176 Delvene Delaney The Untold Story Behind Australias Most Iconic Film Crocodile Dundee

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and discover your lash destiny. Shop now at Walmart. I'm Mike Boris and this is Straight Talk.

I did the documentary.

Because I didn't want him to not be here anymore.

Deli. Delveen Delaney. Welcome to Straight Talk. We're here to talk about a whole lot of stuff.

You were married for a long, long time to John Strock Corner.

Yeah, we met in the pub.

Of course.

I know. It's like you read about in the love stories. Everything he did, he thought big,

whether it was World Series cricket or the Paul Hogan shows or certainly Crocodile Dundee.

And so he had no...

He had no fear and he had tremendous self-belief.

You talked about Crocodile Dundee 1 being to some extent a love story between Hoag's and Linda.

Is this documentary about the love story between Delveen Delaney and John Cornell?

Yeah. This is a love letter to John.

Delveen. Deli.

Mark.

Delveen Delaney. Welcome to Straight Talk.

Thank you for having me.

How long have we been mates for?

Well, you just reminded me it was 22.

22 years. So I was such a slip of a girl.

You were. You still are.

Oh, yeah.

Look at you. You're gorgeous.

Your cheeks just went a bit red too.

I know. I'm blushing.

Actually, I probably knew you before that because I think that I was hunting around up there,

Byron Bay area with Ginja. He probably used to stay up at one of your, the A-frame up at your place up there.

He stayed in every house I had. He spread himself around.

And now he lives up there.

He was welcome.

And now he lives up there. He's your neighbour.

And now he's a neighbour.

And my neighbour too.

Well, we're here to talk about a whole lot of stuff.

You were married for a long, long time to one of the people that I consider, and I'm not an aficionado on this topic,

but I consider to be one of the greatest creators in Australian television and probably a lot of other things too,

in an entrepreneurial sense, ever.

Of course, John Stropp Cornell.

Yeah.

How long were you guys married?

We were married for 46 years.

46 years.

Yeah.

And he passed away. How long ago now has he passed away?

It'll be four years in July.

Four years. Wow. That's mad. I do want to talk to you about that. Not his passing, but I want to talk to you about how you met.

We met in the pub.

Of course.

I know. Who'd have thought that we would have had one for 30 years afterwards.

We met at Five Ways in Paddington, and he had been apparently perving on me in TV Week, which I didn't know.

I'd just sort of started a fledgling television career, and I sat next to Paul Hogan at a footy event for one of the networks.

I think it was Seven, and we hit it off.

And at the time, they had only a guest actress every month on The Paul Hogan Show.

So Paul reported back to John saying, I met that Delveen Delaney.

She's a bit of all right, mate.

You'd like her.

I think we should have her on the show.

So as a result of that, when I was in this pub, and my date went to the toilet, and his date, I don't know where she was, but he left her to come over to me.

And he said, oh, you don't know me.

I'm John Cornell.

I produce The Paul Hogan Show.

Would you like to be on it?

And I just dropped to the floor pretty much and said, yes, please, because that was probably the biggest break that I could have had.

At that stage of my career.

And so a couple of months later, I was up in Sydney doing the rehearsal and saying yes to every single thing that he asked me, could I play, even though I'd never done any of them, because I didn't want to lose my chance.

So that's how we met, and that's how we started a romance a couple of months after that.

What is it that attracted you to him when you first met him?

His sense of humor.

Was it instant, though?

Was it an instant sense of humor?

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

Instant.

It's like you read about in the love stories.

And I think, too, he was, you know, John was 10 years older than I am, so I'd always liked older men, and he ticked the boxes in so many ways.

He was good looking.

He was funny.

He was smart.

He was kind.

He was sexy.

He was all of those things that a woman could ever want.

Intelligent, too.

Very, very, very intelligent.

Yeah.

John.

John.

John had the kind of mind that I could never anticipate.

If somebody said to me, can you, you know, can you find, what would John say to that?

And I start, you have to ask John.

I could never get it right.

And so he had a very original way of thinking and he was expansive.

He wasn't afraid to think big.

Everything he did, he thought big, whether it was World Series cricket or the Paul Hogan

shows or certainly Crocodile Dundee.

And so he had no fear and he had tremendous self-belief.

And he had more belief in Paul Hogan than Paul Hogan had in himself, which is what

Hoag's is readily admitted to.

And so I think that when you have somebody believe in you so strongly, it gives you the

confidence to go forward with great ambition, which is what Paul did because he knew he

had John backing him.

And I think too, it was such a symbiotic relationship that they were like soul brothers.

You know, they really...

They really were on the same wavelength and aiming for the same high things.

And they both were great patriots.

And so I think that whole thrust drove their careers and determined what they wanted to

do.

You said you were featured in TV Week.

I just didn't recall back in those days, and I don't know what you were doing at the

time.

Were you doing Sail of the Century or what were you doing at the time?

No, I was doing some other dodgy quiz show.

Quiz show.

I did a few dodgy.

A few dodgy quiz shows.

This one was called High Rollers.

High Rollers.

It's no longer going.

It's certainly not.

No.

I do remember you in the Sail of the Century.

Every young man remembered Delphine Delaney in the Sail of the Century.

People watched it.

We didn't care about the quiz part of it.

We were more interested in seeing Delphine Delaney.

I can now tell you that after 40 years or so, and I've never made that admission to

you, but now I'm making that admission to you.

So I hope you don't mind.

No, you're safe now.

Yeah, I'm safe now.

No, you're safe now.

That's the better part.

But how, and you actually probably, I would say, during that period, over a 10-year period,

you would have been probably the most featured person on the front of a lot of the magazines,

Women's Day, Women's Weekly, TV Week, all the other stuff that was out there.

I mean, you're always on the front of a cover, always featured in a lot of the covers.

Why do you think there was such a fascination with you during that period?

I think television is a very transparent medium.

And I think that if you're not authentic and honest, people see straight through you.

And so I just tried to be myself, really.

And I operate from a place of kindness and compassion.

You know, I believe in building people up, not bringing them down.

And kindness is a currency.

And I think that people relate to that.

Yeah.

They can recognize that.

When I was getting, this sounds a bit wanky, but when I was being driven to the studio

in my limousine, I'd ask the driver, take me the back way.

Take me the back way through the poorer neighborhoods.

Because I knew that when I was recording that show, I was going to be trying to sell a $2,000

Mont Blanc pen to my audience and that audience were those people right across Australia,

but certainly inclusive.

All neighborhoods.

And so it had to be, my attitude to that had to be relatable to people from all walks of life.

And so I didn't want to elevate myself.

I wanted to make sure that they were on my plane.

I'm on your plane too.

I came from a family that didn't have any money.

And so I understood the value of money and how difficult it is sometimes to keep it and make it.

And so I think that...

That was probably one of the qualities.

I'm a ready laugher.

You know, I had a co-star who was a little bit difficult to work with.

A couple of times I did, one time I got him in the nose with a powder puff because he was being a bit of a,

he was annoying me.

So we did it in front of a live audience.

And he was being annoying.

And so I got this powder puff that was on the set and just went boop on his face and all this powder.

And the director's saying, cut, cut.

And I'm saying, leave it in.

Everyone loved that because I don't like him either.

Hopefully he's watching.

He probably would be.

I don't know.

But you know, it's the truth.

Yeah.

And I don't think you can fool people.

And so maybe that was part of the reason why people related.

And the same with hoax.

People related to hoax.

Because he told the truth.

He was authentic.

And I think that was also what John was.

John was lucky in that he could hide behind Strop and not get recognized.

And people didn't really know who John Cornell was.

Now, Strop, for those people who don't know, Strop was his alter ego.

It was his other character.

That was the character in the Paul Hogan show.

Strop was John Cornell's character.

Hoax's dopey sidekick, as hoax would say.

The 40-year-old virgin.

Or a lifesaver's cap with a twisted grin.

And he was hilarious.

In fact, in those sketches, Hoax was Strop's straight man.

Because Strop was funnier than Hoax in those particular Hoax and Strop sketches.

And so I think having this 40-year-old virgin who was constantly leering after women,

usually me, in the sketch, was also something very relatable to young boys who were watching.

