May 2: PROSTABLOG NZ: Does the world now have a new prostate pin-up boy, a new hero? Well, anti-hero, actually.
It may be the late Aussie Bob – real name Robert Trimbole – the 1970s Australia drug baron and mafia figure brought back to life by NZ actor Roy Billing in a riveting Australian TV docu-drama Underbelly: The Mr Asia Story, currently showing on TV3 in NZ.
He’s on the right in this photo with actor Matthew Newton, who plays Kiwi drug lord Terry Clark, main figure in the Mr Asia drug saga.
In this week’s episode, Trimbole’s doctor (and drugs co-conspirator) told him he’s got prostate cancer.
It was something we all suspected, since he seems to dash off to the loo at the most inopportune times.
Trimbole takes the news in his stride and gets back to talking drug deals with the doc.
But in the next scene he does something interesting and perhaps illuminating of the macho male: when his mistress asks him what the tests showed, he says he’s clear: “The doc says we’ll be at it like [rabbits] till we die.”
Does he (did he) die of prostate cancer?
We don’t know yet. We do know he escapes to Ireland and later to a villa in Spain, where he dies in 1981 at what seems a premature age of 56.
A popular Australian blog in which questions about the real life Mr Asia drug escapades are answered by a former corrupt Sydney cop, Roger Rogerson (left), carries this enigmatic entry:
“I suppose the only thing that did happen was that Trimbole died from what ever disease he had had, if you watched last night’s Underbelly, it’s obviously prostate cancer. But we’ll have to wait to find out.”
Roger Rogerson was a detective with the NSW Police at the time of the Mr Asia goings-on, and was released from his second stint in prison in 2006.
Who does Trimbole/Billing replace as one of the best-known prostate sufferers in popular entertainment?
Probably Private Godfrey (left) of Dad’s Army, the 70s British TV comedy series that depicted a bunch of home guard recruits and their adventures guarding Britain’s shores during World War II.
Played by actor Arnold Ridley, he was always having to rush off to pee, much to the derision of platoon commander Captain Mainwaring.
Roy Billing as Robert Trimbole will be seen on TV a lot more in Australasia as the programme’s makers work on the third part to the Underbelly series, which will feature Trimbole’s escape, and futile attempts by the Australian government to extradite him from Ireland and Spain.
Trimbole had more tests in Ireland and was eventually (in 1984) found to have advanced prostate cancer which had spread to other parts of his body and would eventually kill him.
Prostablog 