Bad Boy Matthew Newton

Matthew Newton: Curse of a famous name

SAD, angry reclusive. Matthew Newton's troubled life is a very public train wreck. But Andrew Rule finds many who say: Don't write him off yet.


LONG before his parents and his lawyer decided he was mentally ill, Matthew Newton was an angry boy.


One night in 1993, as he waited to go on stage in a school production of Murder in the Cathedral, his nerve cracked and his temper exploded.


The boy beside him was nervous, too.


"I was shaking like a leaf," he recalls. "But when Matthew was nervous or embarrassed his way of coping was to lash out at those around him."


It didn't come to blows - that would come later, with women - but the teenage Newton abused the students around him in a way one never forgot or quite forgave.


"He was full of himself - the son of a legend who was not often told 'no'," the Xavier classmate recalls.

The tantrums weren't new. For years, acquaintances had seen a dark side of Bert and Patti's golden-haired boy.


They heard him scream and swear, especially at his mother.


"You don't let a 12-year-old speak badly to you like that," says one who saw him grow up.
"But the observer does not altogether blame the pretty boy who has become a pale and puffy recluse from the show business world he's known from birth.


"Poor Matthew was born into a family he doesn't want to be a part of. He doesn't want to be a Newton," the observer says.


What he did want to do was act. And he was good at it, starring in school drama classes, getting into the National Institute of Dramatic Art at 19 then climbing the greasy pole of a neurotic profession.


But being good is not always enough, especially for someone craving to step out of a famous father's shadow.


A loyal former schoolmate, Giuseppe Boemo, says: "He was driven and committed about acting the way some kids are about becoming AFL footballers, but I have always felt sorry for him because of the pressure of being Bert's son."


Matthew wasn't the macho male lead he might have dreamed of being when he started drama school. That's Sam Worthington, Hollywood's pick of the class of '98, who is now plucking parts in multi-million-dollar films.


And he's not the Next Big Thing on the Australian stage, either. That's his friend Ewen Leslie, who plays Shakespeare's toughest roles the way Jonathan Brown plays football.


At 34, Newton has to be satisfied with being a talented character actor and a promising writer-director.


He can play anything from the cherubic boy he once was to the flawed and edgy character he has become, from the cheerful small-town clerk in Grassroots to a cheeky young prisoner of war in Changi, to a murderous drug runner in Underbelly.


But no drama he has played is more compelling than the real-life train wreck of his career, which started as a showbiz fairytale and turned into a tragedy that's still playing out.


There are two "Golden Miles", and they could not be more different. Melbourne's is highly respectable, Sydney's hugely disreputable.


The Golden Mile where Matthew Newton grew up is a tree-lined boulevard of gilt-edged real estate in Mont Albert Rd, separating Balwyn from Canterbury.


The area has many churches and private schools but no pubs. The best houses there sell for millions.


The other Golden Mile is a strip of sleazy strip joints and nightclubs in Sydney's Kings Cross, where sex and drug rackets have flourished since the razor-gang era of the 1920s.
Newton gravitated to the Cross while working in Sydney after graduating from NIDA in 1998, haunting hang-outs where nothing good happens after midnight.


Newton was leading a strange life well before the incident that brought him undone - assaulting his then girlfriend and fellow actor Brooke Satchwell in late 2006.


He pleaded guilty to assault, although the conviction and 12-month good behaviour bond were quashed in an appeal launched by the former king of Sydney criminal lawyers, Chris Murphy.


The assault charge made public what insiders - and Satchwell's family - had suspected for some time. "Brooke would come to work with bruises," claims a former actor who knew Newton at drama school.


On set, Newton was punctual and capable, no more trouble than most actors and less than some. But off it, he was erratic - and sometimes violent.


Years before (as his mother would volunteer on a television current affairs show last year) a psychologist told them Matthew should avoid drugs and alcohol because of his personality.


He should have taken the advice.

The Satchwell scandal made headlines and cost him a $200,000-a-year radio gig with Nova but it would not necessarily have wrecked his career.


That would take perseverance. Meanwhile, however, he seemed to turn a new leaf. He hooked up with actor Gracie Otto and moved in with her family in Sydney.


If anyone outside the Otto family knows what went wrong, they are not saying.


Whatever the reason, Matt and Gracie didn't last. By June 2009 he was regularly seen in nightclubs with another rising star, Rachael Taylor.


She called him "Fat Snake" and they tattooed each other's names on their wrists.


It seemed a good idea at the time, although Taylor might have wondered after a King's Cross hotel room booked in her name suffered $9000 damage late one night.


