By Phil Jarratt
As I write we still have two surfers left in the mix at the rather anti-climactic debut of surfing as an Olympic sport at Shidashita Beach, about 100 kilometres from Tokyo.
After day two, Sally Fitzgibbon and Owen Wright were into the quarters, while Steph Gilmore and Julian Wilson had fallen victim to the conditions, which can only be described as, well, a little bit shidashita. But, everyone has to surf the same shita and some did it better than others.
How Big Owie managed to stay afloat in the wind slop is beyond me, but he did and convincingly took down Jeremy Flores of France to fly the Aussie flag into the quarters alongside a rampaging Sally Fitz. Medals for Australia? Well, you’ll all know before you read this, but I doubt we can do better than a bronze, with Brazil gold and USA silver.
Conditions were always going to be tough at the Games, and it was great to see the surfers who represented doing so with a real passion. None more so than Italy’s Leo Fioravanti, who unfortunately didn’t make the quarters but was certainly loving the moment with stepdad and coach, my great mate Stephen “Belly” Bell.
Vale Strop and Big Wave
For those of us who started out in the media and broadcasting world in the halcyon years of the ‘70s and ‘80s, these past couple of weeks have been very sad.
First, the legendary potty-mouthed but amusing boss of the Nine and Seven networks (at different times), part-time Noosa resident Big Wave Dave Leckie toppled off the perch at the family estate on the NSW Southern Highlands after a long struggle. I knew Leckie at the height of his powers but we were not close, not like his other Noosa friends, Tony and Helen Flanagan.
But when he started spending more time at his Quamby Place riverfront, he would phone me and bellow: “Jarratt, we have to save the frickin’ river! I’ll buy you lunch.” And he would. The last time we met for a drink, I picked him up and drove him to the Boathouse so he could see a different aspect of the river from the Sunset Bar.
It took two beer stops to get to the top floor bar, and he didn’t last long. “Take me home, Jarratt.” I did and we shook hands and that was that. I wish I’d been a better friend in those final months.
Next, John Cornell, or Strop, or Corny, funny, generous, clever little bugger, took his leave after an incredibly long and sad battle with Parkinson’s. Hearing of his death, my friend David Hill, who worked with him closely to launch World Series Cricket, summed it up: “Cornell was a bloody wonder. No Cornell, no WSC, no C’mon Aussie C’mon, no Paul Hogan, no Winfield ads (I loved those Winfield ads), no Paul Hogan Show, no Crocodile Dundee, no Throw A Shrimp on the barbie, and for that matter, Byron Bay probably stays a sleepy little seaside hamlet, and Netflix would never have thought of doing a reality series there!”
I first met Corny at a boozy lunch in Sydney’s Paddington with the two Als of Mojo Advertising fame, somewhere between World Series Cricket and the shrimp on the barbie Hogan ads. And in 1985 I spent a week on the set of Crocodile Dundee in Kakadu interviewing Hoges for Playboy. So in Los Angeles the following year, it wasn’t too difficult to get an exclusive interview with Corny as he inked a deal with Paramount Pictures that would make everyone associated with the Dundee franchise very rich indeed.
I phoned Corny on arrival in LA at the start of a two-month tour of duty for The Bulletin magazine in which I’d cart my family across the US in a Winnebago while reporting on the state of the nation. It was a pretty good deal, I had to admit, and it cracked Cornell up when I told him. We met at his hotel, the luxurious but funky Bel Air in the Hollywood Hills. My wife, Jackie, had made a career change and completed a photography course just before we left Australia. She had talent, but this was her first serious gig.
I’ll never forget Corny’s generosity in helping set up the shot for Jackie. Nothing was too much trouble. We had a few drinks and a lot of laughs, and then the ancient Hollywood Lothario Tony Curtis strolled past the pool bar. I wrote: “Ageing, greying, thickening Tony Curtis ambles by, sporting a tan that is either Acapulco or blood pressure, wearing a white cashmere sweater over Bermuda shorts and socks… ‘Who are these people and what are they doing in my office?’ jokes John Cornell.”
Corny was a larrikin, and a bit of a genius, and unforgettable. Good life, well played, mate.
