Blance D'Alpuget's biography Hawke the Prime Minister has been released to coincide with the telemovie Hawke to be shown on Channel 10 this Sunday night. Blance and Bob were at the star-studded book launch this week. Bob now 80, is looking his age, as he should, but I suspect Blanch 66, has been having botox injections because her forehead never moves. Bob and Julia Gillard wrapped their arms around each other and she almost swooned when she described him as her role model.
Blanch gushed "He is the love of my life" while Bob said "It's impossible to describe the bonds we have, the physical love, the intellectual companionship, the joy we have in one another's company."
Blanch added "I know that when I'm dead and when Bob's dead, what people will remember was that this was a very great love. And it's the love story that will be remembered." Oh really, you think so? Not me, I'll remember that Hazel was discarded like an old shoe after 39 years of total love and devotion and she supported him every step of the way to the top. She's now living in a north shore nursing home with advanced Alzheimer's disease.
Actress Rachael Blake who plays Hazel in the telemovie said Hazel's dream was of growing old with Bob. "It was to have a house, on a hill, and to have the grandchildren there. And I don't know that she ever got that."
As Blanch tells it, Bob and Hazel's days at The Lodge were the happiest of their marriage. "It had been the fulfilment of a long-shared dream.... but once the dream was behind them, their relationship began to deteriorate." And then "Couples need a dream and Bob and Hazel had a dream of the prime ministership and The Lodge and in a sense when that was over, the dream was over and the marriage was over. It wasn't just the fact he'd fallin in love with me, and I think very understandably, she felt a great liberation from a marriage that had achieved its purpose." I don't think so. That's not how Hazel's autobiography reads, she was heart-broken and her daughters wore black in silent protest at their wedding.
Bob says "Love is not something you can control, the only significant other woman in my life while I was Prime Minister was Blanche, the only significant one (does that mean there were others?) Once you fall in love, which I had with Blanche... that involves falling out of love with your wife. This is not something to be apologetic about. My love for and with Blance has been the greatest thing in my life and I don't apologise for it."
How sweet.
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