Newton paid for it, despite denying he was responsible. He also made headlines the next day by bolting from an aircraft before the doors closed.


Taylor's parents met him only twice - when the couple visited their Tasmanian home - and they saw no warning of what was ahead.


Rachael's father, Nigel Taylor, recalls meeting "a very personable and reasonable young man - a well-mannered and wonderful person".


Last year, after Channel 7 bravely signed him to host a big new show called The X Factor, Newton took Taylor overseas.


Perhaps to celebrate their supposed engagement - or to make up for ugly incidents that had been kept private.


It didn't work. The trip ended when Newton rammed his lover's head into a wall in a Rome hotel and tried to choke her.


She fled, and took out an apprehended violence order against him in Australia, listing a string of incidents.


The Seven Network sent a producer to escort Newton home but could not save their new star from himself.


He was sacked from The X Factor and cut loose. Bert and Patti's little boy was running out of chances.


He became a voluntary patient at a Sydney clinic. During his time there he was attacked in the street, which his lawyer Chris Murphy blamed on hostile media coverage.


It got worse. In January this year Taylor was in Los Angeles with her new boyfriend working on a film when an emotional Newton sent her 42 calls and texts in two hours.


According to police documents tendered in court later, Taylor asked him: "Is this a joke?" when Newton identified himself .


"You shouldn't be calling me," Taylor told him.


"I know that," he allegedly replied. "I just want to have a f------ conversation ... Do you have any idea how much pain I am in?"


Taylor: "Matt, you tried to kill me ... "


"Do you realise how much I am putting on the line calling you?" he pleaded. "Please don't have me arrested. I just want to say I'm sorry."


Taylor called the police. When Newton was prosecuted for breaching the order, his mother sat at the back of the court but they did not speak.


Murphy said his client was being treated with "powerful mind-affecting drugs" for bipolar disorder, panic attacks, social phobia, post-traumatic stress and obsessive compulsive disorder.


Newton was released on bail on condition he stayed under his psychiatrist's supervision. But he was already serving a life sentence - as Son of Bert.


When the almost confirmed bachelor Bert Newton married the former child performer Patti McGrath in 1974, 10,000 fans turned up.


Bert acted like a 1950s American star in those days, recalls one bemused showbiz contemporary: "Bert thought Channel 9 was MGM."


Around the time Matthew was born in 1977, Barry Humphries staged a live show that had mocked-up newspaper posters stuck around the theatre.


One poster read: EXCLUSIVE! BERT AND PATTI'S BREAKFAST MENU.


It was harmless satire but it nailed Melbourne's Newton mania: Bert and Patti were household names, adored by many, ridiculed by some, playing out their lives on radio and television talk shows and women's magazines, trading privacy for publicity in the quest to stay in the game.


The children - photogenic blond moppets - became part of the act. It was Melbourne's Truman Show.


"I felt sorry for Matthew," says a woman who went through drama school with him later.

"He'd been paraded around from the time he was a two-year-old as this 'prop' thing. He doesn't know who he is."


But he was smart enough to know who he wasn't.


An actor who knew Matthew as a boy says he could chat about Chekhov, Shakespeare and current affairs, whereas his mother and sister Lauren would be debating "whether to shop at Myer or David Jones".


Sons of famous fathers have a poor track record. Many rebel. Some become estranged. A few don't survive. Most suffer from real or imagined comparisons with the "great man".


The father's overweening success is problem enough but a fall from grace can cause a toxic cocktail of conflicting emotions: anger, loyalty, resentment.


In 1985, after 26 years as a network star, Bert found that Kerry Packer could be as ruthless as any Hollywood mogul. The fat pay packet shrank but Bert kept spending big.


He had too much spare time and gambled compulsively.


In late 1993, the Newtons woke to the front-page scandal Bert had been dreading. He was broke and owed $1 million. He had been losing big money on the punt for years. Now they had to sell up and pay creditors.


A powerful television producer named Gavan Disney had already thrown Bert a lifeline - landing him the Channel 10 morning timeslot that would become an institution.


Disney, co-creator of the Hey Hey show with Daryl Somers, was a family friend.


The Newtons stood by him when he was later charged (and acquitted) over allegations he had indecently assaulted a young television assistant in the early 1980s.


For Matthew, already affected by fame and weight of expectations, the public humiliation of his father's insolvency - and the private one of his family being rescued by a showbiz powerbroker - was another complication in his formative years.


His outburst in the school play was in late 1993, around the time Bert was outed as a gambling addict. Maybe it was coincidence.


It takes a lot to keep an actor away from applause: a clapping crowd is what performers crave most.


