AustLit

'I can’t tell you the first time I saw John Wayne or Marilyn Monroe – but I remember exactly when I first saw David Gulpilil. It was in Storm Boy, Henri Safran’s 1976 family classic, to which our fourth-grade teacher took us one weekday morning. The occasion now escapes me, though I seem to recall it was around Christmas; nor can I quite place the cinema. (Was it the Lyceum on Pitt Street?) But the shock of Gulpilil’s first appearance onscreen was unforgettable. I sobbed when Mr Percival died – unlike that wretched remake, the original Storm Boy was a terrific movie – but once that anguish faded, what lingered was mostly a kind of bewildered fascination. That Fingerbone Bill guy… who was he? Were there others like him, beyond the Sydney suburbs I knew?' (Introduction)