Film Stars On The Breadline

Sun Herald

Saturday September 27, 1997

By DEBBIE NEILSON

STARS of Australian stage, film and television are working incognito in telemarketing jobs to stay above the breadline.

One actor - whose 20-year career has included a part in a successful Australian film and a regular role on a television drama for three years - has gone from earning about $3,000 a week to $600 a week from phone sales.

As an industry, the arts has been slow to pull out of the recession. At the same time, the pool of talent has swelled.

Women in particular are finding it tough as men continue to dominate traditional acting roles.

Geraldine Turner, starring in the Sydney stage production of Cabaret, and veteran actor Michael Craig have watched friends battle to survive in second jobs.

"I have met people and have friends who have not had a job in over a year," Turner, 47, said.

"In Australia, you can work and be quite successful and still be on the poverty line.

"And actors don't have job security."

Craig, former star of ABC TV's medical drama GP, believes that "within another half a generation, there will hardly be any middle-aged actors working because they can't support themselves".

"You used to earn enough to last you two or three weeks," he said. "What you get now barely gets you through the week."

Simon Whipp, equity officer with the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, confirmed that actors' salaries had been cut severely in the past 10 years.

Traditional bread-and-butter jobs such as commercials had been halved.

"On a national ad campaign for a well-known product, a performer could ask for $20,000 for a year," Mr Whipp said. "Now it's $10,000 a year."

Craig, 68, is also worried about the number of jobs available, believing that highly paid foreign actors are taking jobs from local talent.

"My old friend Peter O'Toole is selling pizza," he said. "There goes somebody's living for a while."