Chips Rafferty

Chips Rafferty
Chips Rafferty
Born	John William Goffage 26 March 1909(1909-03-26) Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia
Died	27 May 1971 (aged 62) Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation	Film actor
Years active	1939 - 1971

Chips Rafferty MBE (26 March 1909 – 27 May 1971) was an iconic Australian actor. Called "the living symbol of the typical Australian",^[1] Rafferty's career stretched from the 1940s until his death in 1971 and during this time he made regular appearances in major Australian feature films as well as appearing in British and American productions. He also appeared in commercials in Britain in the late 1950s encouraging British emigration to Australia.

Early life

He was born John William Pilbean Goffage in Broken Hill, New South Wales to John Goffage, an English-born stock agent, and Australian-born Violet Maude Joyce.^[2] Gaining the nickname "Chips" as a school boy,^[2] Rafferty studied at Parramatta Commercial High School before working in a variety of jobs, including opal miner, sheep shearer, drover, airman^[3] and pearl diver^[1] before making his film debut in Ants in His Pants in 1938.

Film career

Rafferty's onscreen image as a laconic bushman struck a chord with film goers and Rafferty soon became the most popular actor in Australia, appearing in films like Forty Thousand Horsemen, The Rats of Tobruk, The Overlanders and Eureka Stockade.

Rafferty married Ellen Kathleen "Quentin" Jameson on 28 May 1941,^[4] and enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force the next day and entertained troops. He was discharged on 13 February 1945, having reached the rank of Flying Officer.^[5]

Hollywood also beckoned, and Rafferty appeared in American fare like The Desert Rats, opposite Richard Burton; The Sundowners, with Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr; and Mutiny on the Bounty, with Marlon Brando. The most bizarre appearance was with Elvis Presley in Double Trouble in 1967. Initially Rafferty was marketed in the United States as the Australian version of Cary Grant before being allowed to resume playing variations of the laconic bushman role that had served him well thus far.

Rafferty also produced and wrote films for his production company Southern International, which he founded in 1953,^[6] although none of these reached the same level of popularity as those he appeared in for other companies. These included producing The Phantom Stockman, producing and writing the original screenplay for King of the Coral Sea (1953), producing and providing the original story for Walk into Paradise (1956) and producing Dust in the Sun (1958) and the Ambitious One (1959).

In addition to his film work, Rafferty also guest starred in a range of Australian and American television shows, including Gunsmoke, The Stranger, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Tarzan, The Monkees and The Wackiest Ship in the Army (as a different character to the role he played in the movie version).

He also participated in cinema advertisements that were part of a Government campaign in 1957 "Bring out a Briton". The campaign was launched by the Australian Government to increase the number of British migrants entering Australia.

In 1962 he was attacked by a gang of thugs near his flat in London and was taken to hospital to be treated for his injuries.^[7]

Rafferty's final film role was in 1971s Wake in Fright, where he played a policeman. In areview of the film, a critic praised Rafferty, writing that he "exudes an unnerving intensity with a deceptively menacing and disturbing performance that ranks among the best of his career."^[8]

Hours before he died, Rafferty was offered a starring role in the film The Day the Clown Cried by Jerry Lewis.^[1]

Death

Rafferty collapsed and died of a heart attack while walking down a Sydney street at the age of 62 shortly after completing his role in Wake in Fright.^[3] His wife Quentin predeceased him in 1964 and they had no children.^[4]

Honours

In the 1971 New Years Honours, Rafferty was awarded an MBE for his services to the performing arts.^[9]

In 1989, Australia Post issued a stamp depicting Rafferty in recognition of his work in Australian cinema while in March, 2006, Broken Hill City Council announced that the Entertainment Centre would be named in honour of Rafferty.

The Oxford Companion to Australian Film refers to Rafferty as "Australia's most prominent and significant actor of the 1940s-60s".^[10]

He was a Freemason [1].

Filmography

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Hooper, K. "Chips was denied comeback chance", The Age, 29 May 1971, p. 2.
2. ^ ^{a b} Pike, A. (1996) "Goffage, John William Pilbean [Chips Rafferty] (1909 – 1971)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 14, Melbourne University Press.
3. ^ ^{a b} "Obituary: Chips Rafferty, Australian film actor", The Times, 29 May 1971.
4. ^ ^{a b} Legge, J. (1968) Who's Who in Australia, XIX Edition, Herald and Weekly Times Limited, Melbourne.
5. ^ World War II Nominal Roll, Commonwealth of Australia. http://www.ww2roll.gov.au/script/veteran.asp?ServiceID=R&VeteranID=886025 Accessed 27 January 2008.
6. ^ Mayer, J. (2004) "Lee Robinson (1923 – 2003)", Screening the Past. http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fr_16/gmfr16.html Accessed 2 January 2008.
7. ^ The Age, "Chips Rafferty attacked by London Thugs", 10 September 1962, p. 1
8. ^ Sherlock, J. "Wake in Fright", http://www.3aw.com.au/blogs/denis-walter-blog/jims-dvd-review-and-selections/20091123-it0l.html Accessed 27 November 2009.
9. ^ "List of Awards in Full", The Times, 1 January 1971.
10. ^ McFarlane et al., B. 2000 The Oxford Companion to Australian Film, Oxford University Press.

External links

• Chips Rafferty at the Internet Movie Database
• Chips Rafferty at the National Film and Sound Archive