John Wood’s later-life regret: ‘I wish I’d spent more time with Mum and Dad’

John Wood is best known for his acting abilities, having appeared in a string of popular shows over the years including Rafferty’s Rules and Blue Heelers, but for the past year, the Australian actor, 74, has been busy writing his memoir How I Clawed My Way to the Middle. And to John’s surprise, the process was quite emotional.

Speaking in an exclusive chat with Starts at 60 John said it wasn’t until he started delving into his past that he realised how much he missed his parents.

“It’s something you never think of,” John said. “And I sort of spent most of my teens keeping my distance from my parents. I’ve discovered that I really regret not having spent more time with them. I still miss my parents.

“Dad [has] been dead for nearly 30 years now, and it’s one of those things, you do something and you think ‘I must tell Dad about this’ and you can’t, you’ve missed your chance, so that was [a] big realisation.”

While he’s known to many as Senior Sergeant Tom Croydon or Michael Rafferty, before John was a television star, he was working jobs as a bricklayer, railway clerk and even in the same abattoir as his father, all while pursuing his acting dreams in amateur theatre.

“Well, for some reason I always did want to be an actor,” he said. “I have no idea where the urge came from. I don’t regret those experiences. I think it sort of gave me a sense of maturity that the people around me didn’t have. But thank god it happened in the end.”

After his stint at the railways and abattoir, John won a scholarship to the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney and starred in a number of theatre productions. But in 1987, when John was 41, his life changed — he got a part in the legal drama Rafferty’s Rules.

“I think just having to be in the right place at the right time is really a big part of an acting career,” he said. “You know the opportunity comes along and you’re just lucky enough to be there. I was blessed with luck more than talent, I think, in that situation, it was a great show to do.”

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. John lived in Sydney for the duration of the show, while his wife Leslie, with whom he is now separated, and two daughters stayed in Melbourne.

“I wished I managed to keep the family together more than I did, but that’s the nature of the business,” he recalled. “You have to go where the work is and Rafferty’s Rules was too good of a job to knock back. In hindsight, I probably would [have] made a different decision.

John went on to become one of the best-known faces on Australian television, so much so he was nominated for a Gold Logie nine times in a row for his role in the long-running police drama Blue Heelers, finally culminating in a win in 2006. While John was thrilled, he described the win as bittersweet because Blue Heelers had just been cancelled.

“I thought it was a really sad way to finish the show,” he said. “It was a pity after 10 years of nominations to finally win when the show had gone. [However], to be one of the five most popular actors on television for 10 years in a row was pretty wonderful.”

Now, 14 years later, the beloved Aussie actor has no plans on slowing down. John is looking to do a new season of hit comedy theatre show Senior Moments and is working on a new television series about a retirement village.

“If we can get that happening, it’d been an opportunity for older actors to do some work,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll be one of them, I think I’ll just stick to writing.”