🎞 EXCLUSIVE CHAT: Delvene Delaney

The extraordinary Delvene Delaney joins Jonesy & Amanda ahead of her new film, Love of an Icon: The Legend of Crocodile Dundee.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
And Amanda jam Nation.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Forty years since its release, and Crocodile Dundee remains Australia's
most successful film of all time. Absolutely extraordinary. The film
has had a bit of a resurgence of late with
the recently released Encore Cut edition. But what exactly went
on behind the scenes. Well, a new documentary by Delvin
Delaney takes us inside the film like never before. It's

(00:23):
called Love of an Icon, The Legend of Crocodile Dundee
and she joins us now, Delvin.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hello, Hello, Amanda, how are you.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
I'm so well, just been watching you on the TV
spectacular area.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Well, thank you so much. You've made my day.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
You should give TV a crack. I reckon you do.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
All right out?

Speaker 2 (00:46):
You look extraordinary. Not a day has passed since we
last saw you on our screens.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Well, it's thirty years. It's a long time, isn't it.
It's a long time. And I look back and I
think I've been I've been best mates with Paul Hogan
for fifty years this year. Wow, Wow, it was fifty
years ago that I met John this month.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
You know, can I just make a confession. When I
was a kid and I'd watched you on the Paor
Hogan Show, and it was it was sense.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Like to blow the whistle down the line.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Nothing weird happened, but I had such a crush on
you on the telly. Okay, that's okay, you don't have
to blow a whistle or.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Anything just to see.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
But you know, it's funny. There's an era of guys
my age who at that period watching the Paul Hogan Show.
It was such a it was such a time. It
was such a great time.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
The seventies were fantastic. They were so more free for
us to be who we wanted to be and to
say what we wanted to say. And and the Paul
Hogan Show really nailed commentary on politics in a non
political way because you know, Paul was so much the
man in the street. John had a fantastic journalism background,
and so between the two of them they were able

(01:58):
to comment without a fan and their humor was never malicious.
It was always just plain old good fun. Let's have
a laugh at ourselves and let's love being Aussies.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
With the film Crocodile Dundee, I know the filmmaking was
taken very seriously, but did you did anyone have an
idea at the beginning that that film would become what
it has been. Did you have a sniff of it
at the time?

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Not really. I mean, in the documentary, even Paul alludes
to the fact that John was the only one who
believed that it would be a big hit, But even
a big hit was not anywhere near the hit that
it became in John's minds. We were all completely taken
by surprise, particularly the international response, because when John was

(02:43):
trying to sell that film, nobody really knew much about Australia,
and you weren't even aware that we spoke English, and
certainly much less aware that we had a culture and
that we were likable, approachable people. And so I think
that to get response from everybody equally around the world

(03:04):
was really satisfying for those two guys to know that
they hit the mark.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
But it must be hard for you as well, because
John passed away a few years ago now, and for
you this is like a love story to your husband.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
It absolutely is. And when Victoria and I were co
writing and co producing and co directing the documentary, it
was challenging to keep a dry eye because I was
watching footage of John in his absolute prime, looking spectacular
in all his power, and it was my life as well.

(03:37):
There was footage of me as a very young woman
really going through this incredible adventure, and so we had
to be careful not to make it a pity project
or indeed a vanity project. But we aimed in our
writing and directing and editing particularly to make it an
authentic project. So it's about telling the truth about what

(04:01):
I saw and experienced on the whole journey of Crocodile Dundee.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
What are some of the stories that might surprise us
from the doco?

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Well, that we nearly didn't even get the budget, and
that was because John went to people like Kerry Packer,
who was his old mate from Will Throughs Cricket and
the Paul Hogan shows, and Kerry adored John and put
his money in, put over a million dollars in, and
then he was advised by one of his advisers to

(04:29):
pull the money out because that advisor didn't believe that
the film would work. So Kerry pulled his money out,
and then then there were a couple of other instances
like that where people changed their mind, and so we
had to scrabble around with you. John reached out to
everybody whom we knew, all of our family and friends,

(04:51):
the cricketers from well Through's Cricket in Excess, who had
composed music for the film, like everybody that we knew
to invest a minimum of five thousand dollars. My mum
and dad put in five thousand dollars to get the
film up.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
Wow. Do you think maybe that it was your star
turn as a cruise director when the Love Boat came
to Australia that helped it get up?

Speaker 1 (05:15):
And I was so bad in that.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
You were great? This is this is some of this
is you no worries.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
You can go to stay with me.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
You have a great time. Did you ever to see
my china plate? You can go play with my billy lids.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
There you go and interesting, interesting premise doc and go far.
They were both vying for your intent attention, and then
you invite them both back to their place and back
to your place rather and they're not they're not up
for it.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Well I'd forgotten all of that.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
You'd be a terrible cruise director. Good this documentary, how wonderful,
is going to be in cinemas. So make sure you're
going take.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Your Billy lids take your Billy and China plate.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
So you love it. Thank you, thank you so much.
I appreciate it. Thank you.