Like, you know, I've got to try to get the girl.

It doesn't matter how dopey I am, I'm going to try to get the girl.

And one day I might win.

And he did, because we married.

So that was curious, because my mum actually thought I was dating Strop.

You're going to marry that guy.

I know.

Mum, I'm going to bring him home to meet you.

Oh, I did.

It's a funny thing.

I wonder what, when I think about what you said in terms of how you describe Strop,

I wonder whether you would know.

I wonder whether you would know what it was about you that he found attractive.

I mean, because I find both of you, refreshingly, honest, normal, both funny, both creative,

and both really kind.

You're both very kind-hearted.

Like, not putting it on.

And I'm not here to, you know, blow smoke up your proverbial.

But that is the truth.

That's how you guys are.

That's why everyone loves you guys, both of you.

Do you think that he saw the same things in you that you saw in him?

Because it sounds like a real commonality.

Definitely.

And I think, too, that we're both nature lovers.

We'd spend a lot of time camping.

In fact, I had my honeymoon in a tent.

And John had a four-year-old daughter at the time, whom I inherited as a 23-year-old,

which was not what I'd planned.

You were 23?

Yes.

And so I think that he just could see that I was very accepting of life and capable of

just handling or at least trying to anything that was put in my way.

Yeah, well, I'll have a go.

I'll have a go.

And I think that have-a-go mentality really underpinned John and Paul as well.

You know, my mummy used to say, if you want to try something, just have a go.

Have a go.

You might be really good at it.

And her words would ring in my ears whenever I would try anything new.

And so, you know, I think that was part of John's way of life as well

and probably connected us in that attitude that, you know,

yep, just have a go at something and try your best and keep a sense of humour.

Would you be able to just remind us or inform us, like,

what was the background behind the Paul Hogan show?

Like, what was the genesis of it, you know, the idea?

What was the Paul Hogan show supposed to do, present in terms of the two characters?

What were you trying to tell the audience?

You know, like, how did it start?

Was it difficult?

I mean, you came into it later on, but you must know the whole story.

So, and did it have to present to who?

Like, who did you have to pitch your idea to?

Who did John pitch it to?

Channel 9 first.

And then it went to 7 and then it came back to 9.

But John and Mike Willisey founded A Current Affair.

They were both journalists together in Western Australia.

John was Australia's, I think still is, youngest super A-grade journalist.

So at 23, he was writing a back page column.

At 25, he was a London editor.

So he had a very golden journalism career.

They left Perth to go to Melbourne and started up A Current Affair.

John named it and he was the producer.

And because he'd worked in newspapers with the likes of Paul Rigby,

who was one of Australia's eminent cartoonists,

and went on to work in New York,

when he saw Paul Hogan's piece that Tony Ward had done

after Paul had won New Faces,

when he saw his piece on A Current Affair,

John realised that this is the guy that he'd been looking for

to give, you know, to the world.

Ordinary Australian's commentary on the week's events.

At the end of the week, he had a Friday afternoon slot.

Just once a week.

He'd go into the studios, put his hand out,

they'd give him some cash, much more than he was paying,

getting paid to work on the Sydney Harbour Bridge,

put it in his pocket and back to the bridge.

And then Mike and John had a bit of a bust up.

As in Willisey?

Mike and Mike Willisey.

So John left.

And Paul,

went with him.

And they tried a couple of things.

They made a special,

Hoag's in Singapore,

Hoag's in England.

And then it became obvious to John that he had to have his own show.

And so they did a pilot,

which I found in my archives.

That'll be in the documentary coming up.

In the doco.

Yep.

1974.

And then it went from there,

because it raided its head off.

Because what they were asking Australians was,

was to be themselves and to not be ashamed of who they were.

And we had cut the umbilical cord to England by then.

Well, they did.

They had a big role in sharpening the blade to cut the cord.

Because Aussies were kind of cringing at our identity a bit.

You know, we didn't have much national pride back in the early 70s.

Even the newsreaders spoke with a clipped British accent.

I remember.

And so out comes Hoag's.

G'day, viewers.

Yeah.

Let me, you know, let me, let me tell you.

Let me tell you a bit about what the news that, that isn't, but should be.

You know, let me tell you what you should be hearing kind of thing.

This is the truth.

And he did it with such naturalness and humility and,

and affection that nobody took offense to it.

It was like, yeah, we should have a voice.

And yeah, that's how we sound when we use that voice.

We're Australian.

So that's really interesting.

So Deli, are you saying that, um, one of the big objectives of the two of them was to give

Australians a voice outside of what we're used to being fed through the media, through

the news, for example, was actually giving us a voice, someone who sounds like us, someone

who probably looks like a normal Aussie, you know, like shorts, the sawn off shirt they

used to have on the, you know, the fair hair and the look, the whole.

Look, he had the boots and the socks, um, the workers boots and the socks sort of just coming

up above the top of the top of the boots.

Um, was it, was a, was it the objective to make hoax some of them we all identify with, which I

did as a kid and it was a young man.

And was it also that he was going to say what I think or what my colleagues might be thinking

was saying in a way that my colleagues might be not, might be thinking, not the way.

That we're going to get, be fed by the ABC or general line news or whoever it was doing

the news at the time.

Is it, was that a, that, that's a bigger issue than, that's a much bigger objective than

just being a comedy show.

Well, it wasn't political, but it was patriotic.

Yeah.

And I think that what, what they were trying to do was to, and not give Australians a voice,

but give Australians permission and encouragement to have a voice.

Interesting.

Because we weren't being represented, certainly in the media.

And possibly in newspapers as who we were.

And so it, you know, they steered away from politics really, apart from sending up politicians.

So, you know, if you ask Hoag's that question, he would say, all I want to do is make people

laugh in the most humble of ways.

He would tell you that.

But behind that, there were also these other larrikin qualities and larrikin just means

somebody.

Who's anti-establishment and anti-authority.

And at that time of Australia's projectory, we needed a big dose of larrikinism to be able

to stand on our own feet and not feel ashamed of it.

We still do.

Yeah, probably.

Probably.

There's never been another Paul Hogan.

So I hope we haven't forgotten that, that encouragement to have the courage to say,

no, don't, we don't want to be represented like that.

That's not who we are.

And to know who we are.

And I think that was part of the success of Crocodile Dundee, because Mick Dundee was

somebody so many of us wanted to be, or could certainly recognise as somebody that we'd

like to meet and know and be mates with.

Have a beer with.

And have a beer with.

And that extended all over the world.

They started to see Aussies as being approachable and friendly and harmless and up for a laugh.

And all those qualities that we all, as Australians, have.

But no pushover.

But don't celebrate.

And certainly not a pushover.

Yeah, because we don't want that either.

No, no.

John was, outside of Croc Dundee and outside of the Paul Hogan show, John was actually

very creative in his own right as well.

Can you just take us through the conversation of his pitch with Kerry Packer around World

Series cricket?

Yeah.

I mean, I've...

I've heard the story many times from John, but like, take the audience through it.

Like...

Well...

Tell me about it.

Yeah.

So, Kerry Packer was a big cricket fan.

He didn't like the way that it was being covered.

He thought he could have done better with his Channel 9 team.

So, he approached the cricket board to try to get the rights from the ABC.

Test cricket then was boring and bland and only covered by two cameras and, you know,

very white bread, boring coverage.

So, they knocked him back.

That put a bee in Kerry's bonnet.

He didn't like that.

He didn't like that.

And so, at the time, John was managing Dennis Lilly, who was the world's fastest fast bowler

and being paid less than the guy who moved the sight screen, as in those days, behind

the players, which infuriated John.

And so, he decided to go to the board and try to get more money for the players.

And the board said no to that, too.

This is a strong cricket board.

Yeah.

So, then, neither of those men liked to be defeated, particularly when there's honour

involved and justice and fair play.

You know, those guys weren't being paid enough.

They were being trotted out as 11 flanneled anonymous fools to pay for very little money

and not be able to really hold down another job and be expected to be patriots for their

country and no reward.

And so, John...

Went to Kerry Packer and said, I've got this idea, mate.

We should sign up the world's best cricketers and start our own competition.

And Kerry loved it.

