Lenore Nicklin, The Sydney Morning Herald, August 20, 1977, p. 11.
You know you’re getting close to Doyle Dane Bernbach when you hit the car-park. There are six cars there — the boss’s Rolls-Royce, a Jaguar, three Porsches and a Mercedes.
Proceed to reception. A beautiful black girl sits behind a roll-top desk in a total-tan office. And then upstairs to what used to be a Bonython child’s bedroom in the old Bonython Art Gallery days but which is now the office of John Singleton, managing director of DDB, genius of ocker advertising, disciple of Ayn Rand and co-founder of the Workers’ Party. A small “l” libertarian.
Singleton, charged with light and energy, is a sharp contrast to the blackness all around — black carpet, black curtains, enormous black leather chairs, black walls, ceiling and light-fittings. He is 35 years old, with true-blue eyes and bleached blond hair and a ruddy suntanned face and a cut above his left eye and a light-coloured safari-style suit which Mark Treloar should have left on the cutting-room floor. You know he is wearing an Yves Saint Laurent tie because it’s got YSLs all over it. His watch is a $3,000 Patek Philippe.
That’s not a skier’s suntan he’s wearing — he is just back from a week of campaigning in the Northern Territory for the Progress (formerly Workers’) Party. Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek, Alice Springs.
Singleton beams a 300-watt g’day-cobber welcome and introduces you to a man in a black blazer and check trousers who is Johnny Raper. Singleton’s football coach and good mate and star of the Singleton Jax tyres television commercials. Singleton and Raper are talking football talk — Singleton plays hooker with the Lane Cove fourths and the semi-final is on Saturday. They’ve had 18 wins in a row. Hooker’s a bad position — you get knocked around a bit. “I have a new face every Monday morning,” says Singleton.
The next minute he’s on the phone to his mate John Laws and the next to mate Joe Martin who had put on a dinner party the night before and in between, on a second phone, he’s talking to a television station asking for an option on the film The Graduate until late Monday afternoon.
Mateship may have been born on the banks of the Murrumbidgee but it thrives here amid lushness and blackness and chrome. Singleton’s mates include Sinclair Hill and Kerry Packer, and Ian Kennon, a television executive and Charlie McMo[????], a contact lens specialist, and a whole bunch of footballers. Singleton would put his hand in the fire for his mates. The tea lady would tell you that.
At 11 am the tea lady arrives — with lunch. Healthy Vogel bread, ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches. Singleton has to appear on the Mike Walsh show at 12 to promote his Rip Van Australia book, then catch a plane to Melbourne for an appearance on Mike Preston’s program. Eleven o’clock will be the last chance to eat for a while.
Lunches don’t get a big priority at Doyle Dane Bernbach. The staff — there are nearly 60 of them — are not allowed lunch hours, not allowed to entertain clients, not allowed to drink before 5.30. They get paid too well to complain.
No one has to ask for a raise; one of the reasons Singleton set up his own agency was that when he deserved a raise, his employers didn’t give him one, and he wasn’t going to ask.
If Singleton, the man who hates rules, bans alcohol it is probably because he knows its demon qualities — the sunny, milkshake-drinking Singleton of high noon has been known at midnight, after too many whiskies, to become somewhat obstreperous.
Two things are worrying Singleton as he munches his sandwiches. Why aren’t his Private Collection records selling when the previous Masterpiece series was a sellout —probably the most profitable record series of the year. He holds up the records to show off the covers — gems of good taste from the DDB art department. Liszt, Verdi, Mozart, Tchaikovsky and the rest. Gentle landscapes. Soft romantic colours.
“Why don’t you people write about the beautiful things we do?” he asks. Munch, munch. He decides to take out a couple of boxes to Channel 10 and give them away on the Mike Walsh show — “If I’m going to flog books I may as well flog records as well.”
The other problem is how to sell fourteen million square feet of Sydney’s empty office space. What would I do? he asks. “Turn some of the office towers into living areas — half and half.” It’s the wrong answer. Too expensive; rents would be too high. The phone rings again. “The only reason for doing anything is to make a quid — right? What we’ll do is …”
Sometimes he forgets to drop his gs. He was born in Surry Hills but those working-class-kid-made-good stories are a bit exaggerated. His father was factory production manager. Singleton was educated at Fort Street High; when he couldn’t get a cadetship with a newspaper he became an office boy for J. Walter Thompson. He embarked briefly and part-time on a couple of university courses. He failed the advertising section of the economics paper.
