By NOEL MURPHY
LECTURER Derham Groves, one of Geelong’s finest expert exports, is riding high working on a pet project about one of the world’s biggest celebrities of the 1950s – Hopalong Cassidy.
Dr Groves is on the lookout for anyone who saw the movie and TV cowboy superstar when he visited Melbourne in 1954.
The four-day visit of Hopalong Cassidy’s alter ego, actor William Boyd, drew the largest crowds Melbourne would see until the arrival of The Beatles a decade later.
Dr Groves, who was raised and educated in Geelong, is compiling a book on the spurred, 10-gallon-topped star.
“Hopalong Cassidy attracted huge – and I really mean huge – crowds wherever he went,” Dr Groves said.
“He rode down Lonsdale St with Santa Claus on a Christmas float to attend a children’s party at Myers. Approximately 100,000 gathered in the street to see him.
“He appeared at Wirth’s Circus in Batman Avenue. Four thousand tickets were sold but 12,000 people turned up. Two circus elephants were used to control the almost-rioting crowd.”
“People forget how big he was but the blokes who were about eight to 12 years old at the time still remember it like it was yesterday.’’
Dr Groves asked anyone with information to email him at derham@unimelb.edu.au or phone 8344 7167.