When the film Face to Face was launched in Melbourne late last month, it was obvious that one prominent cast member was not there to join the rest on stage after the screening.


No one mentioned Matthew Newton but this made his absence all the more glaring. His on-screen role stood out in a brilliant ensemble that included Vince Colosimo and Sigrid Thornton.


Ironically, Newton had played the sensible character - a mediator in a room full of angry, irrational people tangled in interlocking professional and personal disputes.


His character keeps his head when all around him lose theirs.


That the actor pulls it off so well, despite his personal turmoil when the film was being shot last year, makes his performance all the more remarkable.


Australian-born director Michael Rymer returned from Hollywood to make the low-budget film in near record time. He credits Newton as one reason they made it so well, so quickly.


"Matthew brought so much film-maker's intelligence to the role," he says. "He's a smart guy who gets it."


It was the second time Rymer had worked with Newton. He cast him as a vampire in Queen of the Damned in 2002 and would happily use him again, he says.


"He was late a few times but he's a total professional. Good-mannered and easy to direct because he's a director himself."


Rymer says he's shown Face to Face to Americans who ask "Who is that guy?" when they see Newton.


"They say it's like Russell Crowe meets Leonardo DiCaprio," he says.


David Williamson, whose play was adapted to make the film, says he was "bowled over by Matthew's performance" but not surprised because he recalls him being "one of the stars of his NIDA year".


"He is talented, smart and he was going places," says Williamson. "It's quite tragic to see him embroiled in these personal problems."


Williamson agrees with Rymer that Newton could work in America. The truth is he might have to go overseas to make a comeback anyway.


In the tiny local industry, most actors rely on regular television work - and gun-shy networks might not want to spook sponsors or risk viewer backlash by casting someone with so much baggage.


The local industry "mafia" has its code of silence. Everyone knows everyone. Casting agents murmur that they look forward to Matthew working again but they don't want to be quoted.


One leading TV drama producer says Bert and Patti's troubled offspring is "extra-talented but it's hard to commit a long-haul series with someone who might blow up".


Tight budgets and lengthy time commitments mean "you have to have an eye out for everyone's default positions", he says. "In TV, actors have to be not only good but reliable as well."


Feature film-makers might be less wary. "Matthew's got something a bit special - so with a feature that takes only six weeks or so, you'd take the risk. Using the bad-boy actor might even have some 'train wreck' appeal."


Ewen Leslie, the most promising actor from Perth since Heath Ledger and Sam Worthington, acted beside Newton and his friend Toby Schmitz in Three Blind Mice.
The film, which Newton wrote in a manic creative burst and shot on a "guerilla" budget in 2008, won a London critics' award and was screened at overseas film festivals.


"I was proud to be in it," says Leslie, currently starring in the lead of the MTC's Hamlet.
"Hats off to Matthew. He is a genuine talent."


A key producer and scriptwriter behind the Underbelly series says Newton worked hard and "acquitted himself in front of the camera superbly. He's a brave actor who goes wherever the script and the character takes him. Some actors don't want to look 'bad' and lose the audience".


He is talking about Newton's part as the evil drug baron Terry Clark in the second Underbelly series, A Tale of Two Cities.


Newton alternates between charm, violence and outrageous excess with what the writer calls "eerie accuracy".


Newton played Terry Clark living high, plying naked women with cash and cocaine in luxury hotel rooms.


When Newton's former Xavier drama classmate saw the sex and drug scenes he wondered if Newton had taken method acting a little too far.


He knew a woman who met Newton in luxury Melbourne hotels several times from 2004-06, and she knew others who had also visited the troubled actor in hotel rooms.


But the stories the women told each other were not about rock star excess: they were about a lost boy scared of being a lonely man, wasting money he couldn't afford.


Usually, she said later, he ended up talking about his girlfriend, Brooke. Then he'd cry.
Chris Murphy is a tough lawyer with a soft side.


As a criminal advocate he did not befriend the killers, standover men and bikers who came his way. The relationship was professional.


But he is friends with some of his show business clients.


After Newton approached him about the Brooke Satchwell incident, Murphy warmed to him. Since then Murphy and his wife, the artist Agnes Bruck, have adopted Newton. Last year, Bruck painted his portrait for the Archibald Prize.


She depicted him as a man in torment but says: "He's only ever shown me kindness and empathy. I regard him as a dear friend."


Murphy and Newton live close to each other in Bondi and they speak to each other most days. Newton visits Murphy's home and plays with his children and their cats.


"Don't write him off," Murphy growls. "He's leading a proper professional life and working hard, writing scripts.