13 Crocodile Dundee Facts That Come From A Land Down Under

Paul Hogan told the BBC a trip to New York inspired his fish-out-of-water, tale, saying, "I felt like an alien from another planet, some of the 'Bushie' guys I know would feel even more out of place. There's a myth that there is a real Crocodile Dundee, but there isn't." Many believe Rod Ansell's 1977 survival story was the inspiration for the character Mick Dundee.

Per Independent Australia, Ansell became famous in Australia after surviving, with his two puppies, for seven weeks on limited supplies on an island after a massive crocodile capsized his boat in the Fitzmaurice River in the Northern Territory. Indigenous Aborigines saved Ansell, per The Independent. When people learned Ansell survived off the land, and even resorted to drinking buffalo blood, his unlikely survival story fascinated them. Michael Parkinson interviewed Ansell, and he told viewers he slept on the floor at the luxury hotel in Sydney, just like Mick Dundee later did in the movie.

Although Understanding Journalism says this interview inspired Hogan, there are no interviews where Hogan confirms the interview and survival story was an inspiration for the iconic character. In 1980, Ansell published his story in the book, "To Fight the Wild." According to Independent Australia, after "Crocodile Dundee" became a hit, Ansell became bitter because he never earned royalties from the film. Per the Herald Sun, in 1999 Ansel died in a drug-fueled shootout that left one officer dead, and other civilians injured.

The first scene in "Crocodile Dundee" has a big Easter egg referencing Paul Hogan's life before acting. It happens when we see the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background while Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski) talks to her editor/boyfriend on the phone at the beginning of the film. Per The Canberra Times, before Hogan became a sketch comic, he was a rigger who worked on the iconic bridge.

Hogan told The Canberra Times he got his start on "New Faces" which he called, a precursor to "Australian Idol" style talent shows. Hogan told IGN he did the contest on a dare and won over the audience by roasting the judges. Hogan explained that he never really wanted to be an actor and "didn't get into entertainment until I was like 31. I didn't star in a movie until I was 46." Per The New York Times, after appearing in the talent contest, Hogan was interviewed at the Sydney Harbour Bridge for the show, "A Current Affair."

Because of this interview, Hogan met John Cornell, who would later become Hogan's business partner. After doing comedic segments for the news show, Cornell and Hogan started JP Productions, and "The Paul Hogan Show" made Hogan famous in Australia, and later in the U.S. after the sketch series became syndicated internationally. Hogan then became the face of Australian tourism with an advertisement inviting Americans to visit "the wonders down under," setting the stage for the success of "Crocodile Dundee" in America.

Per The New York Times, after test screenings with American audiences, Paramount made an international cut of "Crocodile Dundee." The international version of the film that American audiences saw in the theater was seven minutes shorter to speed up "the pace to the taste of the American consumer," Barry London, president of distribution at Paramount told The NY Times when the film hit theaters in 1986.

As reported by The NY Times, most of the cut screen time came from the first half of the film while Mick Dundee showed Sue Charlton around the Outback of Australia. During the test screenings, American audiences also struggled to understand the Australian slang in the film, so much of that was cut as well. Per Movie-Censorship, The f-word was cut from the film so it could have a PG rating in the U.S. Per The New York Times, Paramount also added quotation marks around "Crocodile" on the posters and the title card so everyone would understand it was a man's nickname, not a movie about a crocodile.

Per ET Canada, Paul Hogan met his first wife Noelene Edwards when they were teenagers at the swimming pool where he was a lifeguard, and they married young in 1958. Hogan told Australian Story, "I had three sons by the time I was 22, so I had to grow up very fast." As reported by ET Canada, Hogan, and Edwards separated briefly in 1981 but married again less than a year later.

Although Paul Hogan was actually still married to Noelene while making "Crocodile Dundee," he ultimately left his first wife in 1986 for his co-star. It was a very public divorce, with Australian media outlets reportedly depicting Hogan as abandoning his family. This development must have surprised Roger Ebert because his review of their movie specifically commented on their lack of chemistry, but obviously, Hogan and Kozlowski were feeling it.

