Same Name Fever
Let me go on record to make this clear, once and for all:
No, I am not going to be playing the lead in The Godwin Grech Story.
Over the last week, I’ve lost count of the people who have stopped me in the street, cornered me at the 7-11, or leant precariously from moving vehicles, to ask when the filming starts. Even a policeman couldn’t resist the urge to bound over and enquire as to when I’ll be essaying the role of the suddenly famous Treasury official who may or may not have been knocking up fake e-mails and cc-ing them to Malcolm Turnbull. I was dumbfounded; are policemen allowed to make jokes? What would happen if I responded with some Paul Mullett gear? I decided not to push my luck.
Yes, I admit it, we do look a bit similar, but that’s as far as it goes; Godwin has never leapt off the top diving board in a dinner suit, while clutching an umbrella, in a futile attempt to promote a movie, while I have never sent an e-mail to Malcolm Turnbull. Actually, that’s not true. I did send one when he cocked up that whole republic thing. It read simply, ‘Blow it out your arse!’, and I’d like to think those sentiments remain pertinent to everything he’s done since. Who would play Turnbull in this much-mooted telemovie? My money’s on John Lithgow, and, in the words of Chopper Read, ‘I’m generally right on these matters’.
But at least the constant cries of ‘Hey look, everybody, it’s Godwin Grech!’ have provided some respite from the endless Where’s Wally? jokes, which I myself foolishly set in motion NINETEEN YEARS AGO. I thought maybe I’d grow out of them, like I did the Warwick Fairfax gags in the nineties, but they refuse to go quietly. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t just give into it and start getting round town in the stripey gear. I tell you what, Australia; I’ll do it for a week on one condition: that Joe Hockey shows up for Parliament dressed as Fred Flintstone.
I tell you who I really feel sorry for: Godwin Grech. No, not the Godwin Grech, the other one. That’s right, there’s someone else called Godwin Grech, an old Dutch bloke in Melbourne, whose phone is running hot. If you had told me that, in the seventies, there was a Northern England shock rock band called Godwin Grech, who released a concept album called Godwin Grech Go to Hell, featuring the hit ballad ‘The Wreck of the Godwin Grech’, I wouldn’t have questioned it, but another actual person with that name? I can barely believe that there’s someone else called ‘Godwin’, let alone the full Grech and dice. And who the hell is calling this bloke? Even if they think it’s the real Godwin, what are they planning to say to him? If they’re anything like the people who have been buttonholing me, it’ll be something like:
‘Hey, Godwin, do your ‘Bargearse’ voice!’
***
Of course, I’ve long known what it’s like to share somebody’s name. At first it was funny to be constantly confused with the bloke who played the Reverend Bob on E-Street. If you’re reading this, you probably know that when we both appeared in The Games, I had to be credited as ‘The Other Tony Martin’. But at one point, it threatened to turn ugly.
Back in 1995, around the time that the radio show Martin/Molloy started to take off, I received a call from someone high up in Actor’s Equity.
‘We want you to change your name,’ he said, getting straight to the point. ‘It’s causing too much confusion.’
‘But I’ve been Tony Martin for years,’ I protested. ‘People are used to it.’
‘Well, that name should never have been approved in the first place.’
‘Approved? What, when I was born?’
This man went on to explain how, in the US, it was against Equity rules for two actors to have the same name. For several years, the Pink Flamingos John Waters had been unable to join because our own Rush heartthrob had held a US Equity card. What people generally did in this situation was add an initial, as in the case of Michael J. Fox, or the Soul Man, C. Thomas Howell. For several insane moments, I actually considered calling myself ‘T. Francis Martin’ (and publishing a series of Alistair MacLean-style paperbacks with names like ‘T. Francis Martin’s The Scorpio Conspiracy’).
‘But it’s too late,’ I said. ‘I can’t just whack an initial in there now.’
‘P.J. Hogan did it.’ (Early in his career, Muriel’s Wedding director P.J. Hogan had been credited as ‘Paul Hogan’)
‘Yeah but that was before anyone had heard of him. There’s 100,000 Late Show videos out there with my name on them. How many people saw The Humpty Dumpty Man?’
The man on the other end exhaled a long sigh and cranked it up a gear.
‘I take it you’ve heard of this new show, Blue Murder?’
‘Actually, no.’ It’s now my favourite Aussie drama of all time, but at that stage I knew nothing about it.
‘The other day, the producer of that program was driving across the Sydney Harbour Bridge when he heard someone called Tony Martin talking about Blue Murder on the radio.’
Okay. Let’s ignore, for the moment, the fact that, as I said, I hadn’t heard of Blue Murder and therefore had never talked about it on my radio show (which means that if this story was true, the ‘producer’ must have been listening either to his own Tony Martin talking about it, or a third Tony Martin; possibly the one from Black Sabbath or the one married to Cyd Charisse.)
‘And you realise,’ the bureaudrone continued, ‘that it’s actually illegal to discuss Blue Murder up here in Sydney, due to the court injunction.’
Where to start?
‘Okay, let’s assume I have been discussing that show on the radio. What does that have to do with changing my name? And, by the way, I sound nothing like the other Tony Martin. If this guy’s the producer of the show, wouldn’t he have spotted that it wasn’t the voice of his own leading man? And if he did think it was his Tony Martin, why didn’t he just phone Tony up and talk to him about it? How did I get into this story at all?’
‘Look, the fact is we can’t continue to have all this confusion.’
‘Then you should have said something when I first joined. I’ve been a member since 1986.’
‘Yes, but Tony’s been a member since the early seventies.’
‘Ah, but isn’t it true that in the credits of 1981’s The Killing of Angel Street, he’s listed as “Anthony” Martin?’ I knew more about my namesake than this bloke realised.
‘I’m not sure about that.’
‘Well, he is. So when exactly did he stop being “Anthony” and become “Tony”? Was it before or after 1986? Maybe he should be the one who…?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so.’
There followed a long, uncomfortable pause. Then, and I swear this is true, he said these words:
‘Look, Tony hasn’t been getting all his cheques.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I’m not going to repeat it.’
‘I’m sorry? You’re saying I’ve been stealing and cashing the other Tony Martin’s cheques? Is that what this is about? You’re accusing me of living it up on Reverend Bob money?’
The rest of the call is unprintable, even here. And to this day my Equity card still says the same thing it says on the other Tony Martin’s. Although on his, a la Wildside, it says it twice.
***
But to conclude on a positive note, I offer, for once, some practical advice.
If, like me, you’re always looking for novel ways to cut down on your swearing and blasphemy, do as I now do. If you happen to drop, say, Bryce Courtenay’s The Persimmon Tree on your foot, instead of blurting ‘Ow! Fuck!’, just offer this simple, harmless expletive: ‘Godwin Grech!’. When someone tells you who’s hosting next year’s Logies, instead of howling ‘God Almighty!’ try rolling out a disbelieving ‘Godwin Grech!’. And if you’re the sort of person who occasionally likes to say ‘Gordon Bennett’, substitute a ‘Godwin Grech’ and see how good it feels. In fact, it’s so much fun, so oddly satisfying, that I urge you all to shout the words ‘Godwin Grech!’ wherever and whenever possible.
Just not at me.
Tony Martin is the Melbourne-based author of ‘A Nest of Occasionals’ and ‘Lolly Scramble’. Podcasts of his radio show ‘Get This’ are still available for free download at iTunes (type in: ‘Get This: Richard Marsland Lives’). He is currently directing new episodes of ABCTV's ‘The Librarians’.
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