Chips Rafferty (1909-1971), screen actor, made his film debut in Ants in His Pants in 1938. He made a foray into Hollywood for The Desert Rats (1953), and was vaguely and briefly marketed as Australia's answer to Cary Grant, but he was more in his element playing the lean and laconic bushman. Variations on this character appear throughout his filmography, which constitutes a list of films that contributed to the establishment of the popular notion of Australian identity: Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940), Bush Christmas (1947), The Overlanders (1948), Eureka Stockade (1948), Rats of Tobruk (1951), Kangaroo (1952), Smiley (1957), Smiley Gets a Gun (1959), The Sundowners (1960) and They're a Weird Mob (1966).
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003
The National Portrait Gallery respects the artistic and intellectual property rights of others. Works of art from the collection are reproduced as per the
Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). The use of images of works from the collection may be restricted under the Act. Requests for a reproduction of a work of art can be made through a
Reproduction request. For further information please contact
NPG Copyright.