Chips Rafferty

John William Pilbean Goffage MBE (26 March 190927 May 1971), known professionally as Chips Rafferty, was an Australian actor. Called "the living symbol of the typical Australian", Rafferty's career stretched from the late 1930s until he died in 1971, and during this time he performed regularly in major Australian feature films as well as appearing in British and American productions, including The Overlanders and The Sundowners. He appeared in commercials in Britain during the late 1950s, encouraging British emigration to Australia. Early days John William Pilbean Goffage was born at Billy Goat Hill, near Broken Hill, New South Wales to John Goffage, an English-born stock agent, and Australian-born Violet Maude Joyce. Gaining the nickname "Chips" as a school boy, Rafferty studied at Parramatta Commercial School before working in a variety of jobs, including opal miner, sheep shearer, drover, RAAF officer and pearl diver. At age 16, Rafferty began an apprenticeship as an iron moulder at Clyde Engineering Works. Film career Rafferty was in his thirties when he made his debut at Cinesound Studios. He made his first film debut in the comedy Ants in His Pants in 1938, as an extra, produced by Ken G. Hall. At that time, he managed a wine cellar in Bond Street, Sydney. Rafferty caught the acting bug and got another unbilled role, as one of several inept firemen in Hall's Dad Rudd, M.P. (1940). Forty Thousand Horsemen Rafferty leapt to international fame when cast as one of the three leads in Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940), a film directed by Charles Chauvel that focused on the Battle of Beersheba in 1917. Rafferty had been cast after a screen test. Chauvel described him as "a cross between Slim Summerville and James Stewart, and has a variety of droll yet natural humour." He played a laconic tall bushman. Forty Thousand Horsemen was enormously popular and was screened throughout the world, becoming one of the most-seen Australian films made to that point. Although the film's romantic leads were Grant Taylor (actor) and Betty Bryant, Rafferty's performance received much acclaim.