‘I’m a specialist’: Actor-comic Mary Coustas on finding positives from heartbreak

Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we’re told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they’re given. This week, he talks to Mary Coustas. The Logie Award-winning actor, 60, is renowned for her alter-ego, Effie. She’s the author of the memoir All I Know, appears in the new season of Strife and stars in her solo stage show, This Is Personal.

Mary Coustas: “I don’t take anything for granted. I step up; I show up ... death has taught me more about life than living.”Credit: James Brickwood

SEX

Growing up, what were the attitudes towards sex in your Greek-Australian household? I don’t know if we had too many conversations about sex, but my mum was very funny and had a take on things I’d never heard before. When I asked her, “Why do these jokes about Greek shepherds keep coming up?”, she said to me [puts on thick Greek accent]: “Well, in my day, the girls had to be virgins and there were no prostitutes in the village. A man tends to the animal because a man is an animal.”

Wow. [Laughs] I didn’t think she knew what was funny or appropriate. So, I’d say I’ve definitely got a comic filter on how I looked at sex growing up.

Now, when I think of Effie, I also think of her raw, sexual confidence. But she was also a virgin until her wedding night. I like to think she’d have given half a hand-job [before she got married], but that was it. In my mind, she lost her virginity on her wedding night.

In real life, you’ve been with your husband, George, for 21 years. What attracted you to
him initially? In those days? Heat. I like to say, “I’d only ever dated boys, then I met a man.”

A man! Tell me more. He was in his early 40s; I was close to 40. I instinctively felt that he understood what life was really about. I’d already seen a lot: I was born into a household where my dad was dying – I knew that very young – so I wanted someone who knew what mattered. I also wanted to be with someone who’d help me evolve. I’ve got great ambition for the second half of my life, but often men still want the girl they met: “Can’t you just stay like that?” I wanted a grown-up.

Effie’s a bit of a gay icon. Is she arguably also a bit of a drag queen? [Nods solemnly] Under the wrong lighting and with the wrong make-up artist.

DEATH

We’ve landed on death. Yes, I’m a specialist.

You’ve already mentioned losing your father at a really young age. Yeah, I was 23 when my dad died; he’d been sick my whole life.

What was it like having that define your childhood? If I didn’t love him so much, maybe it would’ve been different. But there was no one who meant more to me. So, that was tough, but it has made me very present. I don’t take anything for granted. I step up; I show up. I tell people what they mean to me. I don’t assume that “the next time” is going to be there. I think death has taught me more about life than living. Losing my dad and my daughter [Stevie, who was stillborn in May 2011] left me heartbroken, but I think the positives were there, too.

You’ve been so candid about losing Stevie. Why has it been so important to you to share what happened? It was such a complicated story to tell. When I was writing my memoir, I tried not to get overwhelmed by the task. Then I just thought, “OK, I’ve got one job and one job alone, and that’s to put the reader in my shoes. Just let them be by my side and walk through it with me.” That’s why it had such a huge reaction. It put many things on the map: being an older mother, IVF, stillbirth. I’m very good at dismantling taboos.

Now you have another daughter, Jamie. How old is she? She’s 11. As my husband said, “We got the wooden spoon 22 times [the number of their unsuccessful IVF treatments] and then we got the trophy.”

Has your grief for Stevie changed over time? Well, it morphs. It goes into the wings and waits like an understudy. One of the hardest days for me is Mother’s Day because Stevie died that day. So that’s bittersweet, but I also think it’s poetic. Life is about contrasts: the sweet and the bitter.

Now I’m thinking of how it must be for Jamie to celebrate Mother’s Day with you. She knows. She says, “Mama, what do you want for Mother’s Day?” And I just say, “Two hours in the morning on my own. And then I’ll be good.”

BODIES

What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s happened involving your body? I did accidentally have an orgasm when I was eight.

Mary! Wait, what? I was at my friend’s house watching a film. The on-screen couple kissed, then, suddenly, I felt this rush from the bottom of my toes to the top of my head. I didn’t know what had happened. All I knew was that I had to get home and not make a big deal of it. I lived a few doors away, so I got up and said, “I’ve got to go now.” At home, I thought, “Oh, my god, I’m pregnant.” I didn’t know about orgasms, but I’d seen pregnant people, so I thought maybe I was pregnant. Then my brother knocked on the door and said, “We’re going to go down to the Yarra. Are you coming?” And I ran out and got on with my life and was a child again.

I love that your eight-year-old mind went immediately to immaculate conception. It’s how Effie got pregnant. I did a show once [as Effie]; I was halfway through a run, then I came back and I was pregnant. I didn’t want Effie to lose her virginity. So I had to say it was an immaculate conception – the toilet seat she’d sat on at an airport.

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