B/W Moment: The Unsung Aussie Orry-Kelly

 The Sydney Film Festival is now in full swing and there is one movie that should not be missed. Produced and directed by Academy Award winner Gillian Armstrong, it is the story of one of Hollywood's most celebrated artistes Orry-Kelly who died in 1964.

Gillian Armstrong

The chances are you have watched a movie where Orry George Kelly-his birth name, designed unforgettable costumes for the most famous legends of the day from Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot to Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca.  Kelly is also Australia's most prolific Oscar winner having won three for costume design and nominated numerous times.

  Kelly (left) was born in Kiama NSW in 1897 before he embarked for New York in 1923 where he shared an apartment with Cary Grant and then to LA and a Hollywood career. In many ways he is similar to Aussie legends Sir Robert Helpmann and Peter Allen, both born in rural communities but with fathers who actively encouraged them in their pursuit of the arts.

Armstrong's film is titled Women I've Undressed after an unpublished manuscript Kelly wrote which reputedly detailed his affair with movie legend and his former flat mate Cary Grant. 

Book Launch Brings out Movie Crowd

He wasn't well known by the general public but within Australian cinema the late Albie Thoms was a name to be reckoned with. He completed his memoir My Generation days before he slipped away from cancer at aged 70, three weeks ago.

Albie Thoms, Charles Higham and Frank Thring

Bryan Brown & Gillian Armstrong

Thoms was a leading figure in the revival  of the local film industry in the 1970s when he began Ubu Films inspired by the French New Wave , British and US underground film movements.

Many of today's most recognisable names came within Albie's orbit and were inspired or encouraged by Thoms to pursue their dreams at a time when their hopes of success at best may have seen them appear in an episode of an ABC drama or a commercial TV cop show, in front of, or behind the camera.

Peter Clifton & Glen A.Baker

Claudia Karvan

At the celebration to honour Albie Thoms' life and to launch his just completed autobiography, many turned up to discuss old times. Actors Claudia Karvan, Bryan Brown and Judy Davis joined directors Bruce Beresford, Jan Chapman and Gillian Armstrong along with producers Jim McElroy, Margaret  Fink and Oz Magazine's Richard Neville.

Publisher Richard Walsh & Jim McElroy

Wendy Whiteley

Richard Neville

Over 300 guests packed Paddington Town Hall's newly decorated auditorium to take in screenings of some Albie's first movie productions like Bluto and Blunderball which were praised in their day by the late US film critic Charles Higham.
 There was also time to re-tell one of Albie's favorite stories : Thoms was commissioned to produce several episodes of the TV series Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo (still big in Eastern Europe) and the guest star was the high camp actor Frank Thring, star of Hollywood biblical blockbusters like Ben Hur.                                      
As the crew brought on yet another struggling  kangaroo in a sack for the day's shoot- Thring quipped  "If that's the star's friggin' dressing room, what's mine going to be like?"

Cate Blanchett Attends Sydney Film Festival

A freezing Sydney winter night and lots of bare legged girls shaking in the cold wind for their art. The show must go on. The Sydney Film Festival opened at the State Theatre with the espionage thriller Hanna starring Saorise Ronan, Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana. 

Ronan plays a 16 year old assassin who sets out to bump off Blanchett who plays a cold eyed , orange haired spy and Blanchett tries to do likewise to Ronan..

Actor Matt Day & wife Kirsty Thomason

Meanwhile in downtown Surry Hills The Seagull opened at the Belvoir Street Theatre with Judy Davis , David Wenham,Emily Barclay and Bille Brown. Needless to say, a cast like that received a rousing reception and almost a standing ovation.

Maia Thomas* Katherine Hicks * Michelle Vergara Moore * Anya Beyersdorf who star in Black & White & Sex

The notoriously media shy Davis skipped out the stage door-she refused to give interviews for the play while the rest of the cast joined first nighters for champagne and smoked salmon in the foyer.

Film director Gillian Armstrong and daughter Billy

Zoo Lim

actress Sylvia Colloco and husband Richard Roxburgh at The Seagull

Fox Studios boss Kim Williams

Sigrid Thornton & Tom Burstall

Festival director Clare Stuart