Evonne Goolagong Cawley’s close encounter with her past – and future

3 days ago 11

Tennis legend Evonne Goolagong Cawley AC MBE came face to face with her past – and future – at the inaugural tennis Night of Champions, which honoured her at the weekend.

For the first time, Goolagong Cawley met up with West Australian Indigenous actor Lila McGuire, who will play her in the three-part miniseries Goolagong, which will screen on the ABC next year.

Evonne Goolagong Cawley with Lila McGuire, the actor playing her in a forthcoming miniseries, at the Night of Champions.

Goolagong Cawley won the singles crown at the Australian Open four times, French Open once and Wimbledon twice, the second time memorably as a mother in her 1980 comeback, 11 years after her first triumph.

On Sunday, she and her husband, Roger Cawley, who are celebrating 50 years of marriage, also met cast and producers privately.

The Night of Champions paid tribute to the 1976 world No.1 and raised funds for the Evonne Goolagong Cawley Scholarship, a partnership between Goolagong Cawley’s charity and the Australian Tennis Foundation, represented by Vicki Reid, who jumped on a plane on Sunday to join Tennis Australia boss Craig Tiley at Wimbledon.

The tennis great said the scholarship would give Indigenous players of today the same financial assistance that her NSW township of Barellan gave her as a teenager to move to Sydney.

“And that was the policeman, it was the baker, it was the hardware man, and they were the people that really got me here today,” Goolagong Cawley told MC Casey Dellacqua.

“So that’s what makes this special, even more special, for me is because I’m able to, by becoming famous, I can help other young kids achieve their dreams too.”

Goolagong Cawley also recounted her famous 1971 Wimbledon victory as a 19-year-old against reigning champion Margaret Court in a 6-4, 6-1 win. She noted Court was playing below her best.

“I was thinking, ‘Oh, she really didn’t play that well.’ Then I found out she was pregnant. And I’ve thanked [Court’s husband] Barry since.”

Attendees at Melbourne’s Plaza Ballroom on Saturday night included other Indigenous athletes Lydia Williams, a former Matildas player, and Olympian Kyle Vander-Kuyp.

Also spotted were actor Mia Pimentel and her partner, Indigenous reality star Brooke Blurton, a former star of The Bachelorette who has just published a young adult fiction novel with Melanie Saward titled A Good Kind of Trouble.

Marton Csokas as coach Vic Edwards and Lila McGuire as Evonne Goolagong on the set of the ABC TV miniseries Goolagong.

Later, after a tennis-ball-styled dessert, the couple along with Indigenous presenter Megan Waters tore up the dance floor with octogenarian Indigenous elder Aunty Pam Pedersen.

Also on hand were chief executive of the Australian Industry Group Innes Willox and wife Jane, John and Rasa Bertrand and Aunty Joy Murphy Wandin. Spirited bidding by Danny Wallace, serial buyer of 11 properties on reality show The Block, helped to raise $100,000 on the night.

Opening night parents

Spotted (proud mumma edition): Governor-General Sam Mostyn and her husband, barrister Simeon Beckett, attending the return production of Julia, the play about Australia’s 27th prime minister, Julia Gillard.

Justine Clarke (left) and Lotte Beckett star in the return season of the play Julia.

The Sydney Theatre Company and Canberra Theatre Centre production has already wowed audiences in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide and this column has already chronicled the real Julia’s attendance at the play, written by Joanna Murray-Smith and directed by Sarah Goodes.

Sam Mostyn and her daughter Lotte Beckett pictured at the opening of a dinosaur exhibition in 2008

But we weren’t aware the GG’s keen interest in the play was personal – until now.

Mostyn’s daughter, actor Lotte Beckett, is a performer in the play, selected after a rigorous audition process for the show, which chronicles Gillard’s life and times, culminating with her famous “I Will Not” feminist cris de coeur in the House of Representatives.

After the opening night of the return season at the Arts Centre, Melbourne on Thursday night, Beckett took to social media to thank “beautiful friends, brilliant agents, iconic mentors and wonderful parents”.

“When I was little I used to dress up in red lipstick to go and see Sydney Theatre Company shows, and now I get to dance (literally) on the Playhouse stage every night. I get nervous before I go on, and then when I’m out there everything feels calm and right,” Beckett posted on Instagram.

The governor-general told us: “Simeon and I have not missed an opening night of our daughter’s acting career. It was a special night with an astonishing performance by Justine Clarke, and we were so proud to see Lotte’s wonderful debut with STC.”

End of an era

A major shifting of the tectonic plates that make up the earth’s media-legal-defamation-judicial crust: MinterEllison partner Peter Bartlett is retiring today.

Well, sort of.

Bartlett who has been a partner at Minters for a record-breaking 51 years, will take up a new advisory role at the firm, becoming a “partner emeritus”.

Peter Bartlett is retiring after 51 years as a partner.

“I will be mentoring and assisting the younger partners, especially in the media area,” Bartlett, 77, told this column, which has made use of his pre-publication advice on numerous occasions.

“I will be keeping an eye on the strategic decisions on all the files that I have been very active with, including Ben Roberts-Smith.”

Former soldier Roberts-Smith, who lost his appeal to the Full Court of the Federal Court against a landmark Federal Court ruling that he had committed war crimes, has sought special leave to appeal to the High Court. The court is considering the matter.

As we reported last year, Bartlett has five children and 12 grandchildren, and his family has been encouraging him to retire for 15 years.

He has worked on some of the biggest legal cases in Australian history, involving Kerry Packer, Abe Saffron, Mick Gatto, Tony Madafferi, Justice Lionel Murphy, Robert Trimbole, Christopher Dale Flannery, Dr Geoffrey Edelsten and Roger Rogerson. He also acted for the widow of Donald McKay in the special inquiry into McKay’s murder.

He was admitted to practice in 1973, and in 1974 was made a partner at the law firm that is now MinterEllison, where he has worked with some 19 editors of The Age.

Bartlett will continue to be chair of the membership committee of the International Bar Association, so there will be an opportunity to partake in a rigorous international calendar of conferences and events.

“I have had an enjoyable career being challenged by some of the best lawyers in the country and have acted in some of the largest media-related cases this country has ever seen, and now as maybe Gough Whitlam said, ‘It’s time … to slow down.’”