And so, John came up with the idea of coloured clothing, using the white ball, putting microphones

at the base of the stump so you could hear the players, covering it with eight cameras,

overhead shots, like all of those really innovative ideas to reinvigorate cricket.

One day games, night cricket.

And Kerry was just totally on board and didn't mind being the front man for it because it

gave him a chance to vent off at the cricket board.

A good square up.

Absolutely square up.

And so, it was a wild ride because I remember them trialling all of these other colours

for the balls as well, orange and hot pink and bright red and then trying the white ball

and seeing what would happen to it when Dennis Lee did that.

You know, so...

So...

It is his trademark, though.

Yeah.

So, it was extraordinary and it wasn't a lay down mosaic.

It was failing.

The World Series cricket.

Initially.

In the beginning.

Yep.

Until John went to Big L of Mojo, Alan Johnston, and said, we need an anthem.

And he knew Alan Johnston because they'd done the Winfield ads and that was a top ad agency

at the time.

Alan Morrison and Alan Johnston.

Yeah.

The Mojo.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I remember him.

And so, in his inimitable voice, Big L, as I lovingly call him, came up with Come On

Ozzy Come On.

A great song.

And then we got ads on radio and John would go into Channel 9 late at night and say, well,

not even so late sometimes, what ads have you got on?

He said, oh, we've got, you know, three Harvey Norman and two Toyota.

And he said, well, take one of the Harvey Norman ones off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

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Yeah.

He's a cheeky bugger, John.

So cheeky.

Cheeky.

Like, it'd take a bit of risky cheeky bugger.

Like, so they take the risk and deal with it later.

Calculated risks.

Yeah.

You'd think about it first and think, yeah, can I get away with that?

Yeah.

And if it's a good outcome, Kerry won't complain.

Always a win-win outcome.

and he used to say, you know, the art of a good negotiation

is when both parties leave the table feeling like they've won.

That's very good.

And if you can pull that off.

And that World Series cricket song, Come On Aussie, Come On,

that still gets played everywhere.

I mean people still sing it.

Everyone knows it.

Australians know it.

They'll sing it at the cricket.

They'll sing it at lots of events.

That was a pretty – do you think that was an iconic moment?

Absolutely.

The World Series cricket, getting the tune and the beat,

it just all worked out well.

Just turned it around.

And I can remember hearing that and driving across the Sydney Harbour Bridge

from Kerry's Place to ours, playing it at the top volume I could possibly.

It was the most infectious, wonderful anthem for Australia

and that's in the doco.

I put that in the doco as well.

And when I played it to various people, I went, oh,

I remember.

I remember that.

Knew all the words, you know, just stood to their feet.

Oh, that was such a great moment.

And it was back in the day when I think there was more engagement

by the public to cricket because at the end of that ad,

everybody runs onto the ground.

Which you can't do.

No, you're not allowed to do anymore.

So it was like, oh, and people sitting on the hill and, you know,

it was back in the day when things were a bit more relaxed

and you could reach people, I think.

The song –

The song – the song itself, one of the reasons I used to always think

it was so successful is because it had like an underscore of nostalgia.

You know, it's very nostalgic, the song.

Come on, Isaac.

Like evoked – it was very evocative.

Evoked nostalgia in my mind.

Like it made me feel nostalgic about stuff.

It still does, to be honest with you.

It's like it was presenting to me a time that used to be

and that I had missed and that it should now be there again.

And I thought the song was like – it actually brought to life World Series cricket

because it added that sort of emotion to it.

Cricket was cricket and, sure, we're going to buy this player,

we're going to buy that player and we're going to pay more money.

All that stuff, all those things are really important rungs in the process

of doing something revolutionary, rebellious,

which is very much in the Australian spirit.

But the song brought it to life.

Yeah.

And John knew that – I mean, I ask you,

did John know in the back of his mind,

I need to get someone like the Mojo guys to write the song for me?

There was no other choice.

And I think, too, that what World Series cricket brought

was identity for the players.

And so then you can attach yourself to something

and you can have a favourite player because you know who they are.

Yeah.

And so, you know, Lily's pounding down like a machine.

Pascoe's making divots in the green.

You know, Marshy's taking wickets.

Dougie's clearing pickets.

The Chapel Eyes have got that killer gleam.

Suddenly, you know.

You know who these players are in close-up on your screen.

Then you can identify.

Then you've got a connected audience.

And so that's what was missing from the ABC's coverage

and the cricket board's old-fashioned British style of television coverage

is that they are 11 flanneled fields.

You don't know who they are.

So if you've got somebody particularly like Dennis Lilly

with his shirt buttoned down to here and his gold chain and long hair.

And the hair on his chest.

I like.

Him.

Yeah, yeah.

Who's he?

Well, now I know.

And so you've got an invested audience.

And that's what part of it anyway.

What brought them to the game.

And there were jingles played and competitions.

Can you name the next line?

You know, the whole marketing campaign was brought to life

to further its success.

And it wouldn't have happened without that song.

Given, John, as we talked about earlier,

he passed away a couple of years ago.

Do you think that's, would John think that was one

of his greatest achievements?

Not getting World Series cricket away,

but the effect of World Series cricket, the effect of the song,

the effect of identifying with players, you know,

engaging the consumer or the audience closer to the players,

getting more money for the players is great too,

but engaging the whole box and dice.

Would he, if he was sitting here now,

and probably AI could do that for us,

but if he was sitting here now,

next to you, do you reckon that would be one

of his greatest achievements?

Yeah, and I think the reason would be,

was that it achieved the outcome that he sought

was to get a better deal for the players

and to create a more entertaining form of cricket for the viewers.

You know, John was egalitarian and he was also values driven

and he did things for the good of all.

And so that's what drove him.

It.

He didn't take any money for World Series cricket,

just like he didn't take any money for the Australian tourism campaign.

This is the put the shrimp on the barbie?

Yeah.

I don't want the money.

I just want a good job done because he wanted to achieve his ambition,

which was to get better recognition and better outcomes for all of those guys

who were devoting their time for Australia.

Sort of nation-building stuff.

It is absolutely nation-building.

It's nation-building.

But not unelected.

In other words, he's just doing it on his own bat.

Yeah.

Pardon the pun, but he's doing it on his own bat.

Good one.

And it just came out naturally.

But yeah, because he actually had a broader purpose in his life.

And that's amazing.

Not many people like that.

Most of us are all pretty selfish and think about, well, what's in it for me?

What can I get out of it?

I don't mean it in a bad way, just how can I get ahead?

He was actually sitting back and thinking of these things.

And he had the perfect, by the way, in most respects,

he had the perfect host, which is Hoag's.

We get back to Hoag's.

Now, let's just settle down for a second on the whole Crocodile Dundee

from where it started, the idea.

I mean, where did the name come from for a start, Crocodile Dundee?

Well, it came from Hoag's.

No, but where did they think of the name?

Well, Hoag's, because he was, we'd just moved to Byron.

We'd kind of finished with the Paul Hogan show.

We'd gone, you know, nine years.

It was.

For me, it was like 11 or 12, I think, for them.

You were doing, at that time, you were doing Sailor Century?

Yeah.

Yep.

After we moved to Byron.

And so John was, they were looking for something.

John was always wanting to make a movie with Hoag's,

always believed that he had star quality.

So he was writing scripts.

And at the same time, Paul was in New York on one of the tourism campaign trips.

And he was walking back through a very crowded,

New York Street at peak hour and being jostled and people everywhere.

And he felt like a real hick.

And he's thinking to himself, you know, if I feel like a hick,

imagine how Barney, who lives down the road, feels like,

how would he feel?

Or even better, a bloke from the outback.

And by the time he got to his room, he had a story formulated.

And that was an outline for a script.

He expanded on the idea of the Fisher.

It's an out of water concept to this outback bloke who ends up in New York City.

So all good film stories have to have a protagonist and an antagonist and a theme.

And the love story was the theme.

And so he only ever, Hoag's only ever writes in block capital letters.

So he wrote it out in block capital letters.

It got typed up.

And then John took his red pen to it.

And as Hoag's will say,

he's the greatest sub-editor he'd ever met.

