Dusty Springfield

Many would know her as undoubtedly the finest blue eyed and blonde white soul singers of all time, but as with many great artists, behind all the apparent glitz and glamour there lay great troubles often kept out of view of the adoring fans.

In the case of Springfield it was such problems, both personal and professional, that truly serve to perpetuate her now mythical status. That and the heartfelt tenure within her voice, which helped in sketching out a life that wreaked with chronic self doubt and driven by the need for attaining absolute perfection in her singing. It was these two polar extremes towards her craft and her reportedly wild mood swings that gave her a reputation of being difficult to work with, along with an insatiable drug and alcohol intake and relationships that swung to both sexes, and it's all being recounted in 'Dusty: The Original Pop Diva', a multi-million dollar Australian production starring Tamsin Carroll as the sometimes reluctant fallen starlet, and Deni Hines as Reno; a fictitious composite character of many of Springfield's musical cohorts and lovers.

Featuring no less than forty songs, many of which are bone-fide Springfield staples (I Only Want To Be With You, Wishin' And Hopin', The Windmills Of Your Mind, Son Of A Preacher Man and You Don't Have To Say You Love Me'), this show also celebrates a career that spanned over four decades of great hits.

Deni Hines was in town recently and over orange juice and questionable potato chips, we discuss the iconic Springfield, her ideas and aspirations, and her morbid ambition to become a coroner outside of show business.

"I think that they had me in mind," she says of the audition process, "but I don't think they would've then given it to me if I was not able to fulfil the role. So they must've seen something in the audition that then made them think that they could work with me and I think it was a big gamble for them to take on a non-actor to take on an acting role."

Wait on, haven't you... "Hey," she interrupts my next question. "I haven't done acting. In '[Jesus Christ] Superstar' everything was sung and you don't speak anything, now I have dialect and I'm speaking in an American accent and I think that's a big challenge for me but then again, they must've seen something that made them think I'd be able to cope with it. It's funny, but I don't consider myself an actress," she reiterates. "Many people have said that I am but I'm not, I'm a singer who's acting at this moment so yeah, maybe one day I might become an actress after this."

But as Pippin, even though you're singing your part, aren't you still acting out the motions as well? "Yeah, kind of," Hines concedes the point, "but I kind of think of singing as not acting and that it's easy for me to tell a story in a song, it's a little harder to tell that story when you're speaking because you then have to put all the emotions in without the backing of music. You have to get things across in like, four lines at a time."

Not being any one person in particular from Dusty's tumultuous life, I wondered how hard it was to become focused on the character of Reno.

"I find it really, really simple because who am I?" she questions. "I'm based on several people and I don't know any of them but I know that she had some rough partners and some really gentle partners so I kind of just play the role from both sides. There's times where I'm gentle and then there's other times where I'm like the girl from Detroit who you don't want to fuck with. Dusty doesn't always go to Reno for support, but Reno's always there for her in her own way, like she's always reminding Dusty that she's great and amazing, you know?

"She's always giving her confidence but there's not actually a time in the play where Dusty turns to Reno and says, 'Tell me that I'm good'. She does say at one point after we break up that she needs me and that I make her a better person." But rather than Reno focusing such knowledge towards Dusty, what Deni says to Tamsin is; "Well, I try to big her up. It's a tough industry and she has to sing a lot and sometimes her voice goes on her, and I'll be like, 'Honey, you don't know how to do a bad performance so just get out there and kick-arse Dusty!'

"She's a great girl and she's young and she's working her butt off, and it's a big gig for her and there's a lot of stress there for her to do this incredibly well because Dusty was such an icon that anyone who takes on this role has to play it truthfully and honourably. But she doesn't need to stress about it because she does it beautifully and gets a standing ovation every night. So that's where I try to help Tamsin more than Dusty."

Steve Jones



'Dusty' opens on Thurs 27 July at the Festival Theatre