As a Wiggle, he brought joy to millions, but privately, he was in pain

Somewhere inside Sydney’s Hot Potato Studios, which also serves as the Wiggles’ corporate headquarters, is a portrait of founding member Anthony Field – which he keeps hidden under a blanket.

Painted by artist and comedian Anh Do for the ABC series Anh’s Brush with Fame, it depicts Field as square-jawed and handsome; his steel-blue eyes conveying an intense yet thoughtful disposition. Field adores it, yet he can’t bring himself to hang it up.

“That’s just my personality,” he says over Zoom, sitting in the boardroom of what everyone calls “Wiggles HQ”: a vast and colourful space befitting the world’s most successful children’s entertainment group. Beside him is his cousin and Wiggles collaborator Greg Truman, co-author of Field’s new memoir, Out of the Blue: Everything This Wiggle Journey Has Taught Me.

“Anthony doesn’t tend to look back or talk about himself very much,” Truman says, noting that their bond allowed Field to be uncharacteristically frank. “It was a matter of me saying, ‘Well, I’m going to make you’ – and down that path we went.”

While participating in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York in 2001, the Wiggles were inundated by police requesting photos for their children.Credit: AP

While many showbiz memoirs read like a collection of dinner party anecdotes, Out of the Blue is the revealing story of a man who brought joy to millions of children while privately battling an array of debilitating mental and physical ailments.

As a teenager, Field suffered from what he now knows to be ADHD and depression.

“I hadn’t even heard of those things back then,” he recalls. “I’d think, ‘Why do I feel sad when everyone else is happy? Why do I feel alone in a big group of people?’ I just thought I didn’t fit in and there was no place for me.”

When his teachers accused him of being academically deficient or simply lazy, his confidence dwindled and he flunked his final year.

Yet it’s obvious why the blue skivvy-wearing Field – the only original Wiggle still with the group – was instrumental in building what would become the biggest touring act in Australia. He has a refreshing enthusiasm, giving genuine thought to each question, and is devoid of the performative world-weariness of other seasoned performers.

‘Kids loved Jeff because they could yell at him; they had power over an adult.’

Anthony Field

This is no accident: the initial line-up of Field, Murray Cook, Jeff Fatt, Greg Page and Phillip Wilcher (whose time with the group was brief) explicitly “outlawed” cynicism, which tends to confuse and distress young children.

Indeed, the pedagogical expertise of Field, Cook and Page – who studied early childhood education together at Macquarie University – informed everything the Wiggles did.

For toddlers and preschoolers, the illusion of intimacy is critical: whether they’re watching on an iPad or in a 10,000-seat stadium, they must believe the Wiggles are directly interacting with them. Simple songs, easy dance moves and familiar characters encourage involvement, although children must choose if and when they participate.

During one concert, Field invited the audience to ask questions of Dorothy the Dinosaur. Immediately, he realised his mistake: young children are naturally egocentric, so they prefer to discuss themselves. The next time, he suggested they “talk to Dorothy”, which worked a treat.

“It’s all about empowering a child by understanding what their world looks like, and reflecting that in our music, theatre and gags,” says Field, explaining why the purple-skivvied Jeff – who’d nod off mid-show, prompting audiences to shout, “Wake up, Jeff!” – was the group’s most popular member.

“Children are always being told to do this or that,” he says. “Suddenly, they had power over an adult! They loved Jeff because they could yell at him.”

With the support of the ABC and Disney, among other local and international partners, the Wiggles went from playing day-care centres to a record-breaking 12-show season at New York’s Madison Square Garden, which sold out in just a few hours.

“It’s been the best thing we ever did,” Field says of newest – and most diverse – Wiggles line-up.

Since forming in 1991, they’ve sold a combined 40 million books, CDs and DVDS; and accumulated more than 5 billion views on YouTube and 3 billion streams across various music services. At their commercial peak, they played to 1 million people globally. (During one concert, Field spotted Robert De Niro with his children. As only De Niro could, he looked happy and menacing at the same time.)

The relentless touring was bittersweet for Field: he loved performing but hated being away from friends and family, which grew to include his wife, Miki, and their three children.

At one point, the Wiggles did three-month tours of the US, three times a year. “Once, I didn’t see the sun for 10 days straight because we’d play three shows a day and then drive to the next venue at night,” Field says. “I was feeling so bad and I remember ringing Miki who said, ‘Get out into the sun, just get out there.’ Especially before the internet and FaceTime, you were in a little bubble where you never spoke to anyone else.”

Out of the Blue covers Field’s childhood with his musically inclined family of nine; his co-founding of pub-rock band the Cockroaches, which included Fatt on keyboards and Page, who worked as a roadie; a stint in the army in the early 1980s and the comings and goings of various group members over the years.

TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO ANTHONY FIELD

1. Worst habit? Forgetting things! Leaving cupboards and fridge doors open, and leaving the keys for my bicycle lock in the lock!
2. Greatest fear? Heights! I developed real acrophobia later in life.
3. The line that stayed with you? “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.” – Ferris Bueller
4. Biggest regret? Sometimes I regret caring about what other people think. I’ve also regretted trusting some people in my life who probably didn’t deserve my trust!
5. Favourite book? Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.
6. The artwork/song you wish was yours? I don’t wish any song or artworks were mine. I’m happy with my level of naivety.
7. If you could time travel, where would you choose to go? To 1969, to see every Elvis Presley concert in Vegas.

Field’s health problems began in utero, when a doctor advised his mother to take the antibiotic tetracycline, which gave his teeth a grey-black hue; now, he has no original teeth left. He’s had viral meningitis and encephalitis, which forced him to relinquish his plans to compete in reality program The Masked Singer. (“You do that show and you probably won’t come back,” his doctor warned.)

He suffered chronic pain in his back, neck, knees, and feet; nerve pain so severe it made him scream; headaches; unrelenting fatigue; a bacterial infection known as cat-scratch disease, which can co-exist with Lyme disease; and food allergies. (Forgetting his tomato intolerance, he took his now-wife to an Italian restaurant on their first date, spending most of the evening in the bathroom.)

Medication, diet and exercise helped enormously – along with growing societal acceptance of mental health issues. “The fact we’re normalising it as something that needs to be attended to is wonderful,” Truman says.

Among the eight current Wiggles’ are Field and his eldest daughter Lucia; Ethiopian-born Tsehay Hawkins; John Pearce, who has Filipino heritage; and Taribelang and Djabugay woman Evie Ferris, the group’s first Indigenous member. “It’s been the best thing we ever did,” Field says.

The 61-year-old comes from a long line of musicians, most of them women. His mother, Marie, insisted all seven of her children learn an instrument from a young age. “But it was never about, ‘Once you can play at this level, you’ll be considered a musician’,” Field says.

“She was all about the joy that music gives you, whether you play it, listen to it or just have it as part of your life. Mum gave us the feeling that everybody’s music is valid. It didn’t matter that we were below-ordinary dancers; we knew children would respond to the simple dance moves anyway.

“If we’d waited to get everything perfect, the Wiggles would never have happened.”

Out of the Blue: Everything This Wiggle Journey Has Taught Me (Allen & Unwin) is out now.

The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from books editor Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday.