VIDEO: Wild: Chrissy Amphlett | Part 1

The two-part Australian Story is available to watch exclusively on ABC iview. (Supplied: Tony Mott)

CHARLEY DRAYTON, HUSBAND AND DRUMMER: The Divinyls were treacherous, fearless, energetic rock and roll. Well, at the front of this powerhouse was the great Chrissy Amphlett.

TONY MOTT, PHOTOGRAPHER: Chrissy Amphlett's the greatest front woman I've ever witnessed. No one touched her on stage as a performer.

ISABELLA MANFREDI, THE PREATURES: I see her as the epitome of a front person in the entire world because of the persona she created.

MARK OPITZ, RECORD PODUCER: People need to learn about Chrissy Amphlett and what she did for us all. Chrissy Amphlett created an icon for Australian music, and particularly women in Australian music.

PATRICIA "LITTLE PATTIE" AMPHLETT, COUSIN: She wanted to be at the front running the band. She doesn't need to support a bloke on stage she can do it all by herself.

CHRISSY AMPHLETT 1998 INTERVIEW: My persona was pretty scary because I was very confronting and full-on. And people would say, 'Well you're a pretty girl, why do you behave in that manner?'."

LARRY WRITER, BIOGRAPHER: Chrissy lived a big life. It was chaotic, uncompromising, courageous and ultimately, doomed.

CHARLEY DRAYTON, HUSBAND AND DRUMMER: So I have a few things from the collection that I was able to get hold of. I think I'm a pretty big Divinyls fan — diehard fanatical. I'm a collector. I wish, you know, there was more I could get my hands on.

Charley: This is Chrissy on stage. This beautiful Tony Mott shot. And this is our I Touch Myself project: breast cancer prevention starts with early detection.

CHARLEY DRAYTON, HUSBAND AND DRUMMER: I don't think I'd be here without the 20 years I got to spend with Chrissy and that was someone who cared for me a certain way and I just loved me so unconditionally.

PATRICIA "LITTLE PATTIE" AMPHLETT, COUSIN: Chrissy's songs have well and truly become part of social commentary, and I believe that Chrissy's contribution to all of us has never ever been truly understood.

LARRY WRITER, BIOGRAPHER: Chrissy grew up in Belmont near Geelong. She came from a musical family. Her great uncle Ernest Sage was an opera singer and her mother Mary was a dancer, singer and comedian with the Geelong Musical Comedy Society.

CHRISSY AMPHLETT, 1988 INTERVIEW: And every weekend there was everybody around singing and dancing in the lounge room. And performing was encouraged. I think I did my first performance in front of a thousand people when I was seven or something, and I was always performing. I saw my cousin on TV.

PATRICIA "LITTLE PATTIE" AMPHLETT, COUSIN: She used to say to members of the family unbeknownst to me that, you know, 'If she can be a star at 14, so can I'. Chrissy was a rebellious teenager from all accounts, hated school, did her very best but couldn't wait to leave.

LARRY WRITER, BIOGRAPHER: Early on when she went surfing in Torquay, she had lots of boyfriends. It was a pretty big drug scene at the time.

CHRISSY AMPHLETT, ENOUGH ROPE INTERVIEW, 2006: I don't know if I was wild on those days. I was quite shy, but I was very adventurous. And I … to connect with people, I would sing. I felt in some deep level, I felt special, even though I had low self-esteem and everything. Somehow I felt good because I had this vocal thing that kept me.

LARRY WRITER, BIOGRAPHER: Chrissy was desperate to get out of Geelong and move to Melbourne. When Chrissy was 18, she had her first musical role in a rather controversial production called Let My People Come. In fact, it was a nude musical. She didn't mind that at all, she thought it was funny.

CHRISSY AMPHLETT, ENOUGH ROPE IV, 2006: I mean it was extraordinarily liberating, being naked on stage, and I really enjoyed up there, shocking people. All that was sort of developed and seeing people's faces and embarrassing people. And I sort of got a taste of it, and I felt just strong and powerful, but I felt really good about my body. From that show, a lot of things came. My pathway.