Per the Los Angeles Times, Hogan married Kozlowski in 1990 in Australia during a private ceremony at a mansion he built as a wedding gift to his bride. They had a son named Chase and settled in Los Angeles, where they raised him together. Per The Sydney Morning Herald, Kozlowski filed for divorce in 2013, telling the paper, "Honestly, we just naturally grew apart." In 2014, their divorce was finalized and Hogan retained rights to "Crocodile Dundee" in the settlement. Kozlowski told New Idea (via The Sydney Morning Herald), "The divorce was completely amicable [...] Everybody's happy."

U.S. audiences were already familiar with Paul Hogan before "Crocodile Dundee" came out because of the Australian tourism advertisements he donated his time during the '80s. When Hogan's first film became an international success, it altered tourism in Australia. In 2016, Peter Hook, communications manager at Kakadu Tourism, told Travel + Leisure, "In '86, Australians hadn't even been to Kakadu, let alone Americans. Basically, Kakadu was a mining area. Uranium was its biggest mineral. The government actually built a road from Darwin to Kakadu—not for tourism, but for mining." The film brought tourists, and the area became more accessible with the construction of improved roads.

In 2016, tourism chief executive Tony Mayell told Perth Now "The film helped put Australia on the map, let alone Kakadu," adding that "Crocodile Dundee" and Kakadu National Park still get an average of 135,000 Google searches monthly. Per The Guardian, they even started giving "Crocodile Dundee" tours in Kakadu National Park where the movie was filmed, and in Darwin, where you can have close encounters with live crocodiles. Three hours away in Jabiru, you can stay in the indigenous-owned Mercure Crocodile Hotel which is shaped like a crocodile, before exploring the wilderness of Kakadu through guided tours, scenic flights, or arts and craft lessons with indigenous Aborigines tribes who have lived in the Northern Territory for at least 40,000 years.

A writer for The Guardian called out "Crocodile Dundee" for story elements they called, "sexist, racist, homophobic, and transphobic" and they weren't wrong. Some dialogue and scenarios in all three films in the franchise haven't aged well and can easily be construed as offensive to women, people of color, and the LGTBQIA+ community. The most obvious is Sue not being depicted as a journalist in her own right, but working for her boyfriend on her father's paper.

There are transphobic moments in the first film when Mick gropes two trans women. There are also the offensive comparisons between indigenous Aboriginal tribes arguing for land rights in Australia to "fleas arguing over who owns the dog they live on," and Mick asking Sue Charlton's Black chauffeur, Gus (Reginald VelJohnson) what tribe he's from. In the second film, Mick is so shocked to be consoling a gay man, he nearly falls off a skyscraper, and in the third film Mick makes disparaging comments about a gay bar in Los Angeles.

While discussing cancel culture with The Project, Hogan said, "It's sometimes understandable, and in some cases, stupid. In the case of me and the shows I did, it was never designed to hurt anyone." Hogan told IGN the gay bar scene in Los Angeles was inspired by an experience he had with Olivia Newton-John at a bar. Per The Daily Mail, Hogan told The Australian, "I don't think I ever did anything with any sort of malice."

In 2020, Paul Hogan starred in "The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee," a satire with Hogan playing a fictionalized version of himself. The movie depicts him getting into hot water on social media, leading up to being knighted by the Queen of England. Hogan told Boomer Magazine, "It's not a deep meaningful movie, just a bit of fun ... While it pokes fun at Hollywood rules and how social media through the modern online community can give you a reputation that you don't deserve, it's mostly aimed at me."

Hogan making himself the butt of the joke is certainly familiar ground for the Aussie whose self-deprecating humor won audiences back in the '70s and '80s. Although critics panned "The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee," giving it abysmal scores on Rotten Tomatoes, Hogan enjoyed poking fun at celebrity culture, which is something he knows a bit about after playing a character who is far more famous than he ever was.

In 2020 Hogan also released his memoir, "The Tap-Dancing Knife Thrower: My Life (without the boring bits)." Hogan told Go Erie his longtime writing partner Dean Murphy wrote the screenplay, saying, "It was Dean again who talked me into doing [the book], telling me that if I dictated it, he'd write it down, so that appealed to my lazy side." Hogan might be done with Hollywood, but that doesn't mean audiences have forgotten him, or that iconic role from the land down under.