Australian actress Arkie Whiteley dead at 37
elsa
Arkie Whiteley
Actor, 1964-2001
Arkie was the apple of her famous dad Brett Whiteley's eye, the
daughter he loved to frolic with on Sydney's northern beaches - the
idyllic place to which she would later return and, for a short time,
make her home.
Arkie, the only child of Brett and Wendy Whiteley who has died of
cancer at 37, grew up in an unorthodox household, one filled with
passion and art, addictive personalities and creativity. Her rites of
passage included time spent in the 1960s in New York, where her
parents took up digs at the Chelsea Hotel. A duck pond was placed on
the roof for Arkie, who was the beautiful child adored by the hotel's
residents, including Janis Joplin who sometimes babysat her.
When she was five they lived in a Fijiian village for a year before
returning to Sydney. The family's taste for travel rubbed off on
Arkie, who made many trips between Sydney and London while she was
establishing herself as an actor. But the connection with her father,
who was famous for his sensational life as much as his prodigious
efforts as a painter, always remained.
Several years ago Arkie told a reporter that Brett was her best
friend, whom she admired and looked up to. "He was a fascinating,
brilliant person. It was such a waste," she said soon after being told
her father had been found dead of an overdose in 1992. "Suddenly the
one thing I'd spent the past 10 years of my life running away from had
finally happened - Dad was dead."
Arkje Deya Whiteley was born in London in November 1964 and spent her
early childhood on the move. When the family returned to Australia,
she went to alternative schools until her addiction- dominated family
life made her long for a more conventional structure. She went to the
private girls' school Ascham, where she tried to fit in, became a
prefect and studied hard but was bitterly miserable and felt
"bewildered" at the difference between her parents and other people.
In a 1992 interview, Arkie spoke of growing up as the child of
addicted parents. "We used to scream, fight and cry a lot. I became
the sergeant-major; that was my role ... At school ... I was being
very studious; at home I was throwing out the needles, ringing the
police and telling them who the dealers were."
At the age of 11, she decided she wanted to be an actor and went to
London where she attended acting school and lived with her
grandmother, Beryl Whiteley, and foster parents for a year.
Beryl Whiteley fondly recalls Arkie as "a strong-willed, contained,
independent spirit" whose obsession for acting matched that of her
father's passion for art. "She was very indulged by her father and
they made quite a pair," she said. "She made friends very easily,
possessed a sharp mind and was extremely practical - she could fix
things around the house from an early age."
Arkie left school at 16 and began her acting career, with parts in A
Town Like Alice and Razorback. But at 19, she had to strike out on her
own. " The three of us were so closely linked, the time came when I
had to break away from the heartbreak of what was happening and
establish my own life," she told the Herald's Good Weekend in 1992.
She again moved to London and enrolled at the Central School of Speech
and Drama.
Her grandmother says: "David Hare put her into one of his plays at The
National the moment she finished her studies. She was on her way and
very determined to make a name for herself."
Over the years, she appeared, cool, elegant and beautiful, in such
films and television dramas as The Last Musketeer, Kavanagh QC, A
Touch of Frost, Gallowglass, Scandal, Prisoner, Killing of Angel
Street and Mad Max 2.
Hers was certainly an eventful life. Drug addiction killed her father
and dogged her mother, who eventually won a very public battle against
heroin.
But while private battles were public domain, so, too, were the
protracted and ugly legal battles that followed her father's death.
Arkie took on her father's lover, Janice Spencer, in a bitter fight
over his estate in 1996. She came away with about $8 million after the
Supreme Court ruled that a handwritten will taped under a kitchen
table leaving the bulk of the estate to her was valid. Earlier, she
had realised a private dream - setting up what her father used to call
"The Stude", his massive white studio space in Surry Hills, as a
permanent public museum in 1995.
There were warning signs of bad health in November last year when she
underwent surgery to remove a brain tumour, which turned out to be
benign. Almost a year later to the day, she underwent surgery again
last month, recuperating in Byron Bay afterwards with fiance Jim
Elliott.
The engagement to Elliott was her second - the first was to London
property developer Neil Perrett six years ago. Although discovery of
her illness came only months after she announced she was marrying
Elliot, they went ahead with the wedding. He survives her, together
with her mother, grandmother and Brett's sister, Frannie Hopkirk.
In the end, it was a quiet death, or as close to one as a child of
such famous parents can expect.
elsa
William J. Meyerbeck
For Mad Max fans, she was the good looking blonde that that the
guy with the gyrocopter hits on during the movie.
"elsa" <nojunkmail...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3c235afd...@news.cis.dfn.de...
RChamp7927
background.
Can you imagine having Janis Joplin as a babysitter?
Bob Champ
TruthtellerT
>
She once dated William Bennett, the ex-drug czar and self-appointed morals
expert
Editio...@hotmail.com
Sad