Will the real Chris Kirby please speak up? (cont...)

Living in America gave Chris opportunities he felt he would never have had in Australia. “As far as America was concerned, it’s always been the idol – the god. I wanted to go and work in America because it was just supreme. I’d be sitting there with Milton Berle, having a conversation about comedy, being asked my opinion. It was just too good. That never happened to me in Australia… I was living up in Beverly Hills, staying in the best hotels, and being driven around in a Cadillac. It was great, fantastic.”

Throughout his time living in America, Chris came back to Australia for 3 months every 18 months or so. Channel 9 asked him to host his own Saturday Night Show during the mid-70s, and he was doing club gigs too. In 1984, after touring with Frank Sinatra Jnr, his manager suggested he went back to Australia to have a rest from working. His second marriage with an American girl, Judy, had split, and there didn’t seem to be any reasons he shouldn’t come back to Australia for 3 or 4 months. “Then I met Christine… so I lost my green card, and because you can’t keep it if you’re not living there.”

While he was back in Australia, he wrote the play he is trying to perform again now, Lips, and was writing for television dramas, Neighbours and E-Street. However, he was slowly becoming tired of the business here, and believed there would have been many more opportunities if he stayed in L.A, or London. “One of my trips to London, Mickey Dolan of the Monkeys wanted to meet and talk about doing my play in London... He didn’t have an exact plan, but he had access to money. But this was when I was married to Christine, and I had Pete and the whole thing. Well. I won’t get into the story, but I was getting a bit of hard time about my show business – and umm, I just felt if I was going to save my marriage, I’d better go back to Australia. But, it was a bit late, I think. But well, you know, it’s been hard, but I’m OK now.”

Terry has been Chris’s partner through the earlier part of his career, but it is clear now that his pride and joy is his play Lips. When I ask about his ‘tragicomedy,’ play, Lips, he quickly shows me the trailer he and his colleagues have been working on. “I want to continue this line a bit about changing the perception about ventriloquism, so it becomes my act and not the doll’s act. It was about me being real and the doll not. And that’s what Lips is about – me finding it necessary to explain that to the doll.” After he and Christine split, and he was ready to talk seriously about the play, the interest from Mickey was lost. It has been performed in London, and Edinburgh and received rave reviews by critics. Chris is currently filming the play, and has a bit of interest in London. “The people in London keep saying, ‘if you get your arse over here, we can do something, but if you’re not here, all we can say, is that we’re interested.’ The business is too small here. That’s why I don’t want to do it in Sydney.”

Even though Chris isn’t married, it seems like it is this move to London that is troubling him the most. His son, Pete is 22 and hasn’t lived with him for a few years, however, it is clear that his relationship with him is very important. “I don’t want to lose what he and I have, because it’s so good. And he’s very special to me, of course, I’m his Dad, but you know – he was an opportunity for me. With my other two kids who I don’t know, well, I’ve met them now, but I don’t know them. And I imagine I never will. But ahh.. Pete’s got a very special talent, he’s a very talented boy.”

Chris doesn’t mention too much about his personal life and relationships, however, when he does touch on them, it is very revealing. He seems as if he has had a rough time, and he is a person who internalises his problems and easily slips into bouts of depression. Chris’s current relationship with Terry sounds bitter-sweet. Terry gave Chris a platform for being one of the most well-known ventriloquists, however, when it came time for Chris to move on and do his own work, people couldn’t understand him without Terry. “People knew Terry, and every time I do an interview, they always ask about Terry. One of the problems I had was… everyone wants me to do something with Terry. When I wrote the play, and when I did the first run of the play with Terry as the doll, when I revealed him on stage, people were going ‘oh it’s Terry, it’s Terry,’ you could hear them in the audience. It was awful, they’re not taking it seriously as a play… The ventriloquist thing is interesting. Part of me hates it, because it’s limiting” Throughout his life, Chris always seemed to be pushing again some kind of barrier; his name, his doll, his marriages, his career. His son, Pete, is one of the only things he really cherishes, yet even their relationship can be seen as a limit, as it is the reason he is apprehensive to go to London. It seems as though Chris Kirby is still waiting to be set free.