Peeling away the facade
The Age
Thursday October 8, 2009
Dead Famous shows Melbourne's underworld war was far from glamorous, reports Paul Kalina. THEY weren't always household celebrities recognisable by their first names. Before he became better known as a pudgy, baby-faced killer, Carl Williams was a supermarket shelf-stacker. Mario Condello was the lawyer son of an immigrant family. Mark Moran was an unemployed pastry chef; after he was gunned down outside his $1.3 million suburban home in June 2000, initial newspaper reports identified him as a suburban football star.Whatever anonymity these underworld figures once had was well and truly blown out of the water when the gangland killings became the media story of the past decade.As the death toll passed 30, the gangland killings were plastered across newspapers, TV news and current affairs programs, and, even before the culprits had their day in court, Nine's 13-part drama Underbelly.It played out like a surreal cross between The Sopranos and a low-rent soap opera, peopled by "colourful" goombahs, wives and girlfriends who liked to get around in matching tracksuits and hairy-knuckle types you wouldn't want knocking on your front door.There was something for everyone in the saturation coverage, from damaging tales of corruption in high places to pin-up shots of gangsters' molls in girlie mags.Funnily, Terry Carlyon, the director, producer, cameraman and editor of a new documentary, Dead Famous, avoided watching Underbelly when it aired.While he feared it would influence his unmade documentary, he had also become "appalled" at the false celebrity that had attached itself to the underworld figures, at "how the crooks became celebrities in their own right"."They weren't celebrities," Carlyon says matter-of-factly today, "they're ruthless killers and I think the public went along with what was happening when the first 33 died."It was only when Jason Moran was shot in the van with Pasquale Barbaro with Moran's kids in the back that police realised they had to do something. They had to move, fast. I think that was the turning point."Built around the insights of John Silvester and Andrew Rule, Age crime reporters who have authored popular books on the gangland events, and a handful of key insiders on both sides of the law, Dead Famous is in many respects a necessary and timely corrective to how the leading figures have made their way into the public's consciousness.It is a clear-headed recounting of the events leading up to Carl Williams' jailing that peels back the veneer of glamorous gangsters as well as a police force that was above corruption within its own ranks.The documentary's broadcast coincides with a string of court trials relating to the murders of several gangland figures, which are subject to suppression orders preventing any mention of the trials' subjects or accused.Despite the reams of material produced on the topic and the limitations the suppression orders have placed on the filmmakers, Silvester believes it's a story that can only be made sense of with the passage of time."Nobody knew what it all meant, including the police, and as you saw it was a long time before the police responded with the Purana task force," he says. "Our job was to put it all together as best we could."Arguably, a surprisingly frank and candid interview that Police Commissioner Simon Overland gave Carlyon would not have been possible in the heady days of Williams' arrest and subsequent conviction."He [Overland] was prepared to say we dropped the ball. He didn't breast-beat, 'We won the war, aren't we great,"' Silvester explains. "He was prepared to examine [events] in the cool light of day ... and get away from the cliche of this is a war and there's a winner and a loser."But Carlyon makes no secret that he didn't want to focus solely on the gangland murders when he embarked on what would become Dead Famous."We originally put the idea of a three-part series to the ABC dealing with the history of crime in Australia from about 1900 to the present day," he says. "Part of that proposal included the gangland war in Melbourne."Eventually the ABC rejected that idea, having asked for it in the first place, and then asked if we'd be prepared to make a single hour on that subject."At first we weren't too keen. There'd been so much devoted to it we just thought we were covering old ground."I sat down with John and Andrew and we decided that we could add a story by telling it in a sober and de-glamorised way. I think we found a fresh approach to that, or I hope we did."That historical perspective would have revealed parallels and divergences between the criminal milieus of Squizzy Taylor, the so-called razor gangs of Sydney in the 1920s, the activities around the Painters and Dockers Union and current events.As we see in Dead Famous, the lucre of the gangland era was drugs, which allowed nobodies to become wealthy beyond their wildest dreams virtually overnight. Carl Williams went from being a supermarket shelf-stacker to a trafficker earning $100,000 a month.Unlike in eras gone by, the criminal activities weren't limited to a specific enclave, trade, social class or nationality. Nor did they involve so-called victimless crimes like bookmaking or gambling."The people we're dealing with cover a broad spectrum, from qualified lawyers, such as Mario Condello, to enormously successful business people to try-hards to hangers-on and people with clear psychological problems," Silvester says."Have a look at the pathology reports and see how many had prescription drugs in their system, antidepressants and sedatives. Many of them died frightened; they realised they'd gotten on a treadmill they couldn't get off."The lure of fame was a temptation many of the figures couldn't resist, Silvester argues."Jason Moran and Alphonse [Gangitano] were both offered get-out clauses. They could have gone overseas, where they could have lived as nobodies, but they preferred to return because they missed the notoriety, even with the risks associated. They wanted to be 'gang-stars'."Silvester doesn't excuse himself when it comes to discussing the role the media played in the celebrity cult that Dead Famous seeks to debunk."We in the media, I include myself, refer to colourful people, we refer to hitmen, we almost give them the honorific," he says. "And history shows that's not the case. We in Melbourne watched this almost as if we were extras in our own movie. The main characters were known by their christian names €” that's got to be the sign that you're a celebrity when you're known as Alphonse, Carl, Chopper, Roberta, Twiggy."That perception would have changed in the blink of an eye, Silvester says, had Jason Moran's shooter killed one of the children in the van or if a bystander at the football oval where the murder took place had intervened."It's just wrong to say there were no innocent victims, because those kids were traumatised," he says."Pasquale Barbaro was not an intended victim."It's a nonsense to say these cool hitmen only went after one another. When the bikies go to war, they don't care where it is €” kickboxing on the Gold Coast, a Sydney airport or a swap meet."It was, and continues to be, a unique set of circumstances that has allowed the gangland story to flourish. For instance, Mick Gatto, My Story will be published this month by the prestigious Melbourne University Press. Unlike most cask-wine style book launches, it was launched this week at a classy city restaurant."The story was of such interest it crossed age, gender, socio-economic grounds," Silvester says. "People from heart surgeons to high-school students were interested in the story and they were getting their fix from different areas of the media."Different areas of the media went after stories that they thought would go to their demographic." He says that whether it was the ABC or Ralph, they all looked for something that would interest their readers.According to Silvester, Roberta Williams and Mick Gatto can't walk down the street without being stopped by autograph seekers or people asking for a happy snap or a friend for their Facebook page."Elements of the media probably lost track of who was the actor and who was the real character. Having these people in the lounge room meant people could have a personal connection to them."The documentary's title is as ironic as it is blunt. For what Dead Famous also reveals is just how unsuccessful many of these "dead" but "famous" individuals were in their chosen careers.As wealthy as the dapper Gangitano may have appeared to be, when he died, Silvester says, his only real asset was a half share in a Lygon Street building his parents had given him."They didn't realise that the best crooks make a bit of money and then live quiet lives and have an air of respectability," he says."Carl wanted to be rich and infamous. We had a time where the crooks were holding press conferences and the cops were saying no comment. Any crook with half a brain knows that that kind of high profile is crazy."Dead Famous premieres at 8.30pm tonight on ABC1.
© 2009 The Age
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