WW | Profile A magnet for brilliance: Margaret Fink Margaret Fink, 73, holds a photograph of herself taken by her ex-husband, Leon, in 1963, when she had just turned 30. Next time Margaret Fink makes a film, HER she might like to think about basing it on her own life. Feminist, atheist, one-time anarchist, artist, stylist, pianist, writer, hostess par excellence and, of course, film producer, there’s surely enough raw material to work with. The film could start, perhaps, in the pubs of post-war Sydney – places long- WILD, demolished now, such as the Tudor, the Newcastle and the Assembly – where a group of intellectuals, musicians, artists, journalists, students and general larrikins, known loosely as the Sydney Push, used to gather to discuss politics, philosophy and the sexual mores of the day. Among these free-thinking minds and unchained hearts was a precocious, wild- WILD eyed beauty named Margaret Elliott who’d just broken free from her own family to enter Sydney bohemian society. The film could begin with her in one of these pubs, a stylish slip of a thing, smoking Camels, occasionally high on dexedrene (an over- the-counter amphetamine of choice in those days!) and disarming all and sundry WAYBohemian wild child and friend of Sthe famous and – particularly the men – with her sharp wit, athletic mind and come-hither looks. infamous, film producer Margaret Fink talks to David The film would then go on to trace the Leser about the highs and lows of her amazing life. life of post-war Sydney and some of its more memorable characters, with Margaret a fixture in nearly every scene. There she “COME IN, COME IN … The house is in “Patrick loved her,” his biographer, would be at 18, a budding art teacher, having mayhem,” shrills the voice from the kitchen David Marr, tells The Weekly. “She gave just lost her virginity to a 31-year-old and that’s the first thing you notice about him lip, but she was sexy with it. He loved returned serviceman (He knew what he was Margaret Fink. The voice. At full throttle, her because she was a serious film-maker doing!), or at 19, falling in love with the poet/ it can slice the air like a sharp instrument, a trying to make good films based on philosopher Harry Hooton, a man 25 years weapon both of attack and defence. Sitting good Australian writing. She was sassy, her senior and a central figure in the Push. somewhere between an exclamation mark independent and sharp.” (Margaret’s straightlaced parents, and an officer’s indignant command, it’s also Margaret Fink has produced some Dixie and Jack Elliott, would be appalled the voice, as one friend notes, of a “five memorable films in her life – namely when their daughter moved into a Kings star swearer”. “Can you f*** it up a bit, My Brilliant Career, which set Judy Cross bed-sitter with Harry, but Dixie – love,” she said to Luke Davies, the author Davis and Sam Neill on their international good-natured soul that she was – would of Candy, when he was trying to fine-tune trajectories nearly 30 years ago, and now eventually buy the couple a double bed!) the film script. “It’s not dark enough.” Candy, the acclaimed heroin-fuelled love Then the film might fast forward five The second characteristic you notice story which reaffirmed the soaring talents years and Margaret, still with Harry Hooton, about Margaret Fink is the eyes, a pair of of two more Australasians, Heath Ledger would be conducting a wild, clandestine almonds which Patrick White once described and Abbie Cornish. affair with young Barry Humphries, just as “mosaics of experience”. That was In between these two shining cinematic as Barry’s monstrously satirical creation, before he wrote them into his novel, moments, there have been a number of other Edna Everage, was beginning to storm- The Twyborn Affair. “Margaret, I’ve put credible efforts, all of them adaptations troop her way out of Moonee Ponds. your eyes into my next novel,” the great from Australian literary works, namely For some early black humour – and author told her one day. “Oh, that’s nice,” David Williamson’s The Removalists, there would need to be plenty of it in this Margaret replied. “Yes,” White replied. Christina Stead’s For Love Alone and film, to capture the central character – “They’re the eyes of a transvestite!” Sumner Locke Elliott’s Edens Lost. Margaret would reveal herself as one TIM BAUER. BY PHOTOGRAPHY 64 | WW JANUARY 2007 WW JANUARY 2007 | 65 of Barry’s minders while he did battle towards Frankie’s dying wish – a farewell conservatorium. Afternoons were free for with the demon drink, particularly one trip to New York City. play – in the backyard, but not the front. riotous