Murray Olds: Australian correspondent on the death of Sir Sam Neill

Tributes to the late Sir Sam Neill are being made by former friends and colleagues, following his death last night.

The 78-year-old actor died unexpectedly in a Sydney hospital yesterday, surrounded by family.

He has more than 150 acting credits to his name across film and television - including Jurassic Park, The Piano and Peaky Blinders.

Australian correspondent Murray Olds says Neill was 'revered' across the film industry, with big name directors and fellow actors remembering his impact.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Murray.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Old Ozzie corresponds with us haimas.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
That's the best excuse I've ever heard.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
That's wonderful, I know, and it's always wonderful when it
turns out to actually be true.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
True.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Now, listen, tell me what's going on in the childcare centers.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is a dreadful, dreadful case, one of the very
worst that police states and factual say they've ever come across.
There's a thirty five year old fellow in Sydney who's
alleged to have assaulted dozens and dozens and dozens of
young children preschool and this very early primary school. Assaulted
these kids, sexually assaulted them over a sixteen year period,

(00:35):
five daycare centers that police know about at this point.
He's also facing more than one hundred and sixty counts
heather of producing child abuse material involving these young these
young children, and then police said they've got evidence of
him sharing this stuff with an individual overseas. Now they
are working as a filipal police with their state counterparts

(00:56):
here in New South Wales. They're also involving at at
least one jurisdiction overseas because this is it's grotesque it's
on an industrial scale that police simply haven't seen before.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Mus I see that you guys are claiming Sam Neil
as an honorary Australian.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Well, he's made I tell you what. He I made
a mistake this morning. I'm writing stories about him because
the tribute to this guy are just astonishing. And I
was I was picked up by a listener and he
wasn't born in New zeal And. He was born in
Northern Ireland. And I said, all yeah, but he was
raised in New Zealand, so you can butt out our

(01:37):
very own But the fact of the matter is this guy,
Sam Neil, was absolutely revered from global I mean global,
people like Spielberg said, this guy is one of the
best I ever worked with. George Miller, the mad Max Genius,
said he worked with Sam Neil over thirty years ago.
When Dead Calm came out, it was Sam Neil, and

(01:58):
of course at the cold hit them, he said, the
nicest guy you'll ever meet, and what a professional actor.
David Wenham he said, he's lady on the plane just
Sam near a couple of weeks back, and he said, man,
you sound so good. Thing to outlive all of us.
But he was cancer. Fully the cancer have gone. So

(02:19):
what has taken Sam Neil at seventy eight? We're not
sure yet. It was new mode, no doubt. Was the money,
thank you very much. It was not apparent that's wanted.
But I was so absolutely on a pedestal. One of
the nicest guys and what can be a pretty crappy
industry was backstanding and what have you? Not a central

(02:39):
pad word about Sam will just a real kiddle.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, it really was. Okay, what happened with the clock?
Whiye to go back twenty years?

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Let me tell you this. Okay, this is a piece
of equipment where's moe notes here a piece of equipment
that that costs around twenty two thousand Australian dollars, right
it ended. It's a lot. And they've got one hundred
and hundreds of these things all over the country, right,
and they should have been replaced ten years ago, and

(03:05):
they were sort of at the end of life. ChEls
had these things staggering on twenty two. Kay, this is
a company that reported a profit last year of two
point three billion dollars? Was the profit? Okay? They went
to do software upgrade. This bungled software upgrade, got hold
of these old clocks and simply wound them back twenty years.

(03:27):
Not just one, scores and hundreds of these things all
over the country apparently. And what this said, these things
should have been replaced at twenty years old. They were
out of date ten years ago. Chelser's had these things
still working until now, and so Telster has had these.
Buddy Fred Printstone was telling the time at the quarry
from these things. Anyway, that device and Telstra and others

(03:49):
are going to be up before the set of this week,
and we're gonna have a lot of questions to answer.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Them, quite right, Matz, thanks very much, looking after yourself.
That's Marie Old's Australia correspondens. For more from Hither duplessy Eland,
listen live to News Talks it B from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.