering heroin addict took 150 sleeping pills to punish Jagger for “not caring enough'' about the death of sacked Rolling Stone, Brian Jones.
During her drug-induced psychosis, Faithfull said Brian Jones, who had died six days earlier, “visited” her hotel suite and “talked” to her. Moments later she plunged into a week-long coma and Richardson was forced to replace her.
A month later, Jagger’s right hand was cut and burned when the pistol he was using backfired. A Canberra doctor told him he’d never play guitar again, but within days he was sitting in a field, picking out a new song on his guitar. It would become the Stones' classic, Brown Sugar.
When Ned Kelly premiered in Glenrowan in 1970, it was greeted with three homemade bombs that exploded in the main street. No one was injured in the blasts, but many of the buildings in the street were damaged. Six Glenrowan men claimed responsibility for the bombs, saying they were planted in protest against the casting of Jagger as Kelly.
“It's easy to rubbish Mick,” said Ian. “But when we were making the film he was gutsy. He worked hard. He practised his riding. I took my dear friend Gwen Griffiths to the film’s premiere. She was related to the Kelly family by marriage, knew Ned's brother, Jim, and lived in the Kelly homestead. I said, `Gwen, what did you think of it?' And she said, `I loved it'.
“I said, `What did you think of Mick?' And she said, `I couldn't imagine anyone else in the role'.”
Jagger, however, sensing the film wasn’t up to scratch, kept his distance. He didn't turn up to the London premiere, sending his mother along instead.
“Mick, in Tony Richardson's words, walked away from it,” Ian said. “I think he realised it had come off the rails a bit and wouldn't be a big hit. Tony was very, very hurt by the way Mick behaved.”
Ian died in 2018. Dad died last year. I’ll always remember those Tuesday nights.
Hi Adam, Ian's daughter Elizabeth here. What a huge surprise – and what a gift – it was to find Tony Wilson's email linking to this post sitting in my inbox. Dad told me this story many times, but it's wonderful that you've set it down for posterity. Gosh, both our dads were full of great yarns and are so very missed. Wishing you all the best!