About Chips Rafferty
Chips Rafferty MBE was one of Australia’s favourite movie stars in the years following the Second World War. Known for portraying rugged Australian characters such as soldiers and bushmen, his films include The Overlanders, The Rats of Tobruk, Mutiny on the Bounty and They’re a Weird Mob.
In 1971, Chips gave one of his most acclaimed performances as an outback policeman in the psychological thriller Wake in Fright, which was filmed on location in Broken Hill.
Few other Australian actors captured the public’s affection in the way Chips Rafferty did in the immediate post war period.
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Chips' busy early working life
Chips Rafferty was born John William Pilbean Goffage in 1909 at Broken Hill. His family moved around country NSW during his childhood, eventually settling in Parramatta where he received the nickname ‘Chips’ from his schoolmates.
After leaving school, Chips worked in a variety of jobs − a drover, shearer, boundary rider, deckhand and even packer of false teeth. He also ran an ice-cream parlour in Parramatta for a time with his first wife, who he married in 1935.
A wartime star
While Chips was managing a wine cellar in Sydney he made his film debut as an extra in the 1938 comedy Ants in his Pants. After coming to the attention of filmmaker Charles Chauvel he was cast as a heroic digger in the First World War drama Forty Thousand Horsemen.
Chauvel changed the budding actor’s surname to the ‘more larrikin-sounding’ Rafferty, promoting him as a new sensation. With the film’s commercial success in Australia, Chips became famous.
In May 1941, just a day after marrying his second wife, Chips enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force. He served in the Administrative and Special Duties Branch, entertaining troops in Australia and New Guinea. He continued to make films throughout his service, including several propaganda films and Chauvel’s legendary The Rats of Tobruk (1944), a war drama based on recent events.
Chips found international fame in a British production The Overlanders (1946), cast as a bushman who drives a mob of cattle across Australia during wartime. He continued to play the character of the stereotypical tough, laconic, Australian outback male for the rest of his life, both in public and on screen. He became identified with this character more thoroughly than any other actor of his generation.
Bolstering the local film industry
With the decline in local film productions in the early 1950s, local filmmakers endeavoured to compete with Hollywood. Chips was an outspoken advocate for federal government support for the film and television industries in Australia. Aiming to bolster the local industry he teamed up with Australian director Lee Robinson to produce and star in a series of adventure films.
Throughout the 1960s he took roles in local and overseas films such as They're a Weird Mob (1966) and Double Trouble (1967) with Elvis Presley. He also guest starred on Australian television shows and appeared on American television series.
By the early 1970s Australia’s film and television industry had moved away from Rafferty’s ‘bushie’ masculinity stereotype.
Wake in Fright
Chips’ final on-screen role was in the 1971 psychological thriller Wake in Fright, shot on location in Broken Hill, Silverton and other sites in far west NSW. His performance as a small-town policeman is considered one of the finest in a long career. Chips died suddenly at age 62 before the film debuted to critical acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival.
Earlier that year his contribution to early Australian cinema was acknowledged in the New Year’s Honours List when he received an MBE for services to the performing arts.