Hot water: Big stars behaving badly in Melbourne
POLICE marched rockers The Who and Small Faces off a plane, and Frank Sinatra caused such a furore he vowed never to return to Australia. But they aren’t the only stars who found trouble in Melbourne.
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AMID the grind of a tour, or letting off steam after a hard day at their high-pressure office, celebrities sometimes let their hair down — with unintended consequences.
Here are five examples of stars getting themselves into hot water while visiting Melbourne, starting with two British supergroups who wore out their welcome in Melbourne 50 years ago this month.
THE WHO and THE SMALL FACES, 1968
A difficult tour of Australasia led to a drunken incident that involved then-PM John Gorton in January 1968.
The Who, supported by the Small Faces and former Manfred Mann singer Paul Jones, were on the first overseas leg of The Who’s “The Who Sell Out” 1968 world tour.
The Who’s relations with the press in those days was always prickly, and Ian McLagan of the Small faces was questioned during the tour about his recent marijuana bust in the UK, giving a classic two-word response to reporters.
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This had the press needling the entourage as they travelled Australia. Poor sound quality and poor reviews dogged shows in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
They had played their last Australian show and were heading to Sydney on an Ansett flight to meet a connecting flight to New Zealand on January 28 when members of Jones’ road crew smuggled bottles of beer aboard the aircraft — a big no-no in 1968.
A stewardess objected, and another roadie was very direct with his response.
So, the pilot radioed ahead, brought the flight into Essendon Airport and had the whole entourage hauled away by police and security guards.
They were held in a first class lounge where more drinks were consumed, and later marched to a New Zealand-bound flight.
No charges were laid but Mr Gorton, then only two weeks into his prime ministership, telegrammed Who guitarist Pete Townshend and asked the group never to return to Australia. It was 2004 before The Who toured Australia again.
JOE COCKER, 1972
The former Sheffield gasfitter’s rollicking tour of Australia in October 1972 got rocky when he and members of his crew were arrested in Adelaide and charged with possession of Indian hemp.
They were each eventually fined $300.
Things got rockier when Cocker got to Melbourne and his group refused a request from management to leave the Commodore Chateau Hotel. Police forcibly dragged the singer from the hotel.
Clearly sick of the ruckus, Immigration Minister Jim Forbes ordered Cocker’s immediate deportation.
Matters perhaps weren’t helped by Cocker’s on-stage declaration at Festival Hall the night before that marijuana would be legal in Australia in five years and the people trying to get him to leave Australia would be smoking it too.
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Despite the trouble, Australia was a happy hunting ground for Cocker, his former tour promoter Michael Gudinski said following Cocker’s death in 2014.
“He was a true gentleman to work with. He loved Australia and he toured here a lot, even though he had that incident it never put him off the country,” he said.
FRANK SINATRA, 1974
This one was not so much a legal stoush but a very public and political one.
The trouble started when Sinatra flew into Sydney for a series of concerts in July 1974, with one newspaper running photographs of several women under the heading “SINATRA’S MOLLS”.
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Having braved a not-so-warm welcome in Sydney, he headed to Melbourne for his first shows and was pursued by male and female reporters itching for an interview.
When he took the stage that night at Festival Hall for his first Australia show, he told the audience: “They keep chasing after us. We have to run all day long. They’re parasites who take everything and give nothing. And as for the broads who work for the press, they’re the hookers of the press. I might offer them a buck and a half, I’m not sure.”
The Australian Journalists’ Association demanded an apology. Sinatra refused to back down, and the ACTU wielded union forces against the ageing crooner.
Such was the furore that Sinatra was forced to cancel the second Festival Hall show, and his private plane was black banned by refuellers, preventing his escape to Sydney.
Unionists everywhere were ordered not to assist Sinatra or his party in any way.
Cranky Frankie’s group took a commercial flight to Sydney instead, using assumed names, but they were trapped for three days in his suite at the Boulevard Hotel until then-ACTU president Bob Hawke brokered a deal, with Sinatra issuing a statement expressing regret for the chain of events in return for free passage.
Sinatra swore he’d never return to Australia. He did, finally, in January 1988. He died in 1998.
A fictionalised version of these events in which Melbourne was removed from the story became the film The Night We Called It a Day, starring Dennis Hopper as Cranky Frankie.
COURTNEY LOVE, 1995
The Hole singer and widow of Nirvana star Kurt Cobain got to see all the sights of Melbourne, including the Broadmeadows Magistrates’ Court, when she visited in January 1995.
Love was aboard a Qantas flight from Brisbane to Melbourne and had placed her bare feet on a bulkhead when a stewardess asked her to lower her feet, saying she was in breach of safety regulations and that other first-class passengers were offended by them.
Love asked the other passengers if they were offended and, when there was no answer, refused to budge.
The hostie warned Love she may be arrested. Love’s expletive-laden reply saw the captain radio ahead to Melbourne for police to meet the aircraft on landing.
Police arrested and stripsearched the star, finding no evidence that her behaviour with them was unusual.
She was charged with intimidation of aircraft crew and offensive behaviour. The first charge was dropped. Love pleaded guilty to the second and walked away with a one-month, $500 good behaviour bond with no conviction recorded.
LEWIS HAMILTON, 2010
Just hours after he set the fastest qualifying lap at the Australian F1 Grand Prix in Melbourne, Lewis Hamilton found himself on the wrong end of the law after pulling a burnout in a high-powered Mercedes sports car.
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Lewis was spotted by police in a divisional van as he fishtailed away from the F1 circuit in Lakeside Drive.
The car was impounded and Hamilton was later fined.
Hamilton was contrite after the incident, saying in a statement: “This evening, I was driving in an over-exuberant manner and, as a result, was stopped by the police. What I did was silly, and I want to apologise for it.”
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