Bill Hunter

Australian actor known for his roles in Strictly Ballroom and Muriel's Wedding

Bill Hunter at Bill Heslop, the father of the bride, with Toni Collette in the title role in Muriel's Wedding, 1994.
 
For many Australians, the screen persona of the character actor Bill Hunter, who has died of cancer aged 71, was the archetypal "ocker", an uncultivated Australian working man who enjoys beer, "barbies", Aussie rules football and V8 supercars. According to Phillip Noyce, who directed the oft-bearded actor in three movies and a TV miniseries: "Bill was the absolute essence of the Anglo-Irish Australian male of the 20th century. Seemingly gruff and impenetrable, he could convey the tenderness beneath the exterior." He was seen and appreciated by millions in three of Australia's biggest hit films – Baz Luhrmann's Strictly Ballroom (1992), PJ Hogan's Muriel's Wedding (1994) and Stephan Elliott's The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) – all revealing Hunter at the peak of his powers. He was born in Melbourne, but was brought up in rural Victoria, in Australia's south-east. His father was a struggling country pub owner who eventually went broke, forcing young Bill to leave school at 13 and become a drover, guiding cattle herds across the state. An excellent swimmer, Hunter was at one point considered for Australia's Olympic squad, but a bout of meningitis ended his competitive swimming career. However, he got the job of swimming double for Gregory Peck and Anthony Perkins in the nuclear disaster movie On the Beach (1959), most of which was shot in Victoria. (He later appeared as the Australian prime minister in the television remake in 2000.) The experience of watching the Hollywood stars perform gave him the idea that "any mug can do that". Therefore, while still in his 20s, Hunter moved to London and studied at Rada, which led to his joining the newly founded repertory company at the Nottingham Playhouse under John Neville's artistic direction in 1963. Before returning to Australia, he appeared in two episodes of Doctor Who (1966), with William Hartnell in the title role. Back home, Hunter began a long career in TV in which he specialised in playing hard men, usually policemen or criminals with a nice line in "Strine" (Australian slang). Among his early film roles was a sadistic officer in Mad Dog Morgan (1976), starring Dennis Hopper as the notorious 19th-century Australian outlaw; and the lead in Noyce's Backroads (1977), an aimless drifter who links up with an Aborigine in a car trip across New South Wales. Hunter, given his first chance to display nuance in his performances, played a decent bloke coming to terms with his prejudices. It was Noyce's belief in Hunter as more than just a heavy that led to Newsfront (1978), among the films of the Australian film renaissance. Set in post-second world war Sydney, it starred Hunter, managing to make an obsessive, driven man sympathetic, as a fiercely proud newsreel cameraman who takes all sorts of risks to get his stories, only to find his trade gradually being replaced by television. Equally sympathetic was his role in Peter Weir's Gallipoli (1981). Sporting a neat moustache, Hunter played Major Barton, reluctantly and painfully having to send his young troops into an unwinnable battle. In Death of a Soldier (1986), Hunter, as a hard-nosed detective, determined to nail a GI for the murder of several women, conveyed the tensions between the local police and the US army represented by James Coburn. In Strictly Ballroom, Hunter wore an ill-fitting blond toupee to play the machiavellian president of the Australian Ballroom Dancing Federation, who is against any innovation ("There are no new steps"). Until then, he hadn't had much chance to reveal his flair for comedy. His role as the corrupt politician and philandering father of the bride in Muriel's Wedding consolidated this. In contrast to these pompous bullies, delivered with comic relish, there was a refreshing reversal of type in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, in which he portrayed a sensitive, warm-hearted nonconformist mechanic, who latches on to a quartet of outrageous drag queens touring the Australian outback. The grey-bearded Hunter, wearing a headband, played it beautifully straight amid the wildly camp goings-on, especially in the scenes when he forms a close relationship with Bernadette (Terence Stamp). Hunter had appeared with Stamp in Stephen Frears's The Hit (1984). Despite his great success, Hunter was declared bankrupt in 1996 after running up debts of more than A$440,000. He continued to be in demand on TV and film, one of his last appearances being in Luhrmann's epic Australia (2008) – it would have been unthinkable if Hunter, who defined a certain kind of "Ozness", had not been included in the huge cast. Hunter's final film was the yet-to-be-released horseracing drama The Cup (2011) in which he played the horse trainer Bart Cummings. In one of his last interviews, Hunter modestly summed up his approach to acting: "As long as the director told me where to stand and what to say, I was happy. Anyone who says there is any more to it than that is full of shit." Hunter's 1992 marriage to the former TV presenter Rhoda Roberts ended in divorce. • William John Bourke Hunter, actor, born 27 February 1940; died 21 May 2011