FEATURE “Geraldine Turner’s mum wanted her to be a ballerina. Her dad wanted her to stick to her working-class roots. Her oldest brother wanted her to be a teacher. For this musical-theatre queen, life hasn’t always been a cabaret. Geraldine Turner has two dogs, Pearl and Claude. Both are fully grown – and not much smaller than Shetland ponies – but they bound about like excited puppies when I arrive at her place at Moss Vale, in the NSW Southern Highlands. This could be because they think I am a relative: “It’s your new aunty!” Turner shouts over the barking as she lets me in the gate. Or maybe they’re just burning up excess energy. “They haven’t been for their you-know-whatsies to the P-A-R-K,” Turner says. It isn’t just Turner’s singing voice that is big: she speaks as if projecting to the back stalls. This is true whether she is addressing the dogs (“Uh-uh-uh! No barking, Claudey- Claude-Claude!”) or making one of the arresting statements that pepper her reminiscences. Things like: “I don’t think I ever really loved my first husband.” And: “Gough Whitlam once drank champagne out of my shoe.” She has a broad Australian accent, even after all these years hanging out with rounded- vowel theatrical types, and knows she is an excellent raconteur.“I can tell stories and be funny off the cuff,” she says.“I have that talent, which a lot of actors don’t.” Not all Turner’s anecdotes are amusing, though. The sentence that makes me stop chewing my scone: “My brother Noel, the one who killed the child …” She glances across the table. “Look at your face,” she says. “I know. I have a very interesting family.” At the time of my visit to Turner, she is still rehearsing the show (Opera Australia’s Two Weddings, One Bride). It is clear she is relishing every minute of the process. The only other time she tried this kind of thing – when she appeared in a production of La Belle Hélène by the then Victoria State Opera 30 years ago – the reviews were withering (“Opera descends to burlesque”, sniffed The Age). But she has higher hopes for this show. “I think I’m singing really quite well,” she says. Apart from that, she is enjoying being gainfully employed. Fewer big parts come her way these days, which she supposes isn’t surprising. “I’m so fucking old. It’s unbelievable.” Next month, Turner will be 67. Though still handsome – almond-shaped eyes, strong cheekbones – she is acutely aware that her bloom has faded: “I look in the mirror and go, ‘Oh, my God.’ “ She imagines most women her age say the same thing, but she suspects the dismay is deeper for some than for others. “I think it’s harder when you’ve been beautiful.” Cosmetic surgery is an option. But risky. “Those Hollywood actresses who have their faces pulled so tight they can’t shut their eyes any more, or close their mouths – that is ghastly,” she says.“They don’t look younger, they just look weird.”Anyway, what exactly is the point of battling to create an illusion of youthfulness? “Half of me thinks I’ve fought hard for every line on my face. Every line tells a story.That’s who I am.This is what a woman of 66 looks like, and that’s okay.” The other half of her thinks, bring on the knife. “If somebody offered me a free face-lift, I don’t know if I’d turn it down.” Turner grew up in Brisbane, the only daughter of a truck driver who believed it was a mistake for members of the working class to get ideas above their station. She says Leo, her father, was a kind man when he was sober.When drunk, he beat up her mother, Isabell.“Which was a family secret. Nobody ever talked about that.” Turner, who had four older brothers, says she was never hit herself. “My mother was abusive towards me, but not in that way. She would lock me in cupboards if I was naughty.” Thwarted in her ambition to be a vaudeville star, Isabell pushed Turner towards a theatrical career with fanatical determination. Specifically, she wanted her daughter to become a ballet dancer. Turner had to practise, practise, practise. “I was never allowed to play,” she says. “FORTHISMUSICAL-THEATRE QUEEN,LIFEHASN’TALWAYS BEENACABARET.” “IKNOW.IHAVEAVERY INTERESTINGFAMILY.” The four of us – two humans, two cavorting canines – make our way up the garden path to the house. In the kitchen, a large and welcoming room with windows on three sides and a chandelier overhead, the dogs collapse in a panting heap on the floor. I sit at the table, which is set for morning tea: floral-patterned cups and saucers, dainty little plates.Turner produces whipped cream and a dish of plum jam, pointing out that she made the jam herself and that it is really rather good.There is, however, some sad news on the culinary front. “I think I’ve fucked the scones,” she says. Turner is a grande dame of the Australian stage.Amply endowed with both star power and staying power, she has been a redoubtable figure in the national footlights for as long as most of us can remember. “The all-singing, all-dancing woman in the fabulous frocks,” is how she once summed up her showbiz persona.“The buxom lead who’s gonna lay ‘em in the aisles … The girl with the great big voice and the red hair.” Musical theatre is Turner’s natural milieu: she made her name with razzle-dazzle performances in shows like Chicago, Anything Goes, Call Me Madam and Guys and Dolls. Now, though, she is raising the tone of the proceedings.Adding some classical clout to the CV. More than a half-century after she began treading the boards, she is making her debut with Opera Australia. At the age of nine, she landed a small role in a production of The Sleeping Princess by the Borovansky Ballet, then Australia’s premier dance company. But not long after that, she started changing shape in a way that ended any chance of a future in tulle and toe-shoes. “I grew tits,” she says. “I didn’t have the body of a ballerina.” She concentrated on singing instead, which rankled with Isabell.“That’s because she was a singer,”Turner explains.“It was a jealousy thing.” Looking back, she believes her brothers held it against her that their mother gave her so much attention. But for Turner, the relationship with Isabell was crippling.“She was living through me and it stunted me somehow. I didn’t feel free to develop. I had to be her girl, who did things her way.” No matter how hard Turner tried, she seemed to fall short of expectations. “Nothing I ever did pleased her.” 41