Russell Crowe

“I never found film,” he’ll tell you. “Film found me.” It’s true enough. Russell Ira Crowe, second of two boys, grew up on film-sets – his parents were caterers for Australian TV and film in the 60s–70s and his granddad was a WWII cinematographer. Little surprise then that when Russ made his screen debut, aged six and wearing a Rabbitohs guernsey, he mustered the vibe of: I can do this.

Proof of this gift has come in spades since. An Oscar, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, four AFIs. It’s earned him the title “greatest actor of the era” but also “Maximus Stupidus”. Such is life for a movie star.

To understand the line Crowe walks, the tightrope he calls “that connection between performer and observer that is so intimate, so frequently painful, so unresolved” – we must go back to the beginning.

Due to the itinerant nature of his parents’ work, Crowe didn’t live in a house until he was 14. The family wagon struck out anew every few months – it meant new starts, clean slates and the fresh hell of making new friends. For young Russ it meant proving himself over and over. From the get-go he was an outsider.

Sacked as island resort bingo-caller (“69 – dinner for two!”), he returned to performing, initially with an Auckland-based band Roman Antix, later in the solo guise of Russ Le Roq, whose sole “hit” was the prophetic ‘I Want to Be like Marlon Brando’.

But 415 performances as Eddie/Dr Scott in the New Zealand Rocky Horror Show so honed his skills that when director George Ogilvie asked which part he’d like in 1990’s The Crossing, Russ replied: “All of them.” His performance won him an AFI nomination as Best Newcomer (and 13 years on, the hand of his co-star Danielle Spencer).

In 1991, Crowe won an AFI Best Supporting Actor for Proof and in ’92 cracked the trifecta: Best Actor for his performance as maniacal Melbourne skinhead Hando in Romper Stomper, the role that booked his ticket to Hollywood.

In the decade that followed Crowe worked with all the best directors and to all he was a tempest to be tamed.
Michael (The Insider) Mann likened him to “a 425-horsepower Ferrari”. Curtis (LA Confidential) Hanson said: “Russell is relentless in his search for a character... and if that makes him a pain in the ass, you live with it.”

He drew reverence for immersion – scarfing cheeseburgers and bourbon to put on 35lb for The Insider then melting down to 190lb for Gladiator– yet ridicule for that same intensity when it detonated in public, pinging phones at bell-hops and biffing blokes in bars and restaurants. No wonder he was targeted by Al Qaeda! But punchy as he was with back teeth afloat, by god, he could act.

Crowe is a man of action alright. Robin Hood will prove it afresh on May 13 but better evidence lies here in Sydney where, week after week, he watches over his beloved Rabbitohs. As a boy he snuck under the fence at Redfern Oval to watch their combat. Now, having watched them misfire for too long, he owns and leads them. Hand on heart – that’s our Russ. Angus Fontaine

 
Lifeline

1964 Born in Wellington, NZ on April 7
1970 Acting debut on Spyforce
1972 Attends Vaucluse Primary School
1992 Wins AFI Best Actor for Romper Stomper
1995 Hits Hollywood via The Quick & the Dead
2001 Oscar for Gladiator
2003 Marries April 7, son Charles born Dec 21, buys $14m home in Woolloomooloo
2006 Buys South Sydney Rabbitohs FC
2010 Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

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