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Clip description
In dramatic re-enactment Harold Holt (Phillip Ross) is talking to Jack, a fisherman. By chance Holt meets his friend Marjorie Gillespie (Maureen Edwards). In the documentary interview, Holt’s widow, Dame Zara Bate, recalls her husband’s womanising ways.
Curator’s notes
The dramatic re-enactments in The Harold Holt Mystery shed light on the private life of the Prime Minister – a side hidden from the public but not from his wife, Dame Zara. Her revelations about Holt are startling in their candour and the humorous manner in which they’re recalled. Seen here fleetingly, Marjorie Gillespie emerges as a major figure in Holt’s secret life. In 1967, it was still possible for the Australian prime minister to drive his own car to the seaside and chat to locals like Jack the fisherman without any bodyguards. Jack even calls him 'mate’.
