Pittwater Life March 2018 Issue

Perfectly
Frank
Life Stories
Tom Burlinson started his working
life as an actor before his childhood
love of classic crooning launched
an entirely new career.
Story by Rosamund Burton
loved Frank Sinatra since I was
a toddler,” says 62-year-old Tom
“I’ve
Burlinson, arguably most famous
for his lead role in the 1981 film ‘The
Man From Snowy River’. “My parents had
an album called ‘A Swingin’ Affair’ on
the front of which was Frank Sinatra in
his fedora. I’d say to Mum: ‘Play the man
in the hat!’”
Sitting on the L-shaped sofa in his
home at Newport with the family
dachshund Coco at his feet, Tom is
talking about his life-long love of Frank
Sinatra, and his new show, ‘Swing That
Music’, which makes its world premiere
at the State Theatre on April 21.
With English parents and born in
Canada, Tom came to Australia aged
nine. His parents separated six months
later, his mother taking his two younger
sisters back to England, and his older
sister and he remaining with his father,
who then remarried.
The family moved to Bayview when
Tom was 12, when he enrolled at
Pittwater High. It was during his last
years at school that he rediscovered
‘A Swingin’ Affair’ in his father’s record
collection.
“I fell in love with it all over again
and became an avid Sinatra fan,” he
recalls. “I studied how he breathed, how
long he held notes, and his distinctive
phrasing.”
After school, he went to the National
Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), and
then worked in the theatre, and on
1970s TV soapie ‘The Restless Years’,
before, aged 24, auditioning for the role
of Jim Craig in ‘The Man From Snowy
River’. At his audition was the director,
the producer and executive producer,
and Sigrid Thornton, who had already
been cast as Jessica.
“I explained I had only sat on a horse
three times in my life, and was told,
‘Don’t worry about that!’”
When he was given three scenes to
read, he asked for 15 minutes alone, and
learnt the words. Not having to keep
looking at the script enabled him to
make eye contact with Sigrid Thornton.
“One of her lines was, ‘I must look a
sight,’ and I replied, ‘You look beautiful’,
which was true, and she blushed.
Immediately, it was obvious we had a
natural chemistry.”
Having been offered the part, he
received the full script, and reading it
saw: ‘And then Jim Craig rides down the
mountain.’
“I’m thinking, ‘Don’t worry about
that!’ I have to look as if I’ve been riding
horses all my life.”
He joined a riding school at Terrey
Hills, then rode all day every day in the
high country of Victoria where the film
was shot. He befriended Charlie Lovick,
a fourth-generation cattleman, only six
years older than him, who owned the
buckskinned horse, Denny, which was
cast as ‘the small and weedy beast’.
“Charlie was a natural teacher, and
we became very close,” Tom explains.
“Whenever I had to do a horseback scene
on camera I’d look at Charlie after the
shoot, and he’d go, ‘That’ll do,’ or, ‘Better
have another go.’”
The climax of the film comes
when ‘The Man’ rides down the steep
mountain. Tom convinced the director
that he, not his double – rodeo rider
Gerald Egan – should do the ride.
“Denny and I were on top of the
hill, and I was shaking as I waited for
the call, ‘Action’. We did eight takes
of the terrible descent that day, and
it’s the moment in the film everyone
remembers.”
‘The Man from Snowy River’ was a
phenomenal box office success. And
Tom went on to play racehorse stable
hand Tommy Woodcock in ‘Phar Lap:
34 MARCH 2018
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