AFTER a mind-boggling half a century in the industry, veteran journalist Malcolm Andrews still believes there’s a story inside everyone. You just have to dig in order to find it.
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The journalist, author - he’s written 30 books on various subjects - and rugby league aficionado has covered just about everything in his career, from politics and crime to sport.
The catalyst for an amazing career began all the way back at school, when Malcolm began writing an at-times libellous class newsletter in which he unloaded at the students he disliked.
After a failed university attempt at engineering, he returned to writing, and wouldn’t have it any other way.
He got into the business via covering some horse racing, and the rest, they say, is history.
Fifty years ago in March - it could be April, he’s not entirely sure of the month - Malcolm had his first real journalist job, at the Telegraph in Sydney.
He did the police round four days a week, and sport on a Saturday.
Malcolm was given the Eastern Suburbs Roosters to cover in his first season on the job. That was the year the Chooks didn’t win a match.
He’s worked in both hemispheres, from Sydney to London’s Fleet Street and Munich radio, and Malcolm’s career is just as varies as the geography he’s covered.
His lengthy list of interviewees is just about unbelievable, and that’s just the ones he remembers.
Malcolm has sat down with the likes of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, prime minister Malcolm Fraser, professor Julius Sumner Miller and country music star Dolly Parton.
A pupil of Albert Einstein, the American physicist Professor Miller is Malcolm’s most memorable interview.
Malcolm caught up with him during a visit to mentor Australia’s brightest young final-year students.
Malcolm says they were learning from the best.
“He was a genius, a wonderful man,” he says, remembering the interview from the 1970s.
“He told me stories about Einstein, and Max Planck, and other great physicists. He said ‘you say I’m a genius, they are geniuses’.”
Malcolm is still mesmerised by his first big interview, Hollywood actress Marlene Dietrich in 1965, but Parton is another who holds special memories for him.
“Dolly Parton was just lovely,” he says.
“She is my favourite. My favourite because she was just fun.”
A love for meeting people is central to his love of finding a good story, but Malcolm hasn’t clicked with everyone he’s put questions to.
It’s not hard for him to recall the biggest bore: former United Kingdom Prime Minister and Sydney to Hobart winning skipper Sir Edward Heath, whom Malcolm quizzed in 1969.
“You wouldn’t have him at a dinner party,” he says.
Frank Hunt, the subject of the Red Gum song I Was Only Nineteen, was a far more interesting character. He sat down with Malcolm in the 1980s for a sombre conversation about his Vietnam experience. Frank trod on a mine on the same day astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon.
Malcolm missed the chance of an interview on a couple of occasions. He didn’t recognise U2 frontman Bono while on the same plane from London to Sydney in 1984.
“I didn’t have a clue who he was,” he says. “I missed a good story. I could have talked with him.”
After all these years, he still enjoys digging up good stories in people.
“Most people don’t realise there is a story in them that interests other people,” Malcolm says. “I can find a good story on any person in this town. It may take a bit of talking though.”
