Gary Waddell dies aged 74: the brilliant Australian actor who turned small roles into great ones

Waddell appeared in countless films and TV shows, often as rough-as-guts characters, though he was rarely given the screen time he deserved

The great Australian actor Gary Waddell – known for his gooseflesh-raising ability to portray rough-as-guts characters so real you swear you’ve met them before – has died aged 74. Waddell was a fixture of the Australian film and TV industry for decades, bursting on to the scene, bleary-eyed and angsty in Bert Deling’s cult classic drug drama Pure Shit, a production so notorious that its first public screening, in 1976, was raided by the vice squad.

This legitimately great film – the best ever made about heroin addiction and subculture in Australia – was famously described as “the most evil film I’ve ever seen” by Melbourne Herald critic Andrew McKay (an example of hysterical overreach if ever there was one, although, as they say, those were different times). It remains a thrilling piece of social realist cinema, full of drug-taking, petty crime and tomfoolery, with the story revolving around Waddell’s character Lou, who arrives five minutes in, grousing about how he “hasn’t had a hit for 10 hours”.

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