Checkpoint Charlie

A Humble Man With A Hollywood Connection

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

If you rent the DVD, you'll see his name on the credits. Which movie? I'll reveal all in a moment. But this is not about the movie; it's more about Indian-born Charles Waring. He just isn't the sort of bloke to amble up to you in a pub and tell you about the two years he spent on a Hollywood movie. The Melbourne resident, a father of three, is so modest that he doesn't volunteer much information.

But even he was gobsmacked when he walked into an impromptu interview and was hired on the spot for the 1992 movie City of Joy.

He was the local accountant for the film, and says it was literally the experience of a lifetime. The movie, based on the novel of the same name by Dominique LaPierre, was shot initially in Calcutta and then on the sets of Bombay - and he was there, a crucial part in the whole project. (Anyone who pays movie stars is crucial, right?)

Twist his arm and he'll tell you about how Patrick Swayze used to walk into his office at the Oberoi Grand Hotel in Calcutta and sit down to catch up with the latest news. I asked him if he had ever told his colleagues at Onesteel Piping Systems about his Hollywood connection - and he just chuckled. Implicit in his reaction was the feeling that no one would believe him.

The film starred Patrick Swayze as the American doctor, Max Lowe; Pauline Collins as Joan Bethel; Art Malik as local tough Ashok Ghatak; and the accomplished Indian stars Om Puri as Hasari Pal and Shabana Azmi as his wife Kamala.

I remembered that there were reports in the Indian press at the time, about how Patrick Swayze had invited some street children into the opulent Grand Hotel for a swim. I asked Charles about this story and he put me right. The script called for the set to be flooded for one crucial scene - and the Hollywood star was simply trying to ensure that the kids (who had parts in the film) knew the basics of swimming.

Charles very kindly agreed to let me photograph him for the purpose of this blogpost. While I shot some frames in the rapidly fading evening light, I asked him if he had ever taken out the DVD and proved to his children that he had brushed shoulders with Hollywood.

He just grinned. It was confession time. He doesn't have a copy of the DVD.