day in 1971 when he went on a These were parties often held in the Sunday mornings were for church, then bender at Sydney’s Gazebo Hotel. grandest of styles – Cole Porter music wafting the long walk home for the family baked Margaret and Barry would no longer be in off a candle-lit driveway, butlers and lunch, then church again in the evening. lovers, but the loving concern would still French champagne in art-filled rooms, and, “No wonder I broke out,” Margaret exclaims be there as she walked into his hotel room of course, an endless hum of conversation, now, referring to her rejection of God and to find Barry missing, but with all his clothes often riotous, but always memorable. her embracing of all that the Push stood left behind. “Oh God, no,” she’d mutter to Max Lambert, the Australian composer for – anti-authoritarianism, sexual liberation herself. “He’s at the bottom of the pool.” and musical director, says that most of and a Socratic search for the truth. Well, not quite. Barry would be sitting at the stories he could tell about Margaret Yet something rubbed off, too, from the front bar, completely naked, having a Fink remain “unsuitable for the Women’s her artistic parents. Margaret became a double whisky with the hotel manager. Weekly readership”. Suffice to say, he fine pianist and art teacher. She learnt to And then, after Harry and Barry had has had some of the “best nights” of his cook and sew and decorate. She developed departed the scene, there would be marriage life in her home. And mornings, too. an eye for beauty that was to then find its to, children with and divorce from Leon “Once, between houses, I lived with her,” fullest expression in the men she loved, Fink, the turquoise sports car-driving he says. “For several mornings in a row, the spaces she occupied and the films she property developer, who at one time, I sleepily came downstairs and there was would eventually produce. according to Germaine Greer, was the Barry Humphries, the next day, Clive Today, for example, her Keith Cottier- “She is a pollinator. Through Margaret, you’ll meet actors, artists, authors, journalists, judges, the occasional ratbag … ” “most upsettingly beautiful man” at James, and the third day, Germaine Greer. designed home – although turned upside Melbourne University. The film might “I felt like I hadn’t woken up and was still down by the house painters – is still a look at this modern marriage, but also at dreaming. Of course, this was about 8am delightful testament to her interests and the great sisterly bond forged between and Margaret was fully dressed, had made eclectic style: shelves filled with Baroque these two formidable women – Germaine breakfast and had done 18 other things before CDs and books on film and classical and Margaret – in young Mr Fink’s bed. that. She was in her 60s then and she used literature; walls covered in oil paintings, “I’ve just fallen in love with this gorgeous to bound up the stairs two at a time … ” wood blocks and her own originals; a man,” Margaret would tell Germaine at their kitchen with hanging breadbaskets and favourite Repin’s Café one day in 1961. AS IT TURNS OUT, Margaret Fink is various bric-a-brac from around the world; “His name is Leon Fink.” Germaine would still full of restless energy and more. During a bathroom of Italian limestone with a bath literally drop her coffee cup and exclaim, our three-and-a-half hours together recently, in the middle and a juliet balcony, all “But he’s the guy who deflowered me”. the 73-year-old producer of Candy was at converging on a courtyard with a cumquat So any film – or story for that matter – once warm, funny, profane, smart, curious, and a mandarin tree in the middle, and about Margaret Fink would have to capture cultured, impatient, generous, aggressively wisteria climbing into a summer green room. this unfailing talent for spotting brilliance opinionated, modest, egotistical, cheerful And all this found inside two converted – brilliant lovers, brilliant friends, brilliant and, perhaps most surprising of all, regretful 19th-century workers’ cottages, which actors – and the ability to then bring them to the point of self-laceration. Margaret shamelessly wants to expand on. into her radiant circle. Her regrets are noteworthy given that it “I’m afraid I covet the third one [next “She runs one of the few remaining salons is a not a word she likes using. “I use it as door] because I should have the third one, left in the country,” says Nicholas Pounder, a pun sometimes,” she says. “Mar-regret, obviously,” she says with the mirth catching the former second-hand book dealer and instead of Margaret.