*****
It is a splendid day so Singleton presses a button and the soft top of the black Rolls-Royce Corniche magically disappears. He doesn’t fasten his safety belt. “I used to wear them before they made them compulsory,” he says. “Kill myself to prove a point. Not too bright.” (The self-deprecating final sentence is almost a speech pattern.)
Is this a nice car to drive, I ask. “No, it’s just like a Holden. You put it in D for Drive.” He’s not even joking. Anyway, it was end of Rolls-Royce’s reputation when he and John Laws bought ’em. He selects a cassette — Tex Morton singing the Where d’yer get it song. Among the other cassettes are The Doobie Brothers, The Rocky Horror Show, Gladys Knight and the Pips. Mozart is missing.
Over the bridge we go, the sun sparkling on the water, the Opera House gleaming. “It’s a great harbour, a great city — this country has everything except bloody people,” he says. The sight of the buses lined up outside Channel 9 depresses him. “Mike’s got his buses of blue rinses here. Mike the mediocre man.” First, he has to attend a meeting with production executives to discuss an idea for a special program. (I am asked not to reveal the details.) Singleton is wildly enthusiastic. “It would set a new low in Australian television,” he says and he is right.
Down to the studio. Dame Enid Lyons emerges and Singleton, who has been watching on the monitor in the make-up room, says: “You were great, love.” Dame Enid looks pleased, which is more than the blue rinse set do when he announced on camera that the Queen is merely an attraction like Disneyland, that beaches should not be free and that Australia is the most apathetic country in the world. The women sniff their disapproval. Singleton is also displeased Walsh hasn’t been bothered to read his book.
Singleton’s next meeting is at 1.30 in Frenchs Forest. His general manager, Col Dennis, will also be coming. There’s time for a milkshake. “The best milkshake spot is at Tamarama,” he says. “Never go to a fish-and-chip shop for milkshakes.” He tells me what to expect at the meeting. The main idea of meetings is how quickly you can get out of them — it’s more important to get out within half an hour than to get the account. He doesn’t know who he will be seeing or why — that would be too dreary.
The meeting takes place in the boardroom. Col Dennis and the would-be client do most of the talking. Singleton seems a bit bored (can he be this laconic — this lazy?) and suggests that DDB would probably not be the best agency to handle this particular product. Maybe this is a boardroom game. The would-be client mentions what his budget would be — $300,000. Singleton shows a flicker of interest. Maybe … maybe … We leave after half an hour, having arranged for two of the creative people from the agency to come and discuss a few possibilities.
“We get more people ringing us about business in a day than most people would in a year,” says Singleton, walking out into the sunshine. Back at the television studio a young singer on the program had written him a note, photograph attached, which said, “I am desperately in need of management …”
Sometimes it is as if people look on him as a miracle worker, a talisman — be touched by John Singleton and you, too, can be successful. The magic? “He’s a natural, brilliant copywriter,” says an (opposition) agency person I talk to. “A walking brainstorm.”
“He has a completely open mind on any subject he looks at, is able to see the opportunities and then go all the way with them,” says bearded Duncan McAllan, who has worked with Singleton since both were in their early twenties. (Singleton once got a £100-a-week job being advertised by Berry Currie by offering both himself and McAllan as art director for the money — Singleton took £30 and paid McAllan £70.)
McAllan gives an example. Singleton sees funny discount place. Discount shops are at the time very unrespectable. Singleton asks how would you make such a place respectable — you’d need God on your side. Or next best thing. Singleton spends three months finding a minister of religion to do the commercials. Enter the Rev Barry Howard who wouldn’t do these commercials if they weren’t genuine. The great success saga of Norman Ross discount stores is begun.
*****
“It’s not a typical day,” says Singleton. He’s back at the wheel of the Rolls on his way to the airport. Maggi Eckardt, the television compere and former model who became Mrs John Singleton last November, is along for the overnight trip to Melbourne. Miss Eckardt, elegant, willowy and unocker, is wearing a head-turning mink coat over black velvet pants and a grey satin shirt. She is a little wary of the press since a Melbourne newspaper ran an unfriendly interview describing her as The Bride of Frankenstein.
Unfriendliness is everywhere. In the first-class compartment a passenger, recognising Singleton, hands him a marked copy of the day’s Melbourne Herald in which Singleton is described as “openly, unashamedly, theatrically, exuberantly silly.”
