Hollywood turned Zane Grey’s bestselling Western novels into blockbuster films, but when the celebrity came to Australia twice in the 1930s to go big game fishing, he was adored like nowhere else on the planet.
Story Vicki Hastrich Photo Ed Pritchard, AntiqueFishingReels.com
"You know, this is not what I expected,” said the world’s first millionaire author, drying his razor and taking a pot of cooling cream from the top shelf of a makeshift dressing table set up under an old gum tree. It was 7am on January 8, 1936, and Zane Grey had just spent his first night under canvas at Bermagui, 380km south of Sydney. A few metres away, four curious Australians stood, drinking in the spectacle of the American novelist’s toilet.
“I came here to get quiet, and when I said I wanted to camp here, they told me I could have the headland to myself. But what happens?”
What happened was that the exclusive nature of the deal was not communicated by the notables of Bermagui to the rest of their countrymen, some of whom had a more egalitarian attitude to the use of Crown land and so had camped beside Grey. On the crest of the wooded headland just above the township, the dozen striped tents housing Grey and his entourage were a king’s encampment, fitted with timber floors to raise their occupants up from the dirt. Flanking these pavilions, like mushrooms grown overnight, was a clutch of roughly pitched Australian camps.
Grey’s complaints, however, were only mildly expressed to the journalist who waited upon him. On the whole, the charismatic 63-year-old was happier than he’d been in a long while. The avalanche of friendly attention he’d received in Australia had its drawbacks, but in all his travels he’d never been more warmly received.
As an expert in the new glamour sport of big game fishing, Grey was in Australia to fish. Reports had reached him in the US that swordfish swarmed in the pristine waters around what is now called Barunguba Montague Island (Nature, p74), and he could not resist the lure of a new frontier. But he was also here to make money. Keeping his name in the spotlight by catching world record fish would help him swing the lucrative movie deals he badly needed to land.
Hear author Vicki Hastrich talk about the legendary Zane Grey on the OUTBACK podcast.
This story excerpt is from issue #164
Outback Magazine: Dec/Jan 2026