He would always stop Paul from being over lengthy in his monologues

or any other time he had to sort of say a lot of dialogue.

John was very pithy.

He was a great editor.

And he had journalism as a background.

So he would write concisely and improve it and keep honing and honing.

And he did that constantly with Hoag's, whether it was his performance or his writing.

So he got hold of it.

And together, they transformed it into the script that it became.

I read the second draft the other day.

And it was nowhere near what the final draft was like.

And I actually read the initial one over John's shoulder.

And then he asked me to read it.

And there are a couple of things in there where you thought, nah, here I wouldn't do that.

And so, you know, I'm not suggesting that I had much input.

But a female perspective was sought.

And so it came to life.

But essentially, it's Hoag's.

Hoag's will tell you that Mick Dundee is just Hoag's in the bush.

For real?

Yes.

That's in the doco too.

Because it's real.

It's real.

It's authentic.

You can't be authentic yourself.

You just can't beat that because you can't act that out.

It is what it is.

That's right.

But Hoag's.

Hoag's in the bush is different to Paul Hogan in the bush.

Hoag's is the character.

Yeah.

The quintessential Aussie bloke who'll tell you what's going on.

But it doesn't matter.

He put it on well.

You know, you said something really important, really important.

Well, actually very interesting to me as someone who knew John, is you said John took the red

pen to it and where the dialogue was too long, he would make it shorter.

John was, you said, you used the word he was very pithy.

John to me was always the master of the, you know, the 10 word response, but it was always

funny to the point and like very economical, but straight to the point and quickly.

I mean, there's only one other person in the world that I've ever met that I find similar.

That's Ginge.

David Ginge.

Absolutely.

That's probably the reason why him and Ginge got on so well because Ginge can just come

up with a response in a second.

Yes.

It's actually, it kills me because you're at a party or somewhere and he will just come

out with something out of left field nowhere and it is so perfectly positioned and John

was the same, but John will put it into writing for the show, for the movie I'm saying.

And for the films, yep.

That's a real skill.

That was one of his skills and I agree with you about Ginge and Ginge is in the doco too

and that's how he delivered his pieces.

Like when we asked him a question, straight to the point, straight off the top of his

head, concise, exact, entertaining and informative.

All in the middle of like four seconds, you know, he just nailed it.

That's why I need an hour podcast because I can't do that.

He could do this whole podcast in about 10, five minutes or something and it'd be exactly

perfectly done.

It is a real skill.

I don't know if it's something you develop.

I think it's something you're born with.

I mean, it's a thing.

You're born with it for sure.

That's a type.

And you know, when we were in partnership at the Hotel Brunswick with Ginge and we'd

have these meetings, I'm like, what, what, what?

Don't, don't, don't.

Don't.

Say the sums.

I need to write them down.

Because he'd be so quick, so staccato with, you know, machine gun rapidity, like just

rattling off all these numbers.

And I don't know if that's because he's dyslexic.

It could be.

And it compensates with a different skill for being so quick-minded.

But he was, he's extraordinary.

And, and John, Ginge will tell you, was like his surrogate dad.

I was going to say, John had a great love of Ginge.

Yeah.

And Ginge was like John's surrogate son.

Yeah.

Because Ginge, John only had daughters.

Yeah.

And so they were, they were real kindred mates.

They were, they were, they had a fantastic relationship.

And, and I, I do remember, I remember one time we sat at the back of the, the pub and we're

having dinner with you, John, Hoag's, Ginge and me.

And I didn't say, I don't think I said a word the whole night.

I just sat there in awe, listening to everyone riff off each other.

Yeah.

They just, John and Ginge and Hoag's just riffing off each other the whole time.

It was like, it was like watching an episode of the Paul Hogan show, except that Ginge

was in it as well, playing himself.

And, and, and these individuals, but naturally so fast and funny.

Like it was, it wasn't scripted.

No.

And they'll be talking about all sorts of topics, politics, whatever it was.

They just rip, tear shreds off everybody, by the way, like, like mercilessly tear shreds

off everybody.

It's an amazing school that you were able to sit down and talk about.

I mean, you've been sitting around and lived with that for forever.

I mean, you, you sat in those environments for 40 years.

Was John like that naturally at home?

Was that his person at home?

Yeah.

That was a huge part of his appeal.

At home though?

Yeah.

It was that we could have these really witty conversations and make each other laugh and

be on the same wavelength like that.

You know, and I think maybe that's what attracted him to me too, was that, oh, here's somebody

that I can really riff with.

And he was, he was very much.

He was a dreamer.

He was a dreamer in so many ways that he needed somebody like me, because I'm the doer,

Pisces Virgo, to get the job done.

And I loved that part of it.

I loved being able to make a contribution back.

Like, I'll do that.

You know, you just tell me what you want me to do and I'll do that.

And then within that, but, oh, but what if we do this?

Oh, yeah, that's a good idea, Deli.

And so it was tremendously creatively collaborative.

And I think that really added.

a spark to our relationship, though some people would say never work with your wife

or never work with your husband.

But for us, it was, it was sort of part of the underlying attraction was that we could

create something together and understand where each other's minds were at to make it happen.

Do you miss him?

Yeah.

I think that's kind of like why I did the documentary was because I didn't want him

to not be here anymore.

And it was really confronting to see footage of him looking so prime and sexy and smart

and gorgeous in that behind-the-scenes Crocodile Dundee footage.

But even though it was extremely challenging and I was in tears most days looking at it,

at the end, I didn't want to let it go.

And I think that when I release...

the film, I'll feel like I can let it go because I don't want to hold him here in his spirit.

Do you know what I mean?

I feel like I am a little bit by making him feel so alive.

He'll always be in my heart.

And I have a photograph that I talk to.

I talk to him.

And whatever pops into my head is like, thanks, John, because this doesn't sound like me.

So...

I never want to lose that.

But as well as not wanting to let him go, I also wanted him to be honoured for his contribution

because he was, as you say, so much behind the scenes and stayed out of the limelight,

didn't want public accolades, didn't believe in blowing his own trumpet.

But I wanted to blow it for him because I know what that guy did for Australia,

for Paul's career, for cricket, you know, for everything he put his patriotic hand to.

Always.

Always in the most altruistic way.

Always for the greater good.

That needs acknowledging and applauding.

And it wasn't just his contribution in Crocodile Dundee.

It was everybody else who wasn't recognised as much as Paul was, you know, and rightly so.

He's the star.

But Russell Boyd, who did this incredible cinematography, Australia's premier cinematographer,

doing a comedy film.

And that's, I think, a whole other element to Crocodile Dundee is that it has this grandeur

and magnificence of photography in the outback because somebody like Russell Boyd was helming

that as cinematographer.

And even though it was a comedy, it just felt big because of his skill and his team, like

Key Grip, Ray Brown, and the composer who wrote a fantastic, unforgettable score, and

Linda.

Who's never really been asked about her role on the film.

When I interviewed her, she said, oh, no one ever asks me.

They always talk about me, but they never ask me.

I said, well, you go for it because I'm now asking you, what happened to you in that whole

story?

Looks like she fell in love with Paul.

And she did.

And I mean it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And Peter Feynman, the director who's in the documentaries, he also comments on that.

Watching that unfold because we shot chronologically.

So they didn't know each other at all at the beginning of the film.

How did she get sourced?

Why did they pick Linda Kozlowski?

Why did they pick Linda?

They wanted, they wanted, we couldn't afford a big name.

Paul had never made a movie.

John had never made a movie.

But Peter Feynman had never made a movie.

And Linda had never made a movie.

And so you start off fresh with new faces and new attitudes and people who really want

to be.

Yeah.

And so John picked Linda out in a lineup of black and white photographs and then flew

her out here to, to, for the job.

She auditioned in LA, flew her out here for the job.

Paul couldn't even make eye contact with her at first.

He's quite shy, particularly around women.

In all the years that I worked with him on the Paul Hogan show, I never saw him stray.

Very honourable man.

A lot of opportunity, but didn't take any of them.

And so Linda found that weird because, you know, she came from a background of training

with Juilliard, which was a highly regarded drama school in New York City.

Paul hates to rehearse.

He didn't even want to rehearse.

So she's wondering, what the hell am I doing here?

