Sydney - Never underestimate the box-office power of former Sydney Harbour Bridge scaffolder-turned-millionaire actor-producer Paul Hogan. Charlie & Boots, his latest film, earned twice as much on its opening weekend as the next best local feature.
Not bad for an entertainer pushing 70 who never needed to work again after charming the world with his signature Mick Dundee role in the 1986 box office hit Crocodile Dundee.
Charlie & Boots, a low-budget road movie directed by Dean Murphy, apparently gave Australians the escapism they craved in a year of global financial crisis.
"Often, audiences just want to go see a feel-good movie, something that's a bit of fun and lighthearted, and have a laugh and an enjoyable experience," said Murphy. "That's the audience we have been lucky enough to appeal to."
It's the audience that Hogan has always appealed to. He sees himself as an entertainer rather than a serious artist and for four decades has seemed both surprised and delighted at his popularity and worldly success.
"I think I had the big advantage on most people in this business that I never wanted to be in it," he said. "And I wasn't for the first 32 years of my life. I had proper jobs and no money."
He's admired by some for being a self-made man, having written, financed, directed and acted in Australia's most successful film.
Crocodile Dundee earned Hogan a Golden Globe for Best Actor and an Oscar nomination for best screenplay. That success came after he was named Australian of the Year for his work encouraging foreigners to visit his homeland.
For some, though, Hogan is a national embarrassment. They say that in Crocodile Dundee he presented a hard-handed ideal of the Australian male, someone who can fight and drink but who can't think or appreciate the arts.
"Paul Hogan made himself an emblem of Australian-ness - and sold it to the world," Time magazine wrote.
But his Australian-ness was both genuine and contrived, with Hogan himself admitting to being a "bit smarter than I make out on the old telly."
As testimony that he's more than a cheery-faced charmer, Hogan is engaged in a fierce high-stakes battle with the Australian Tax Office over claims of tax avoidance using shady Caribbean trusts, flash foreign money-men and offshore bank accounts accessed though High Street teller machines.
Hogan takes pride in his financial success, in having had more people pay to see Crocodile Dundee than went through the turnstiles for art-house director Baz Luhrmann's Australia.
"I have trouble with people that take themselves too seriously," he said. "And I don't sort of get on with people who polish their craft and go to the edge of the envelope. I say 'Come on, we are in the entertainment business, we are entertainers, 300 years ago they were doing summersaults with little hats and bells.'"
He's not one to agonize over his wealth, tour refugee camps or adopt orphans. He once said he always laughed when lottery winners ruminated on what the future held for them.
"It's like people win the lottery and they say, 'I'll still keep my job and nothing will change, I'll live in the old house.' I always think, 'Take the money back off him!' If you win the lottery, enjoy it," he said.
