John William Pilbean Goffage MBE (1909 - 1971)

Born 26 Mar 1909 in Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia

Ancestors

Husband of Colina (Ferguson) Goffage — married 16 Nov 1935 (to 1941) in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Husband of Ellen Kathleen (Jameson) Goffage — married 28 May 1941 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Died 27 May 1971 at age 62 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

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• Visit : VWMA Virtual Memorial John Goffage MBE . . . and photo . .
  

Biography

John Goffage MBE is Notable.

John Goffage MBE was born in New South Wales, Australia

John William Pilbean "Chips Rafferty" Goffage ^[1] (1909-1971), actor, was born on 26 March 1909 at Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia, eldest child of John Goffage, an agent from England, and his native-born wife Violet Joyce. Nicknamed Chips by his schoolmates, he was educated in country towns and at Parramatta Intermediate Boys' High School. He learned to ride and to box, and developed a lifelong love of painting.
Apprenticed as an ironmoulder at the Clyde Engineering Co. Ltd, Sydney, he left to roam through the eastern Australian bush as a drover, shearer and boundary rider; he later worked as a deckhand in coastal boats and as an assistant in a Sydney wine cellar. He sold poems and stories to newspapers and magazines, and the occasional water-colour painting.

In St Stephen's Presbyterian Church, Macquarie Street, on 16th November 1935 he married Colina Ferguson, a 19-year-old dental nurse; ^[2] they ran an ice-cream parlour before they were divorced in March 1941. He married a second time, to 37 year-old dressmaker, Ellen Jameson on 28th May 1941. Ellen passed away in 1964.

With his thin build and height of 6 ft 6 ins (198 cm), and an irreverent sense of humour, Goffage first entered show business as a magician's assistant, then was hired as an extra in a film, Come up Smiling (1939), produced in Sydney. He attracted attention in a small role as a gangling member of a slapstick bushfire-fighting team in Dad Rudd, M.P. (1940), and was promptly cast as the comic lead in Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940), ^[3] Charles Chauvel's much-publicized tribute to the Australian Light Horse in the Sinai desert campaign of World War I. An outstanding commercial success at home, the film screened favourably in Britain and the United States of America, bringing Chips Rafferty (the screen-name Goffage adopted) instant fame in Australia. . . . more . . adb.anu.edu

People - LifeTree (Links)

• Damien Parer (1912 - 1944). The legendary wartime cinematographer
• Daphne Campbell Mary Parsons of "The Overlanders"
• Charles Edward Chauvel OBE (1897 - 1959). Australian filmmaker

NSW Births Search Results ^[4] Registration
Name | Number/Date | Father's and Mother's Given Name(s) | District
Goffage John W P | 12485/1909 | John | Violet M E | Broken Hill

• A Chip off the Great Australian Block
  Walkabout via Trove (pp. 51-55, Oct 1970.)

• Chips Rafferty (1909–1971) . . imdb.com . .

Sources

1. ↑ Pike, A F. Goffage, John William Pilbean (1909–1971), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1996, accessed online 7 Feb 2019
2. ↑ New South Wales Marriage Index #16633/1935
3. ↑ Visit VWMA Battle of Beersheba (World War 1, November 1917)
4. ↑ NSW Registry of B M and D

• Find a Grave, database and images (accessed 29 December 2020), memorial page for Chips Rafferty (26 Mar 1909–27 May 1971), Find A Grave: Memorial #83107265, ; Maintained by Find A Grave. Cremated, Ashes scattered at sea, over the Lovett Bay.