‘I was a massive flirt’: Paul Hogan’s rare interview on fame and marriage

He made global headlines for his iconic role in Aussie classic Crocodile Dundee and now in a rare interview Paul Hogan has opened up about his life in the spotlight and the effects fame had on his family and his first marriage.

From the beginning of his career and the struggle his kids went through as their dad became a household name, to the controversial relationship the Akubra-wearing talent had with his co-star Linda Kozlowski, Hogan has shared all in a two part series of the ABC’s Australian Story. While Aussies will know the 79-year-old from his early days on TV with New Faces, to his regular appearances on Mike Willesee’s A Current Affair, it was in the 1980s when he became a world-wide name.

His character Mike Dundee was well-loved by those across the globe, as the star gave everyone an insight into what life in the Land Down Under could be like. But it wasn’t always lights, cameras and action for Hogan who grew up in Sydney and began a family from a young age.

The larrikin’s romance with first wife Noelene Edwards was sparked while he was working at a swimming pool as a lifeguard as a teen. Speaking about the early days, the star admitted he was a “massive flirt” and before long the two were married with three kids in tow, and then a further two.

“I was a massive flirt, I like her and she liked me and we got married,” Hogan explained on Australian Story. “I was a dad at 19. I actually had three sons by the time I was 22. So I had to grow up very fast.” He added: “But I sort of dug it, I loved it. And we grew up together, me and my kids.”

Though Hogan remained close with his kids, the pressure of having a famous father was challenging for the children who had to pack up and leave everything they loved behind as the star’s fame grew. This is something Hogan was well aware of, admitting on Australian Story: “It was hard for all my kids then. It was thrust into a limelight.”

Sharing his side of the story on the ABC program, Hogan’s son Todd explained there were difficulties with having a dad in the spotlight. He said as a kid at school he was continuously picked out because of Hogan’s celebrity status, even if it wasn’t intentional.

“The big thing as a kid I suppose was we moved,” he told Australian Story. “We were entrenched in the western suburbs … I loved it there. And I just remember we were going to move away from all our mates.

“The first day we changed schools I got hauled up by the teacher and made to stand up in front of everyone and got told I wasn’t going to be specially treated. So obviously I was already being specially treated for not doing anything. So I hated that. And then everything came, ‘Is he really your father?’ blah, blah.”

All the while Hogan’s fame was rising, his wife Noelene was busy taking on the stay-at-home mum role. This is something that Todd thinks back to quite fondly, describing his mother as a Carol Brady type. “She was a terrific mum, she was Carol Brady, that sort of thing,” he explained. “It was chops on Monday, sausages on Tuesday, all that we knew was coming.”

However, things took a turn for Noelene when Hogan took on the role of Mike Dundee in the popular movie and began to develop a close relationship with his co-star Linda Kozlowski. Though he apparently “wasn’t interested” in who would play the character of the American reporter, that all changed with Linda arrived in Australia and sparks began to fly.

Speaking about their time filming together and those early days getting to know each other, Hogan praised Linda for her acting abilities and said her first opinion of him what that he was quite a closed off person. “She thought I was a little bit aloof, or a little bit, uh, closed,” Hogan explained.

“She went to Juilliard, most famous theatrical school in America, she went there on a scholarship, so she was already a really good actress, I was a sort of make it up as I go along.” While the two bumped heads a bit to begin with, Crocodile Dundee director Peter Faiman claimed it was obvious there was a real connection between the two on screen and in real life.

Faiman said their “rather difficult association” manifested into a closer relationship as the movie was being made and developed in sequence with filming. “As the movie went on, they understood each other better and better and better. A lot of what we saw on air was true life,” he said.

After divorcing his then wife Noelene for the second time in 1986, Hogan went on to marry Linda in 1990 and they had one child together. Though that connection unfortunately didn’t stand the test of time, with the two parting ways and divorcing in 2013.

This is something Hogan is yet to address in the second part of the Australian Story segment. In a preview of an upcoming episode, the actor can be heard saying: “I’m not a great husband … I’m good early.”