Australian screen legend Paul Hogan is being celebrated as Crocodile Dundee marks its 40th anniversary, with his granddaughter offering a personal insight into the man behind the fame.
Speaking on Sunrise, Mylee Hogan, who is a reporter for 7News, shared that despite his global success, her grandfather has always valued a much simpler role.
“I’ve asked him what is your favourite job ever? And forget being a movie star, he said to me that his favourite job ever was when he was a lifeguard at the local pool in Granville,” she said.
“Because he could sit there, everyone could swim, shirt off, in the sunshine, smoke a ciggie and just have a good day.”
The insight comes as the 1986 film that made Hogan an international star reaches a major milestone.
While Crocodile Dundee has long been part of her life growing up in Australia, Mylee said its global impact became clearer after she moved to the United States.
“Now that I live here in the United States, and I get around, and people hear the accent or ask you what your name is, and you’ll say, ‘Oh, Mylee Hogan’, and they’ll go ‘Hogan, like Paul Hogan?’,” she said.
“Or they’ll deliver a line like ‘Throw another shrimp on the barbie’.
“Then I guess I realised just the lasting impact and how massive it has been, which is just surreal.”
Released in 1986, Crocodile Dundee introduced international audiences to Australian humour and culture, going on to gross more than $300 million worldwide and becoming one of the country’s most successful films.
Mylee said she had called her grandfather to mark the anniversary, adding he still finds the scale of the film’s success surprising.
She said he would be “absolutely touched” by the messages from fans celebrating the milestone, four decades after the film first appeared on screens.
Image: Sunrise
