THE SHOW MUST GO ON
In May 1992, some 30 years ago, a little film called Strictly Ballroom made Australian movie history. Jane Albert celebrates the enduring legacy of Baz Luhrmann’s first spectacular spectacular.
In 1988 a young NIDA graduate called Baz Luhrmann was invited to stage his play Strictly Ballroom at the Sydney Theatre Company alongside his fellow NIDA graduates writer Craig Pearce, actor Catherine McClements and production designer Catherine Martin, with associate production designer Bill Marron and costume designer Angus Strathie. The show debuted in September, a fun, feel-good romp through the flamboyant, madcap world of competitive ballroom dancing, with an uplifting message of overturning artistic oppression and taking on the establishment.
Sitting in the audience that night was music producer Ted Albert and his wife Popsy, this writer’s uncle and aunt. Albert, highly respected for his uncanny eye for talent, had unearthed some of Australia’s most successful bands, including AC/DC. His next move was to venture into film. As the cast took its bow Albert turned to his wife and said: “That’s the film I want to make.” It turns out he wasn’t the only one. When approached with an offer to buy the screen rights to the play Luhrmann agreed, on one condition: he would direct it. And so began the four-year journey from stage to screen, led by a group of self-confessed rookies, in a story of deep friendship, intoxicating highs and devastating lows.
UNTRIED AND UNTESTED
They may be globally renowned Oscar winners and nominees today, but Luhrmann, Pearce, Martin, choreographer John ‘Cha Cha’ O’Connell and co were completely unknown before Strictly Ballroom. “Baz was seen in small artistic circles as a wunderkind who looked like he had a future ahead of him but was not widely known,” says producer Tristram Miall. While this would prove to be a major obstacle when it came to seeking funding and distribution, the crew had what Pearce calls “the enthusiasm, bravery and naivety of youth”.
CASTING CALLS
Luhrmann and O’Connell auditioned 300 people in Melbourne, mindful of the burning question: do you cast actors and teach them to dance or dancers and teach them to act? “We put poor Tara Morice through the mill,” recalls Miall. O’Connell was key to the success in working with actors like Morice, who played Fran, and giving them the confidence to dance on screen. “A lot of the actors felt vulnerable … but Cha Cha’s brilliance is he’s very good at getting actors to believe in themselves and overcome their fear of being exposed,” says Pearce. “He got very close to Nicole [Kidman] on Moulin Rouge! for that reason, and very close to Tara.” The cast would ultimately include Barry Otto and Bill Hunter alongside then-unknowns Sonia Kruger, Todd McKenny, Gia Carides and Sydney Dance Company’s Paul Mercurio in the lead role as ballroom dancing star Scott Hastings.
BALLROOM FEVER
Let’s not forget cult shows like Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing with the Stars exist because of the success of Strictly Ballroom. Before that, the dance genre was considered niche and a bit weird. “All the financiers we approached shook their heads and said: ‘You’ve got to be mad,” Miall says. A budget of $5.5 million was rejected, on account of Luhrmann being a first-time director. “Get yourself a new director,” the team was told. “We said, ‘No, we’ll get ourselves a new budget,’” recalls Miall. “And Baz famously said: ‘Just tell me how much money you can raise and I’ll make it for that.’ That was wonderful, that can-do, roll-up-your-sleeves attitude.”
TRAGEDY STRIKES
On November 11, 1990 Albert died suddenly from a heart attack. Everyone was devastated, none more so than Popsy and their two young daughters. Cruelly, his death coincided with some major funding commitments and Popsy was forced to decide immediately whether to push ahead with the film and its funding, or call it off.
“I had two choices, yes or no, and no wasn’t an option,” she recalls. “This film was so special to Teddy and a big part of our lives. Letting go of that meant letting go of a big part of him and I couldn’t do that. I had to make that decision overnight,” says Popsy, who agreed to come on as executive producer in her husband’s place. “It also gave me a reason to get up every day and put a smile on my face, somebody had to. And it gave our family a focus that was around Ted but not connected with sadness.”
CALLING IN FAVOURS
The first scene shot was the film’s toughest: the final dance competition that was captured during the real-life Pan-Pacific Dancing Championship in Melbourne. It involved 3,000 extras, including lots of favours by family and friends. “It was go, go, go, we couldn’t afford much overtime, but we needed that crowd and venue,” says Miall. “If you look very closely, you see big gaps in the crowd!” Tempers were frayed, not helped by Mercurio spraining his ankle after rehearsing in the Spanish boots custom-made for him for the grand paso doble finale. “Paul spent every minute of the first part of the shoot with his ankle up being iced when he wasn’t being filmed. It was a disaster,” recalls Miall.
“YOU’LL NEVER WORK AGAIN”
As the film neared completion the creatives turned their attention to locking in distributors. One of the earliest screenings for backers Film Finance Corporation saw them leave in silence; Luhrmann had an even worse experience: “When we screened it for one exhibitor at Greater Union, they left before it ended and said: ‘You’re ruined, you’ll never work again.’ I threw up, cut off my long hair and CM and Bill and I went up north. I thought I’d failed.” And then they were invited to Cannes.
Baz famously said: “Just tell me how much money you can raise and I’ll make it for that”
DANCING IN THE STREETS
“We’d been invited into the Un Certain Regard midnight screening [for emerging, experimental films], which was huge,” Popsy recalls. “There was a 15-minute standing ovation, it was extraordinary. The Frenchman standing next to me who I’d never met before got so excited, he grasped me and kissed me quite passionately and I thought, ‘This will do me!’”
Strictly Ballroom was immediately offered a second midnight screening and this time there was a queue for tickets that snaked around the block. “There was a crush towards us and a security guard grabbed me and said: ‘From this day on, your life will never be the same again,’” Luhrmann remembers.
Numerous screenings followed and Miall and Popsy would stand outside to watch the audience emerge. “They’d literally come out dancing, so we had a pretty strong feeling it was okay,” Popsy says with a laugh. The film went on to win Cannes’s Prix de Jeunesse, eight Australian Film Industry awards including best director, best film and best screenplay and was sold to 86 countries, becoming one of the highest-grossing Australian films of all time. Popsy was right: it was all going to be okay.