Anthony LaPaglia Criticizes Hometown Adelaide as 'Dreary' and 'Stifled'
The Golden Globe-winning actor details his harsh assessment of the South Australian capital in his new memoir, citing its history of crime and a perceived 'bad energy'.
Hollywood actor Anthony LaPaglia has described his Australian hometown of Adelaide as "dreary, stifled and boring," attributing a perceived "bad energy" to the city's history of notorious murders and missing persons cases.
LaPaglia, 67, a Tony and Golden Globe winner, voiced these sentiments in his new memoir, "The Life We Choose," released on October 26. He contends that Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, is approximately 50 years behind the rest of the world, making it feel as though he "may as well have grown up on the edge of the universe."
His critique of the "City of Churches" begins on the opening pages of his book, where he contrasts his origins in Adelaide with his current life in "the grand theatres of New York City." LaPaglia grew up in Adelaide's northeastern suburb of Beefacres (now New Windsor) and experienced childhood abuse and domestic violence during the 1960s and 1970s.
The actor recalled the pervasive "stranger danger" fear that gripped South Australia in 1966 following the unresolved disappearance of the Beaumont children, Jane, Arnna, and Grant, from Glenelg beach. The case remains one of Australia's most notorious cold cases, with a $1 million reward offered for information.
LaPaglia also referenced the Truro murders, a series of killings of seven young women and teenage girls that began to earn Adelaide the moniker "Murderlaide" a decade later. He stated in his memoir that the intervening years were "riddled with horrors," and that "it seemed like a dead body was fished out of Adelaide’s River Torrens every second week." Even a quarter-century later, the Snowtown murders, among Australia's most infamous serial killings, occurring in his home state, did not surprise him.
"Adelaide. There's a bad energy running through it," LaPaglia wrote. "Whenever I go back, I feel the same low-frequency unease that used to spook me as a kid."
These comments have drawn a response from David Koch, chairman of the South Australian Tourism Commission and the Port Adelaide Football Club, who grew up in Adelaide at the same time as LaPaglia. Koch called LaPaglia's assessment an "outlier" and noted that independent sources rank Adelaide highly, citing The Economist Intelligence Unit's liveability index placing it eighth globally, the Wall Street Journal naming it "Australia’s coolest city," and Architectural Digest listing it among the 20 most beautiful cities on the planet.
"It always disappoints you when your hometown gets slagged off by somebody, and criticism is good – it makes us all be and do better," Koch stated. "But when it’s subjective criticism that seems to be unfounded… by the facts coming from independent sources and comparisons, it can be dangerous because it can give a false impression to a lot of people."
LaPaglia, who performed in Adelaide last month for a run of "Death of a Salesman," had previously expressed trepidation about returning. In an interview before his show, he noted, "When I grew up here, I found it suffocating… It worked out fine. I'm assuming it's changed."
He moved to Sydney as a young man, describing it as "like a breath of fresh air, three times bigger and ten times more interesting than Adelaide." However, in a 2020 interview, LaPaglia offered a different perspective, recalling a trip back to Adelaide in 2015 for filming "A Month of Sundays." He described an idyllic childhood marked by freedom and ease, contrasting it with his daughter's upbringing in Los Angeles. "I would [tell her] – and I mean this – in the nicest way, 'it was bigger, dumber and easier' and I liked it. It was easy to be a kid," he said at the time.