And she's in the outback where there's everything to bite you and some things that might eat

you.

And she's petrified because she comes from New York City.

She had this fear of bugs.

She would, she would go and sleep in, on the floor of Peter Feynman's cabin with Peter

and his wife in the bed, her on the floor, because she was too scared to stay in her

own cabin.

Wow.

Initially.

So Peter Feynman spent a lot of time talking her around, as did I, when I was on set on

Croc.

I was still doing sale until halfway through it.

And then I quit that to join John.

But the times that I got to be there.

to be in Kakadu with Linda, I was there to comfort

and keep her company and reassure her that this will be all right.

And then gradually they just found each other

and then they found love for each other.

Do you think the movie's more powerful because they actually were sort

of falling in love over a period of time?

I do.

Yeah, because it was an actual love story.

It's a true love story and they stayed together for 20 years

and that kind of thing, when you see that on a screen,

it's intangible.

You're not quite sure why you're relating to that so strongly

but it's almost subliminal.

It's so strongly there but you can't quite put your finger on it.

But there's a chemistry that comes off those scenes that was felt

between those two people because the first time that they kiss

at the billabong in the film,

was their first kiss.

And it was probably for real.

It was absolutely for real and you can kind of see that

in the way that Paul hesitates and looks at her a bit more

and then he kisses her.

You know, it was just, I mean, I put that in the documentary

because I'm hoping that people will go to see the documentary

because it will unlock so many of the things that people didn't know

about what happened on the making of Crocodile Dundee.

And we found this incredible footage and it shows it all

and I really wanted to share that with people

because it will just add such a different dimension

and extra layer to their experience of watching the film

when it comes out again in May.

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If I could just get really behind the scenes

for a second,

when that gets filmed, that kiss,

that moment gets filmed,

I'm talking about on set,

not in the movie, but on set,

and I presume there's an edit review at the end of the day

or some stage after that,

would John come home and say,

you wouldn't believe it, Deli,

like that kiss was amazing.

It's great footage.

I think he's falling in love with her

or she's falling in love with him

or they're falling in love with each other.

Is that a discussion behind the scenes?

Is that an observation and therefore a discussion?

Well, they were attracted to each other before the kiss.

So we could see that that was happening.

You could see the chemistry working?

Oh, absolutely.

You could see it?

Definitely.

And how does it work though?

Would you go to say to Corny,

like, you know, can you see,

have you noticed what's going on here?

Like, how does the discussion go?

It came to me because she,

Didn't want to sleep on the floor anymore.

She was,

I don't know where she was sleeping at the time,

but she wasn't sleeping with Paul,

so I guess she was on the floor.

On the floor with Peter Feynman and his wife.

She was really shocked.

I mean, she felt this,

you can see the chemistry in the behind the scenes footage

in the documentary.

You can see this chemistry building.

Oh, yeah.

There's a glance,

there's a glance that Paul gives

and it's so out of the corner of his eye.

But she's like, ah, got you.

And Linda came to me because

she was worried about Paul being married.

And, excuse me,

she was worried about Paul being married

and didn't quite know what to do.

And I'm, I just said, you know, you, you,

I've never seen Paul like this.

He is not a player.

This is genuine.

Like, he's not playing you.

Yeah, yeah.

And you have to follow.

Follow your heart.

Yeah.

I believe.

Yeah.

Life is so wonderfully short.

You better, you better do the right thing by,

by your heart.

And they did.

And so I think that, you know,

John, John swore me to secrecy.

He said, this is like the code of the West.

What's, what's on set stays on set.

And, okay.

And that, that's unusual for me because I was friends

with, friends with Nolene, Paul's wife at the time.

So it was a bit of a difficult situation,

but I don't, I don't interfere in people's lives.

That's their business.

And so I'm, I was there to support both Paul and Linda,

though I never really got a chance to, that was more John's realm.

But Paul knew that I was in support because of my attitude to Linda.

And, and it was funny because when I showed Paul the documentary after I'd finished it,

and in it, I say that I was there as Linda's confidant.

He went, were you?

He didn't know.

Yeah, mate.

But you were just listening.

You weren't hanging her on.

You were just listening.

No, God, no.

I was not, not in my position.

Yeah.

To make anyone's choices.

Yeah, yeah.

You're just listening.

But the only advice I had was, well, you know,

I, I think you have to follow your heart and he's not,

he's not put, he's not, he's not going to play you.

He's going to, if he says he loves you, he'll, he'll be telling the truth.

He tells the truth.

Paul is such a man of integrity.

Yeah.

I've never heard him swear, except for when he saw the doco.

And then he said, it's fucking brilliant.

He liked it.

Yeah.

That's an endorsement.

I've never heard you swear, but he'll always stick up for the underdog.

You know, he's a good bloke.

He's a good Aussie bloke.

So he wouldn't do the wrong thing by anybody.

Yeah.

Let alone a woman.

He sounds like a, like a person of real honour.

Yeah.

For those who don't know him.

Like, and that's one of the great things about the documentary.

Yeah.

It sort of, not only does it give you behind the scenes,

but it gives you a greater context of how all these things happen.

And particularly if we, if going back beyond Crocodile and going down to,

you know, the Paul Hogan show, et cetera, and Corny, John Cornell,

but it gives you, gives everyone context, but also gives me,

gives me, for example, from what you're just saying now,

a better understanding of,

what was actually going on, which,

and it sounded like it was a little bit unavoidable for Paul and her

to fall in love with each other in those scenes.

Like, you know, like she's attractive.

He's an attractive guy.

There was some chemistry going on.

You know, you're putting him, put him, they get put in this situation.

If you feel that way, if he felt that way, genuinely,

and as you say, he wasn't a player,

then there's no reason why he should be dishonest to himself.

That's right.

He would never be.

And her the same.

Yeah.

He'd never kid himself.

No.

He'd never kid himself.

He's your practical dude.

And John wouldn't let him anyway.

Yeah.

You know, they, both of them are always good at keeping people in check.

Each other.

And me.

Yep.

You know, there was no ego.

Don't get ahead of yourself.

I absolutely do not get ahead of yourself and don't think your boots are too big.

Be yourself, but be real and be humble.

And so, you know, I think that is a mark of their measure.

Yeah.

That's very Irish, Delvin Delaney.

Don't get ahead of yourself.

It very much is.

Very much.

So I need to ask you, I mean, it's the obvious question I need to ask

because everybody wants to know this.

The knife scene, you know, that's not a knife.

Like, it was a, I don't know whether it was never meant to be so brilliant

and, but it just became so brilliant that they went, wow, that worked.

Or was it, was there purpose behind it?

Well, that's interesting, you know,

because even just the other day when I was reading this second draft,

the knife scene, that line wasn't even in there.

In the second draft?

No, it was not.

I was amazed.

I thought, wow, that got put in, I don't know how many drafts they did.

I don't think they did too many because they didn't used to rewrite a lot.

So I have to check the final draft, what number that was,

because that's something that I would like to know

because draft two was so different to the final script.

Was there much improv going on there?

Like by hoax?

No, no.

Not in those days.

If you, if you only had $8.8 million budget,

that meant that you could only buy this amount of film because you shot on film.

And film was expensive.

That meant that everybody involved had to be really on their mark,

that you couldn't do take 137.

Yeah.

You didn't have enough film.

So that made, for me, the teamwork much more collaborative and everybody on,

on, on the same level.

And so there may have been, if there was a take two or three or four,

there might've been slightly different gestures, but no dialogue, no, no,

no improvisation, no, no loose loops in that way.

And so the knife scene somehow, I mean, the mugger was in there and there was a knife,

but that's not a knife.

Was that in draft two?

It wasn't.

No.

And then the other,

the really interesting thing about that too,

that knife scene is that when they were editing,

when John was editing that scene,

they didn't have that particular take and he knew that it had been shot because

what had happened with that particular take was that Peter Feynman had said cut

and Paul kept mucking around with this kid and only was playing with him.

And he's in his way, like just mucking around.

Mucking around after, after cut and he had a glint in his eye because he was being playful.

And John had seen that when they were filming and when they were editing,

that's the take that he was looking for because it didn't look too threatening.

