Paul Hogan reveals he is staying in the US for son Chance, but will come home to Australia soon
Paul Hogan reveals he is desperate to leave Trump’s America but is staying there for one reason, as he candidly unpacks his extraordinary life for the first time. LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
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Australia’s best-loved export is homesick.
International superstar Paul Hogan says he’s had enough of being stuck in Donald Trump’s America and would move back Down Under “tomorrow” if he could.
“I’m like a kangaroo in a Russian zoo — I don’t belong here.”
The man the world knows as “Hoges” is now 80 years old, living in lockdown in Los Angeles during the coronavirus pandemic with his 21-year-old son Chance and is increasingly yearning for the place of his birth.
“There’s an ambience in Australia you can’t define, it’s just a feeling you get there that I can’t get anywhere else.
“I miss it”, Hoges says simply, “I miss it every day.”
Speaking from his home in Venice Beach, Hogan’s voice — a little quieter, a little grainier these days — is full of longing for the land where he first found fame, clambering down from the Sydney Harbour Bridge where he worked as a rigger in the seventies to become a superstar.
The man behind The Paul Hogan Show and the 1986 gargantuan hit Crocodile Dundee is in Los Angeles to be with Chance, the son he shares with his former wife and Dundee co-star Linda Kozlowski.
LISTEN TO HOGAN’S NEW PODCAST HERE:
The couple married 1990 and amicably divorced in 2014 — “we’re friends, there’s no bitterness at all” — with Hogan at the time receiving sole custody.
“My kid is a ‘Yaussie’, a yank Aussie, and I’m here out of paternal duty and love for him.
“Chance went to school here, all his friends are here and his band is here, so I understand why he wants to be here, and I want to be here with him.
“It’s tough on him at the moment, because he’s in this band” — punk outfit Rowdy P — “and they can’t play anywhere because of the lockdown.
“But it’ll all come good, and once this thing is over, and he’s settled, I’m out of here in a flash.”
Hoges believes things will “come good” with the virus that has cost more than a million lives, and interrupted normal programming the world over, sooner rather than later.
“We will get a vaccine soon, there’s three that are close at the moment, you’ve got to have hope, and until then we just have to wait it out.”
For Hoges, “waiting it out” means spending time with Chance, talking to his five children and 11 grandchildren from his first marriage to Noelene Hogan — now Edwards — on the phone, and watching the antics of America’s President.
“He (Trump) is on all the channels everywhere, all the time, he’s walking out on the balcony, he’s taking his mask off, and all sorts of rumours are flying around, that he never had the virus, that he’s pretending, it’s a circus.”
For the comic in Hogan, it might seem like Donald Trump is comedic gold, ripe for the sort of parodying of celebrities he once lampooned so mercilessly on The Paul Hogan Show.
Not so, says Hogan, because “anything outrageous you could come up with, he’d come out and up it.”
“There’s nothing you can parody about him that he isn’t already doing himself.
“America is the most divided it has been since the Civil War, I don’t know if he’ll get back in, but in one way I would miss him because he’s so entertaining.
“But it’s a worry, he’s like a modern day Mussolini or Caligula or something.”
Hoges — on a Zoom call from Los Angeles — scratches his head and offers up a crooked smile.
“But things will sort themselves out, they always do.”
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Hogan is a self described hermit, rarely venturing out and working his way through his pile of beloved cryptic crossword puzzles, his mind sharp as ever as his thoughts return, like a drover’s dog, to home.
“It’s always there in my mind, Australia, I’d cut off a finger if it meant I could be there.”
Hogan’s time in lockdown has also been spent penning his first autobiography, the long awaited The Tap-Dancing Knife Thrower: My Life Without the Boring Bits, out on October 29 through HarperCollins Australia.
The book is pure Hogan gold, a candid and funny stroll through this self-described “ordinary bloke’s” extraordinary life, giving him a chance to reflect “on all the luck I’ve been blessed with.”
Launching ahead of the book this week is a new podcast, Evenin’ Viewers, in which Hoges, along with mates like Delvene Delaney, comedian Shane Jacobson and Dundee director Peter Faiman, share stories and laughs about what has been, Hogan says, “a wonderful ride”.
“I wake in the morning and I’m happy to be alive, happy to be here, even in Los Angles in a heatwave (L.A. recording its highest ever temperature in September at 49 degrees celsius), and even in lockdown.
“Because while the normal sort of things annoy me, I know that I’m a very lucky man.
“Overall, I’ve won the lottery.”
Hoges leans back in his chair, gives a thumbs up, and the broad smile of a man who still calls Australia home.
NO BORING BITS …
+ Laugh and cry along with Hoges and close mates like Delvene Delaney and Shane Jacobson on new podcast Evenin’ Viewers With Paul Hogan, hosted by Frances Whiting — preview episode out today, wherever you get your podcasts.
+ Paul Hogan’s candid and hilarious autobiography The Tap-Dancing Knife Thrower: My Life Without The Boring Bits, published by HarperCollins Australia, is out on October 29. Pre-order your copy at Booktopia — enter code HOGAN at checkout for a 30 per cent discount off the RRP of $45.00.
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