Past Programs
Arts and Culture - 2008
2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2003
The Witch of Positano
27/11/2008
Born in 1930, artist and dancer Vali Myers left Australia at the age of 19 for post-war Paris.
Hers is a story of survival on the streets of Europe, in prison, and smoking opium with the likes of Jean Cocteau and Jean Genet. And then there's the tale of how she came to marry a Hungarian gypsy and live in her isolated 'wildlife sanctuary' near Positano in the South of Italy.
Vali's art; mystical and intricate portraits of herself, have caught the attention of the international art scene. Today she remains a cult figure who has among her friends Deborah Harry, Marianne Faithful and Patti Smith. She's arrestingly honest and a sight to behold. At 70, she's still turning heads with her shock of wild red hair, piercing eyes, tattoos and gypsy-like presence.
Oriel Grey
09/10/2008
In the late 1930s and 1940s, playwright Oriel Gray was a bright star in Sydney's bohemian literary and artistic milieu. She began her long career writing political revues and plays for the New Theatre, which operated under the stern patronage of the Communist Party of Australia.
Oriel Gray recalls her childhood, her interest in writing and the stage, and her wartime years involved in radical theatre -- a time of rare unity for the Australian left as they came together in the fight against fascism.
Oriel Grey died in July 2003.
John Ross: the Silhouette Man
02/10/2008
With just a pair of scissors, a sheet of black paper and nimble hands, John Ross has been cutting silhouettes for 65 years. From Detroit's Put-in-Bay Steamer to the humid tents of WW2 Philippines to the Australian agricultural show circuit, John takes us on a colourful journey of his life.
Don Dunstan
14/08/2008
Don Dunstan was born in 1926, and grew up between two very different worlds—the years spent in Fiji, where his Australian father was a manager for the Adelaide Steamship Company, and his time in South Australia, where he lived with relatives in the small town of Murray Bridge and attended boarding school in Adelaide.
This experience, and a childhood set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, had a lasting influence on Don Dunstan's later life—as a lawyer, as a sometime socialist and, later, as a politician. When the ALP won the 1970 election, Dunstan became premier of South Australia. He held the positon until 1979. Don Dunstan died in 1999.
Attilio Guarracino: Remembering Life with Donald Friend in Bali
26/06/2008
Attilio Guarracino was an island boy of 19 when he met Australian artist, Donald Friend. Their relationship took many forms over the years until Friend's death in 1989. More than a dozen of those years were spent in Bali, where Donald Friend lived like a rajah.
Billy Thorpe
24/01/2008
This week we go a little bit paisley, with a trip back to the 1960s and 70s music scene through the memories of musician Billy Thorpe, who died suddenly in February 2007.
Billy Thorpe's performing career started in the 1950s. As an 11-year-old he hosted the Channel 9er's in Brisbane, performed at the Brisbane 'Ecka' with Reg Lindsay and Slim Dusty and, by the age of 16, he was singing regularly with The Planets at Birdland.