It looked like, ha ha ha.

And so that's not it.

No, that's not it.

There's another take.

There's another take.

And it was in the editing room bin and John fished it out and put that in the film because

that was the take.

Maybe you could just explain how the editing, how the edit suite works.

So like.

Yeah, because back in the day.

Yeah, maybe explain.

Yeah, back in the olden days.

Yeah, now it's all digital, but it's different.

40 years ago, you had to physically use a razor blade to splice the film.

So you had these, these reels of film and then you'd have, say you had four takes and

there might be a part of that scene, a particular take that was better than,

you know.

The take two.

Which is also on the same tape.

Yes.

So you might take that bit out, replace it with the better bit and then you splice that

together and thread it through and there it's one piece again.

Yeah.

So.

And those people, parts you cut off are discarded.

Yeah.

They're thrown away.

Well, I've still got them.

Have you?

Really?

I've got reels and reels and reels of old Crocodile Dundee film.

Are you going to put it on digital?

Oh, it's all been digitized.

It's all been digitized.

But I'm still stuck with the physical assets.

Tapes.

So what we're going to do through our website is have a croc collection where you can buy

a frame of film.

Oh, wow.

A bit of memorabilia.

That's cool.

Yeah.

Very cool.

Yeah.

The only thing you're going to have to get a microfiche reader to watch it.

Well, a lot of it's deteriorated, but it's certainly not usable.

Yeah, it's not usable.

No, it wouldn't be usable in one frame anyway.

Yeah, okay.

But it's more for the fact that I've got something.

Yeah.

That comes from the original movie.

A little piece of crap.

Yeah.

So John had to fish around in the bin or the cutting floor and pick it up.

Yep.

And you've got to hold up and see what it looks like because you won't be able to work

it out by looking at it.

Put it through the machine.

And he knew that that's, he saw that scene, he remembered it.

Yep.

That's how, because he knew Paul, you know, working so closely with Paul for so long,

John knew intrinsically what Paul would deliver and what the feeling was when Paul delivered

it.

And he's looking for the feeling, the emotion like that's.

Yeah.

And he's looking for the feeling that it's inherent in that take and that was that it

was, I'm not, I'm not going to hurt your boy, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to blade

your face.

Yeah.

I might cut up your jacket to teach you a lesson, but I'm not going to threaten you

because I'm playing with you with my very big knife.

It's, it's interesting that to me and for people who talk to me from overseas, in particular

Americans, that's the one scene that they never forget and they always raise it.

That's not a knife.

Yeah.

This is a knife.

Um, and I don't, whether I remember the scene or they certainly remember the words, what

do you represents some of the more poignant moments out of the movie, apart from, apart

from the knife?

Now, what, what do you see as some of the, those poignant moments?

Cause you've just recreated the whole show, the whole movie, and you must be saying, wow,

well, that was pretty bloody good.

I remember the knife scene, but you remember, you would have seen in this process of recreating

that, well, creating the documentary.

Of things that really worked for the movie, maybe the kissing scene.

W-what do you see as some of, the iconic moments in the movie scene by, by scene?

I just think it's, um, every scene has got a little highlight.

Whether it's his entry into the bar with the rubber crocodile.

That's right!

Yes.

And he's drunk.

Um, and, and it's funny cause you know what we also found was

that there was a scene shot that didn't get used

where Mick is outside Walkabout Creek pub in the back

of the ute, drunk, with the crocodile's tail hanging out

as well as his legs off the ute cab.

And you can't look at the, I found the black and white photo

and you can't look at it and think, what the hell?

Oh, God, that's that scene.

And so I think this whole sense of arrival was whittled

down to that one burst into the Walkabout Creek pub.

I mean, what an entry for a script.

And then the nonchalance of walking up to Linda, you know,

Michael J. Crocodile Dundee, never, never safaris,

never go out with us.

Oh, you'll never.

You'll never come back.

You know, like there was this sort of throwaway,

the constant throwaways.

And I think for me there's not a favourite scene because it ripples

through whether it's when he's hypnotising the buffalo.

Oh, that one, yeah.

He sort us back to the truck, you know, like out of the Wild West.

It's just like, it's Mick Dundee.

Whether he's, you know, when he's shaving with the razor

and then he switches the blade of the knife because he sees Sue coming.

You know, all through it there were these,

just comedic throwaways that were written in the script

that seemed really natural but in totality made that film work so well.

And it built his character.

And always building the character.

Just keep building the character all the way through the movie.

Yeah, all of the nuances of, you know, the idiosyncrasies that Mick had.

Is that one of the reasons why the movie, the documentary,

I should say, is probably going to be so powerful,

not only in your mind but in everyone's mind because it just sort of takes us

through what we probably forgot because we haven't seen the movie for a long time.

A lot of us haven't seen the movie for a long time.

Yeah.

It sort of comes, takes us back through the process.

Yeah.

Is that part of the idea of this?

It's just, this is the important stuff.

A reminder.

Remember when this happened, this happened to Australia.

This put us on the map.

Totally.

Culturally.

It made us recognised.

And so don't you want to relive the beautiful outback photography,

cinematography again?

I certainly did.

I never get tired of watching that footage.

It's beautiful.

And now that it's restored to 4K, it's sparkling.

It's extraordinary.

It's almost better than when it was made because the technology is so much better

in cinemas as well.

Because they can do even the image, the colours, everything.

Yeah, you can adjust everything.

Nearly 3D sort of thing.

Just on the colour grade, yeah.

So it's not only a reminder of that, it's a reminder of who we are too as well.

Like let's not forget.

That we're these basic friendly people like Mick Dundee.

And I'd like to remind people about that because I think for a start,

we all need a bit of a laugh again.

And it's not a very demanding movie.

It's not highbrow.

It's not super intelligent.

You know, it's not asking a lot of people.

It's not The Matrix where you've got to try and work out what's going on.

No.

Just relax and enjoy it.

Spend a lovely afternoon at the movies with your kids.

And your grandkids.

Or your mum and dad.

Or, you know, it's all ages.

John set out to make a movie from seven to 70.

And he achieved that.

And so I think it's just a really lovely reminder of what happened then

for what can happen now.

Could you remind me of something?

Because I sort of remember some of the stories when he was seeking investors.

Yeah.

Like in America.

I think it was in America, wasn't it?

It was in Australia.

Australia, was it?

What was that process like?

I mean, because, you know, it cost a lot of money,

eight million bucks to produce the movie, or maybe more after everything.

And it did fabulously well.

I mean, it's gross, what, half a billion dollars?

What does the crocodile done to you today?

It's like 387 million.

387.

And it's the highest grossing Australian movie.

Still.

Ever.

Yeah, still to this very day.

Even by today's conversions.

Yep.

And so it did brilliantly for Australia.

Relatively speaking, very low budget.

But they did raise the money.

They had to raise the money.

We did.

And it took me through that process.

Well, so John went to his rich mates first, obviously, like Kerry Packer.

And Kerry Packer put in quite a bit, over a million, and pulled it out.

What?

Because he was advised by one of his employees, who shall remain nameless,

that it wasn't going to work, and he shouldn't invest.

And even though he was really great mates with John,

he listened to this advisor, and he pulled that money out.

Whoa.

And we couldn't get Hoyt's to back it.

They had somebody in the film industry, a director of note,

who shall also remain nameless, who advised them that it was a second-rate script.

Paul Hogan's a television star.

He'd never make a film.

He'd never make a film.

He'd never make a film.

He'd never make a movie star.

They shouldn't go near it with a barge pole.

Like, do not invest in Crocodile Dundee.

So we couldn't raise the money.

Really late in the piece, Kerry pulled his money out.

So that meant that we had to scramble around to get investors,

because we had, like, we were in pre-production.

So we mortgaged our house, and we went to mums and dads,

family and friends, the cricketers.

We just put it out there as a perspective.

$5,000 was the minimum.

My mum and dad put that much in.

They hardly had that much, but they backed John.

And we raised the money that way.

Wow.

So those people who invested got, like, a dozen, 12 or 13 times their money back.

So Kerry was kicking himself.

Good.

Yeah.

Is that because most people just think these things just magically happen?

