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Gary Waddell dies aged 74: the brilliant Australian actor who turned small roles into great ones

Gary Waddell, the celebrated Australian actor who possessed an uncanny knack for making rough-edged characters feel startlingly familiar, has passed away at 74. Over many years, he was a constant presence in Australian cinema and television, often playing gritty roles despite rarely receiving the screen exposure his talent merited.

His career ignited with a memorable, weary-eyed and agitated performance in Bert Deling's underground drug drama Pure Shit, a film so controversial that its debut public showing in 1976 was interrupted by a vice squad raid. This genuinely outstanding movie—widely regarded as the finest Australian work about heroin addiction and its surrounding subculture—was once labeled "the most evil film I've ever seen" by Melbourne Herald critic Andrew McKay (a clear example of over-the-top reaction, though, as they note, it was a different era). The film remains a gripping piece of social realism, packed with drug use, petty crime, and chaotic behavior, centered on Waddell's character Lou, who appears five minutes in, complaining that he "hasn't had a hit for 10 hours."