



Gracie Otto's The Last Impresario dazzles with Michael White portrait


Charles Waterstreet

Michael White was the Jay Gatsby of his time, yet "the most famous man you've never heard of". Grace Otto offers a dazzling portrayal of him in The Last Impresario, writes Charles Waterstreet.

Michael White, the most famous man you've never heard of, with English model Kate Moss.

Michael White, the most famous man you've never heard of, with English model Kate Moss. Photo: Michael White Collection

I thought I had won Lotto when I first met Gracie Otto. Could there exist such a generous god who put so much talent, brains and beauty into a single human vase without it busting? Her first feature film, a dazzling documentary The Last Impresario, does for Michael White, ‘‘the most famous man you’ve never heard of’’, what Ken Burns did for Ulysses S. Grant in The Civil War series. Otto gives dignity and grace to a complex man, and chronicles the super-interesting life and times of this unknown and unsung soldier of the sexual revolution, the war on drugs and the undeclared war on himself, before he slips under the red carpet of history.

Michael White was the Jay Gatsby of his time, but with a real job. Unlike Gatsby he made his fortune, and lost it, and then won it again on the juices of talents personally picked and squeezed by him. He worked on a milkshake as much as a handshake in business at a time when most people knew killer sharks have no hands, no morals but eating all the food in front of them, and uttered spoken words have no meaning unless reduced to writing in complex contracts drafted by gangstas in denim who thought death was justified if cleared by lawyers.

The film delves into White’s Rosebud moments. His lack of nurturing after being sent to a Swiss school at seven, travelling from London on a stretcher because he was so ill from asthma. Instead of family, he adopted the world of artists, theatre and its entire '60s population, and as the tide turned against him, they adopted him. He created the careers of John Cleese, Monty Python, Yoko Ono and hundreds of others; he built and backed the productions that mounted the Rocky Horror Show, Oh Calcutta, a play performed nude to save on costumes, written by the great Ken Tynan; A Chorus Line, and hundreds of others.

Otto and her "activist" archivist aka activist Lisa Savage have plundered the treasure troves of hoarded instamatic camera images where White and his girlfriend, Lyndall Hobbs, chronicled their parties, premieres and playgrounds. Jack Nicholson smoking. Warren Beatty at play. Anjelica Huston drinking. Sting stung. His photo albums were more reliable casting tools than ShowCast. Like Andy Warhol, he realised that the life around him would pass unnoticed unless someone took count of the joy and sheer exhilarating fun of a fully lived life. Internally, we are diarists whose work may never see the light of day. Pictures and films are our outward lived lives, which later in the film enabled Otto to crack the Rosebud code hidden by White from his friends.

Michael White was a producer sans frontier. Boundaries were made for him to breach, there were lines in the sand beyond which he felt duty bound to cross. The Rocky Horror Show was an extraordinary little adult panto that White, with a large Australian contingent and crew took to the West End; every town and city in the world would eventually have seen a performance or the film of this magical masterpiece of absurdist theatre, with songs that won’t go away. Otto managed to get interviews with partners who had actually dudded the King of Optimist. Lou Adler, music producer and owner of the Roxy Theatre, helped bring Rocky Horror to America and stripped White of the world rights by turning their handshake into a mountain of contractual obligations, offshore entities and endless nights of snowblindness. American imperialism has only ever worked in and from Hollywood.

The Last Impresario began life as a stroke of luck, when Otto met White in Cannes, bewildered by the way the very rich and very famous seemed to treat this ‘‘crumbled old pensioner’’ like the centrepole of the circus tent where the party was being held. The film ends after three strokes of further luck, including one memorable scene where Ms Otto takes the 74-year-old stroke and heart attack survivor to his average day of doctors' appointments and pilates. White was super-generous with his wealth when he had it to a double fault. In adversity, those beneficiaries who were on the receiving end of his financial and creative support repaid his kindness with further kindness and support that allows him dignity and as much comfort as a penniless pensioner can bear.

Australians played a large part in the success and his reinvention. Many of the original Rocky Horror cast and crew were wayward exiles looking for better lives. Chalky White gave it to them all. He married well and often. He loved without hesitation, but with gusto. He found and followed then unknown Kate Moss around the world for a year. I met him when he was dating 19-year-old Naomi Watts.

Otto has cherry-picked an extraordinarily lived and documented life and created not a quilt but a fascinating moving collage of music, pictures and people singing the praises of a singular man. Gracie Otto has yet another heart and mind to her Ottoman Empire. Gracie walked me through the spreadsheets that she created to log every frame, every picture, every word uttered, every copyright issue, every word of every interview she personally transcribed. It's like she designed the rocket ship and built the engines too. The tapestry behind the documentary is the size of the National Broadband Network. Otto’s breath of intelligence and savant-savvy behind the scenes shows in the seemingless, smooth, and utterly rewarding spiritual journey that the film takes us on.

Michael White was a shy and sensitive youngster. In seeking to hide this from the world and to survive, he put on a personality that would distract and deter those around him from asking what was in his heart that hurt so much. The gaudier the glitter, the more sensitive the soul it is hiding.

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