And I know that it may be a bit boring, the money part of it, to audiences,

but it's a critical part of it.

And the critical part of the story is how we raise the money.

So you just passed the hat around.

Absolutely.

Like, there was no crowdfunding.

There was no, you know, assistance from the New South Wales Film Commission.

Like, none of that had started.

Yeah, because that didn't happen until the 80s, the Film Commission.

Yeah.

The Australian Film Commission.

So this was 85, but it wasn't alive then.

Anyway.

No, you're right.

Because I...

I was working in law firm at the time.

I remember the government introduced a thing where you get 110% tax deduction if you invest...

10 BA.

Yeah, if you invest in one of these things.

Yeah.

So there was no real tax benefits for anybody.

You just had to pass the hat around.

How was it you...

How did you win people over, like your mum and your dad?

Like, was it just faith in John and you and Hoag's?

Faith in John and Hoag's.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Like, in the documentary, we speak to DJ, who was Dennis Johnson,

who was the underwriter for the stockbroking firm at the time,

and an old mate of Paul's.

They grew up together in Granville.

They were the Granville boys.

Granville, Sydney.

Yeah.

And so he took the prospectus to his partner and said,

there's an opportunity for us to invest in Paul Hogan and John Cornell.

We should take it.

And they did, but they also were advising other people to...

John and Paul, like In Excess, you know, that like...

So many people who were also going to be involved with the film,

because In Excess wrote music for the film.

Because at the time with 10BA, a lot of people thought that it was a tax write-off.

You were expected to lose money.

That's why you got into the tax section, more than you put in,

because you're expected to lose the dough, because there's not going to be a return.

But it happened the other way.

But that was great.

But that's good for those individuals.

And John was thrilled.

And in the documentary, I've got footage of him saying,

it felt good to have pensioners and people like that put a little bit of money

into Crocodile Dundee and get a lot back.

That feels good.

And that was his approach to everything, was to make people have a win.

And so, you know, luckily for us, we had a win.

He knew that there would be a win.

And John was extremely confident about the success of Crocodile Dundee,

which is why he did the Blue Sky deal in America.

Can you take us through the Blue Sky deal?

So a Blue Sky deal, that's when you go to a distributor.

And we got knockbacks, like 20th Century Fox didn't want to know about it.

You've got to explain, because the movie can make the movie.

It's got to be distributed, though.

Someone's got to put it on the screen.

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So we're looking, he's in, we're in America,

and he's looking for the right distributor.

And we took it to a couple, and John did,

and they knocked it back.

No, didn't even, didn't even know where Australia was,

that we even spoke English much.

So a few of them did,

because of the tourism campaign.

But it wasn't going so well.

So he had the film audience tested,

which isn't usually done, certainly not by a producer.

And he went to the same company where all the movie distributors

have their audience tests done.

So an audience test is when you show it to a select amount of people

and they give you a rating.

And the rating is normally 45.

It's like, that's pretty, that's acceptable.

It got a 53, which was unheard of.

And so the next place that he wanted to go to was Paramount,

because he liked, they had big fancy iron gates.

You know, I'm going to go, they've got money.

So he took it to them with the audience test.

And they said, oh, you know, well, this is unusual.

It's a 53.

Where did you get it tested?

And he said, oh, I use the same company that you use.

And so he was more armed than they were really.

And even though it had tested well,

they didn't really think it was going to do what it did.

They released it in autumn or the fall,

which is when they usually put their uncertain movies.

And so John agreed to the deal where they got the greater share

up to a certain point.

I think it was $20 million.

And then a blue sky deal means that the producers take the greater share

or take all the rest, I think it is.

Basically a blue sky.

After that cutoff point.

And they're rubbing their hands together going, oh, this is, you know,

these guys don't know what they're doing.

We're going to clean up with that and they can have the rest.

Well, we had the rest.

The rest of the $380 million.

Yeah.

So it took courage, I think, for John.

For John to do that or self-belief and he pulled it off.

A lot of times courage is self-belief.

Yeah.

And so when he went back to negotiate for Crop 2,

they said, you can take that straw out of your mouth now.

We know what you're up to.

I remember him telling that story.

We'll fund it.

Yeah, the whole thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And they did.

They funded Crop 2.

So, Deli, like now we're at the end of the year.

We're at the end of our show now.

But like, and we'll talk about where the show is going to feature.

I think it's next week.

So we'll go through the details in a second.

But given that you've had an opportunity just to talk through it again,

like in a long form, is there anything in the documentary for you

that is an absolute highlight?

Like what is something in there that was a big highlight for you?

There's something you discovered that you probably forgot about

or you maybe didn't even know about.

Because, you know, you've been rifling through old films and scripts

and, you know, talking to everybody and reliving the moments.

And I don't know if you're talking to the directors, et cetera,

who helped produce the show or direct the show in the beginning.

What are some of the things that come out of it for Delvin Delaney?

Extraordinary things.

Extraordinary coincidences.

I think it's John.

When I had...

I joined the...

I joined the crew for Croc 2.

I had three jobs.

One of them was making a making of, directing that, you know,

organising everything.

So we never did that because we didn't need to at the time.

It just took off again.

We didn't...

We just never had time to make a making of.

So I had that footage.

Didn't really want to use Croc 2 footage in this story

because it was really about Croc 1.

So I was a bit short of footage, really.

And then, even though we'd gone through every single tub,

I thought in my big shed of all the archival materials

that belonged to John that I unexpectedly found

when I was looking for the restoration elements.

When we were shooting, when we were in shooting,

like we were in...

Shooting the documentary.

Yeah, in one of the rooms that we'd set up of the production office

as an archival room.

So I had all the tubs and the old scripts and the posters

and the international posters and all this stuff.

And then we did this observational sort of interview with Peter Feynman,

the director, Ray Brown, Paul Hogan and me.

And we didn't actually use that in the doco because we didn't need to.

But the next day when we were packing it all down,

there was this stack of two old big 40 centimetre square plastic film reels.

And on the side of them I saw that it had Peter Feynman Productions,

the making of Hoag's.

And Peter Feynman was there and I said, what are they?

And he said, oh...

Well, they'd be the making of Crocodile Dundee 1.

And I went, what?

I didn't even know you had someone making Crocodile Dundee 1.

He said, oh, yeah, John Bowering.

He said, that's why it's got Peter Feynman Productions

because John Bowering was a cameraman who used to do exterior shoots

for the Paul Hogan show on film.

And he'd always bill Peter at Channel 9.

And so I said, well, what's the making of Hoag's?

He said, oh, he's just written the title wrongly.

I said, right.

He said, I could really use those.

He said, oh, they've probably got no sound.

You know, I don't even know if they'll be any good.

And I said, I haven't seen them before.

They weren't in amongst all the other archival stuff.

Like, I don't even know.

Victoria, have you seen...

Like, no one had seen them.

And so he said, oh, there's probably only one place in Australia

that can restore those.

So we sent them to this place in Melbourne without breath held.

And they came back in perfect condition.

With audio.

Yes.

Wow.

And excellent vision.

And in those film reels was all of the content that I've used

for the making of Crocodile Dundee behind-the-scenes footage.

And Victoria and I looked at each other and went,

John put those there.

Well, you are a very spiritual person.

I've always known you'd be that.

I mean, you are extraordinarily spiritual as a person.

I mean, I think you are.

And you talked about, and I don't want to embarrass you,

but you talked about Crocodile Dundee 1 being to some extent

a love story between Hoagson, Linda.

Is this documentary about the love story between Delphine Delaney

and John Cornell?

Yeah.

Is this your love story?

This is a love letter to John.

Because I'm...

I'm...

I'm compelled to honour him and include him in the retelling.

And his presence, I felt his presence so strongly.

I'll give you an example.

We started off calling the production company Lucky Ducks

because John and I used to always say, oh, we're such lucky ducks.

And I didn't in the end.

But for a while I was, and I had flying ducks on the...

Ducks were the motif, right?

And so then...

So we were setting the production office up

and I cleaned the shelves and Victoria's putting stuff up

and she put John's binoculars from the boat, his boat, up on the shelf

and I kept looking at them thinking.

And she said, you don't want those there, do you?

I said, no, they're a bit ugly.