Singleton is not too worried by these comments. “To tell you the truth I’m getting pretty bloody bored with this book — maybe the Russians have got the right idea with just one bloody news service.” It is after 6.30 but he is sticking to tomato juice. He notices that a horse called Free Enterprise has won the fourth at Randwick. “There’s hope for us yet,” he says, then buries his head in a copy of Rugby League Week.
(Singleton’s interest in football is being challenged by his interest in horses. In the past 12 months he has become a part-owner of 20 brood-mares, and a filly called Genuine Offer is soon to have her first run.)
There’s time for a quick meal and two bottles of French champagne on the way to the Channel O studious. Singleton pays the bill and the waiter says: “You are not only handsome, Mr Singleton, but generous as well.” The taxidriver worries about getting to the studio on time.
“What’s your name, mate?”
“Emil.”
“Where are you from, mate?”
“Croatia.”
“Good on you, mate.”
Emil turns out to be as anti-government as Singleton. Singleton invites him in to see the show and Emil accepts. Emil may well end up in a television commercial.
Singleton is in a buoyant mood. He comes after a demonstration by a RAAF security dog on the show. “It’s good to know Australia has more than two ships — it’s got a dog.” (Defence is the one area in which he would have governments spend big money.)
Mike Walsh, bludgers and those with literary grants all come under attack. Australia is a land where mediocrity is the new God. Walsh is the Messiah of mediocrity. Mike Preston and the audience are both enjoying the performance. A Channel O employee regards the audience and says: “For once they haven’t got rent-a-corpse.”
The next morning at 6.15 Singleton is for the first time subdued. He wasn’t able to get to sleep, he says, after reading Les Carlyon’s review of his book in The Age.
(Carlyon says Singleton wants to play comedian and serious philosopher in the one act, that he is slick, shallow, unsubtle, and that in striving for seriousness he has ruined a great gag book.)
Ouch. Carlyon hurts. It is a cold, windy morning, the sky streaked with spectacular red. Singleton regards the dawn: “There — that’s worth getting up for,” he says, and then corrects himself. “No, it’s not.”
On the plane, steak for breakfast cheers him up a bit. The day ahead will be full of meetings. Office space and mattresses have to be thought about. That evening he is to address a real estate dinner at North Rocks. He gets invited to speak all the time — charges $500 for the ones he wants to do, $1,000 for the ones he doesn’t want to do. “The funny thing is I’m such a crook speaker,” he says. At 7 o’clock the following morning he will be back on a plane to Melbourne.
What he enjoys most about his work is solving the problems. How to sell office space, mattresses, Kung Fu pyjamas? Concept is all. The Thorn Birds, he argues, would have been a very dull book has Colleen McCullogh not been paid a record $1.7 million for the paperback rights and Babe a boring fragrance has not Margaux Hemingway been paid a million to promote it.
And he enjoys the writing, too. It can take him just 60 seconds to write a 60-second commercial. He loves writing the Women’s Weekly commercials when they let him.
Is he surprised at his own success?
“Yeah, it’s ridiculous,” he says.
The big surprise was the $2 million that Doyle Dane Bernbach were prepared to pay for his agency SPASM. A Sydney financial wizard had arranged the deal.
“I couldn’t have kept a straight face and asked that much for it. I’m the absolute walking, talking example that anyone can succeed.”
I tell him I don’t believe it would be that easy. And it wasn’t. Ten thousand metres up in the air he tells me about that fresh-faced young Singleton who at the age of 20 got sacked because he wasn’t good enough. And the young Singleton figured he might be good enough and started to work hard indeed. And young Singleton and young Duncan McAllan formed SAM, and then the son of SAM which was SPASM.
And young Singleton worked from 5 am and 6 am to 9 pm and 10 pm and weekends and Christmas and Melbourne Cup days and one year he bawled out member of his staff for watching a man take a walk on the moon. He was ashamed of that later and apologised. He realises now he was fanatical.
“But there was no reason for us to survive or to succeed or get where we did. The only thing that did it was energy. I was only 26. At that age you can do any bloody thing. You can later on, too, but you think you might fail.”
*****
On Saturday Singleton played with the Lane Cove fourths and the team lost. Down 6-3. Saturday’s papers showed Rip Van Australia in the best-seller lists, but Sunday’s papers showed that the Progress Party didn’t a get a seat in the Northern Territory. It’s hard to play comedian and philosopher and hooker as well. Some weeks John Singleton wears his Monday face right through till Friday.
