Where are they now? Tracking down the original Mad Max cast

Many of the original cast of Mad Max went on to active careers beyond the film, but none achieved Gibson’s heights of fame

actor STEVE Bisley & Mel Gibson in film scene 'Mad Max' headshot movies file pic 1979

Among the crowds that will flock to Mad Max: Fury Road this weekend will be new fans who have never seen the first three films starring Mel Gibson. Just as eager to pass judgment on the latest instalment will be die-hard fans of the original.

When Mad Max premiered in 1979 few people imagined the ­impact Mad Max would have. It changed perceptions of Australian films and inspired sequels that would in turn inspire other post-apocalyptic films and action films featuring cars.

It made a global star of Gibson. But while the highs and lows of the New York-born, NIDA-trained actor’s career are well documented, most of the actors who shared the screen with him in the original film never attained international fame.

 Mel Gibson went on to international stardom from Mad Max.

When director George Miller ­assembled his original cast he didn’t have the money for A-list stars. His line-up was a mix of ­unknowns and jobbing actors already established in the industry. Gibson and his ­co-star Steve Bisley (Max’s sidekick Jim Goose), although recent graduates of NIDA, had already had theatre roles and had acted together in the ultra-low budget 1977 film Summer City.

After Goose, Bisley played a range of characters but was known for roles in TV police dramas such as Nipper Harris in Police Rescue and Sgt Jack Christey in Water Rats. He still does stage work and was recently seen in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby and TV series Redfern Now.

In 2013 he released a memoir Stillways about his troubled childhood.

 Steve Bisley (right) with Mad Max co-star Hugh Keays Byrne at a Mad Max reunion in Sydney.

By the time Joanne Samuel was cast as Max’s wife Jessie she already had several years’ experience, having made her professional screen debut as a 16-year-old in 1973 and winning a regular role on TV drama The Young Doctors. After dying at the hands of bikies in Mad Max she worked on action films and had regular roles in local TV series Skyways and Ratbags. She is currently involved with a local theatre company in Katoomba teaching drama.

  Hugh Keays-Byrne as Toecutter in the original film.

 Hugh Keays-Byrne as Immortan Joe in Mad Max: Fury Road.

Miller cast two actors from the 1974 cult bikie film Stone as his key bikie gang members. Charismatic gang leader Toecutter was played by Hugh Keays-Byrne, who had cut an impressive figure as Toad in Stone. Keays-Byrne had been in theatre since the ’60s and post-Mad Max continued to work on stage with some film and TV ­appearances (only occasionally as a bikie). Fans can spot him playing a new villain in Fury Road.

 Vincent Gil as The Nightrider.

Vincent Gil’s role as Toecutter’s pal The Nightrider was brief but memorable. Gil had appeared in Number 96, The Box and Division Four and played the bikie Dr Death in Stone. Working mostly in theatre after Mad Max, he has also popped up on TV, recently playing a character named Toecutter Durham in the series Conspiracy 365 and in a guest role in The Doctor Blake Mysteries.

 Mel Gibson in a scene with Tim Burns as Johnny The Boy.

One of the most memorable scenes in the original Mad Max film is when Max leaves Johnny the Boy chained to a car wreck that is about to explode. Johnny was played by Tim Burns, who had played a teenager in the TV series Glenview High and had the cheeky, boyish looks Miller needed.

After Johnny’s fiery death in the finale of the film Burns had a role in the TV series Patrol Boat and in several Australian films but has mostly focused on stage work with a local Sydney theatre group.

On the side of the “Bronze” (police), Miller cast the New Zealand-born actor Jonathan Hardy as the nerdy, eccentric police commissioner Labatouche.

As the police chief Fifi Macaffee was Roger Ward, whose career playing criminals, thugs and cops stretched back to the ’60s. He was known in the industry for writing the screenplay for the 1970 film The Set, a groundbreaking depiction of homosexuality in Australia.

Other stars-in-waiting to get a break in Mad Max were Amanda Muggleton, who later gained fame in the TV series Prisoner, and Lulu Pinkus, who played the Nightrider’s girlfriend and later became better known as the spouse of Yahoo Serious and is now an artist.

Originally published as Where are they now? Tracking down the original Mad Max cast