I think we can do better and I'll take them down.

So she took them down, she put her hand back up

and she grabbed something and she had a hand behind her back

and I should backtrack a little bit because just before John passed,

I asked him...

I asked him what bird he wanted to be remembered as

because we've got this tradition in our family.

And he said, a spangled drongo.

Okay.

And then we saw one about six months later and I said to him,

are you sure you want to be remembered as a spangled drongo

because they're migratory, I won't see them much.

He said, no, no, change your mind.

I said, oh, and he said, I said, what?

He said, a kookaburra.

Oh, that's my favourite.

You're serious?

Oh, my God.

You're killing me.

A kookaburra.

That's my favourite bird.

And I said, why a kookaburra?

And he said, because they make people laugh.

100%.

I love them.

First, first to make people laugh in the morning.

Yeah, and the Indigenous belief is that they ring the bell,

they clear the air.

The kookaburras clear the air morning and night

because it's like a bell ringing.

So, okay, a kookaburra.

So back to in the production office setting it up,

Victoria brings her hand out and says, did you put this there?

And in her hand was a tiny little,

white ceramic duck.

And I said, no, I've never seen that before in my life.

And she went, and what about this?

And it was a kookaburra feather.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

So he was overseeing the whole thing.

He's, we hear him.

He's ever present.

Kookaburras at the most opportune times.

I was struggling with the decision driving from my house

to the production office the other day and I've got a home burial plot

where John is.

I'm thinking away and I'm trying to work it out.

And I looked over at his headstone and on top was a kookaburra.

And I went, okay, that'll do.

I'll go with that decision.

Thanks, John.

You know, I have this silly thing in my mind.

If I hear kookaburras like five in the morning before the sun comes up,

if I hear them laughing wherever I am, my house in Sydney

or my house up in Byron, wherever, I have the view

that my day is going to be a good day.

Yeah.

It's the telling.

They're laughing at whatever it is I might be worried about

from the day before.

Yeah.

And they're basically sort of stupid, I know.

It's got no science associated with it.

But it just makes me feel good.

And that's your symbolism.

And that's great.

And we all should have this connection to the other side of things

that we don't, that we're not indoctrinated by.

You know, that spirit, that's connection to other things

in a different way that's personal to you.

And people may think, oh, you know, as if John put them there.

Who knows?

I had a materialisation from John after he passed.

I'm lying in bed one night.

I rolled over and he was there as large as life.

I didn't imagine it.

He was there.

He didn't stay long.

But I've had so many ghost encounters that I know

that there's something else in a different realm

that I have no explanation for but total acceptance of.

And so whether it's...

Whether it's through birds, and people say birds are messengers

of the gods, you'll often see them at funerals,

or you'll connect on some level with an ancestor

or a meaning, which is what you have.

Why not embrace that?

We can't be that ignorant to think that we know everything.

Yeah.

Because we don't.

And you're right.

And I often, where I fail often is that I'm,

about evidence, and I'm always thinking,

well, if the science can't prove it, therefore it doesn't exist.

When in fact, science would be the first to admit to you that,

or to us, that they don't know everything.

They're still under discovery.

They're trying to discover everything,

but they just don't know everything.

And therefore, just because the scientists can't prove it

doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Absolutely not.

And I love that thought process.

Yeah.

And it sits out there.

I mean, I'm glad you reminded me of the Kookaburras.

And, you know, I have a deep affection for John,

always did.

And, you know, I've always had it like this.

There's something that I felt, I always felt close to him when I saw him.

I didn't see him that often, but, you know, when I used to come up,

I'd see him and, you know, my youngest boy, Jimmy, loved him.

And I was telling him the story about it before,

but I'm not going to reiterate it now on this show,

but Jimmy's only 11 at the time, but he still talks about him affectionately.

And there's something about when you told me that he loved Kookaburras,

I felt like he was talking to me because that's my favorite bird by far.

There's no other bird in the world that gets anything close

to a Kookaburra.

In fact, I've got a painting of a Kookaburra on the entrance of my house

that I commissioned a lady to paint for me.

And that's, I just love them.

I just love Kookaburras.

I love the fact they're laughing all the time.

Yeah.

And that's a great thing.

John really, he really, really liked you, Mark.

He spoke extremely highly of you.

Thank you.

You were one of his men.

Yeah.

You were one that he really liked.

You know, it's funny, you know, it's funny, you know, when we,

I mean, I can't wait to see the documentary, but it's when you think of people,

people like John and people who we're close to who are past us,

we often, from my point of view, and probably even the audience

who used to love watching John and Strop and who have respect

for what he produced, a documentary like this I think is really important

for people to see because it actually gets you closer to the understanding

of why you feel warm towards that individual

and why you feel warm towards Hoag's.

You know, why I relate to Strop and Cornell,

why I related to the Paul Hogan show.

I just love Paul Hogan's show, why I love, I love Crocodile Dundee and you're bringing

all these little nuances out of the show in the making of, in a documentary.

I think that's extremely, then that stuff needs to happen more often.

I don't really remember seeing too many documentaries about movies,

well-made movies that have been around a long time as to what the thought process was in making.

And, and I, so this is a great initial and I might love to see the same sort of thing about,

for example, Breaker Morant or Gallipoli as well, those sorts of shows.

What was behind the idea about it?

Why, why were the people thinking about these things?

Yeah, you know, I think, I think what I've, what I've tried to do with the documentary

as well as craft a love letter to John and an honouring.

So good.

Of everybody who contributed their little spark to the lightning in the bottle.

You know, that, it, it, it takes more than one person to create something as phenomenal

as Crocodile Dundee.

So, yes, let's acknowledge and applaud, applaud those people.

But as well, I wanted to...

I wanted to showcase the values that are inherent in success.

And when you have good values like true mateship, self-belief, courage, egalitarianism, you know.

I love that one.

All of those things that, that we should all practise.

And I'm not trying to be a preacher here.

It's just in recognition of those values that are so much in the,

in the body of that film that you, you can feel it, but you, you probably couldn't verbalise it.

You, you, you don't know quite what it is, but there's something that makes it good.

And it's the good.

And so I, I would like people to, to, to, to practise those values.

To remember that as Aussies particularly, we have them.

And if we practise those values, it, it makes things happen.

Because you don't...

You're doing good.

And so I think that, I think that it's, it's in there without being too, you know,

this is what I reckon you should do.

It's just a nod to it.

It's a recognition of the fact that if those values weren't in that film, maybe it wouldn't have been that film.

Which is probably why we all loved it, but we never really knew why.

Yeah.

I think, I think there's something in there.

That's part of the magic.

There's magic in Crocodile Dudley.

And I don't think I'm overstating that.

No, totally.

You know, magic is intent in action.

And so it was this incredible intention to make this terrific film that really showcased Australia and Australians.

And those guys, everybody on that film, put that into action.

And then, you know, you brew the cauldron and off she goes.

And it affects everybody in a really good way if it's well-intentioned.

And I think that's what happened there.

With that.

That is such a good summary of the whole thing.

Seriously.

Did you rehearse that?

No, I didn't.

Did you just make up on the spot?

Yeah, I did.

You just channeled him.

He just comes through.

I may be high.

Well, let's just see where it's at.

You can purchase tickets to the screenings next week.

So we're going to put this up on Thursday.

That's tomorrow.

You and I are filming this on a Wednesday.

There's going to be, the screenings are next week in the, and we're going to put in the links below in the show notes.

So anybody wants to know where to buy, buy tickets and how, where.

The film has been shown.

You can go see it.

It's going to be in cinemas from the 26th of March.

Is that correct?

27th.

27th of March.

And it's screenings nationwide.

Yeah.

Across the nation.

If you want to, you can go to Kismet Movies.

That's K-I-S-M-E-T-M-O-V-I-E-S, kismetmovies.com, website to find screenings near you.

Delveen, it's been absolutely awesome to have you here.

Thank you for having me.

I've enjoyed myself.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for reminding me of the wonderful love story between you and John.

And thanks for reminding me of my old mate.

Yeah.

The kookaburra man.

Calling people, I call them corny burras now.

Corny burras.

I love it.

Thanks, Deli.

Thank you.

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