TRACEY MANN, FRIEND: I met Chrissy at a party. Guitars were playing and people were singing and she was right next to me, and I was so taken by this voice. When you hear a voice like that, you know there's something afoot. There's a destiny that needs to be played out.

LARRY WRITER, BIOGRAPHER: Chrissy felt that her role in Let My People Come was a stepping stone to a bigger career, but her dream was to be a rock singer in a band, and this was a way to get into that world of performing every night, of getting reactions from the audience.

CHRISSY AMPHLETT, 1988 INTERVIEW: I sang in a few bands, but I could never really stick at it and I was always getting the sack or something would happen. I just couldn't fit into the style that they wanted or something, but I just kept on trying.

LARRY WRITER, BIOGRAPHER: Divinyls came about when Chrissy became friends with a wonderful guitarist named Mark McEntee.

BJARNE OHLIN, GUITAR/KEYBOARDS 1980-86: It was the genius idea of a bass player called Jeremy Paul, who was from Air Supply and he knew independent of each other, Mark and Chrissy. He had an inkling that Chrissy would be a unique artist. He put the two together. They quickly started writing and he just engineered for other musos that he was familiar with to come in. And I was the second. It's such a wonderful journey, the whole thing about being in a band. So I thought we needed some videos. I purchased a Super 8 camera.

Bjarne: This is the first time I'll see it, 42 years.

BJARNE OHLIN, GUITAR/KEYBOARDS 1980-86: I started buying up film and shooting at events. So we're on a rooftop in Paddington. This is the first big film clip that we shot. And this is all footage from behind the scenes. I remember the excitement, the thrill. They were keen to write original music, to try and be distinctive and create a voice or a band voice as well as a Chrissy voice that was unique and special. There was a little bit of punk in the band, a little bit of pub rock, a little bit of new wave.

Bjarne: There's Chrissy sitting down in between shots.

TRACY MANN, FRIEND: The band was looking for a name. And I was with a, with a friend and. I heard the word 'divinyl' as a description of something and I, it was like a light bulb moment for me that 'the divinyls,' that's the name of the band. So we told Chrissy, and that's how it happened.

RICK GROSSMAN, BASS PLAYER 1982-87: We used to talk about the gang we had a family. It was a gang and we wanted to take over the world. We wanted to be the best band in the world.

LARRY WRITER, BIOGRAPHER: Chrissy realised that she didn't have a conventional pop singer's voice. She was told time and again that she had no future as a lead singer. She was just too weird.

VINCE LOVEGROVE, DIVINYLS MANAGER 1981-87: First time I ever saw Divinyls was at a little pub in Kings Cross and there was Chrissy, who was like a forlorn doll, you know, standing with her back to the audience at the back of the stage alongside the drummer. No confidence whatsoever.

CHRISSY AMPHLETT, 2006 INTERVIEW): When I'd wear my own clothes on stage I was kind of too vulnerable. So I was shy, I felt shy and I wasn't playing a character or anything. It was just me. And I needed to get good fast. And then Vince and I went to an AC/DC concert and I saw Angus jumping around the stage and he had this persona, and Vince looked at me and said, 'That's where you've got to be'. So he said, 'Why don't you go and get a school uniform?'."

VINCE LOVEGROVE, DIVINYLS MANAGER 1981-87: And once she donned her schoolgirl's uniform she became magnetic, she became a different person, and it was a mask for her. She was able to live all her frustrations on stage. She was very feminine, but at the same time, she had balls, you know, and that was a very unique thing in those days.

ISABELLA MANFREDI, THE PREATURES: She did it through performance and she did it through figuring out what she could get away with on stage and reacting to the audience and reacting to people calling her names and touching her and fucking with her, you know. Yeah, I'm hugely influenced by Chrissy, hugely.

CHRISSY AMPHLETT, 2006 INTERVIEW: Don't think that I'm a pushover or that I'm submissive because I've got these suspenders on and that I'm a slut, basically. Don't mess with me.

MARK OPITZ, RECORD PRODUCER: That was her life there was nothing outside that. Once she'd locked into that persona of being the Divinyls, of being Chrissy Amphlett and putting the Chrissy Amphlett charisma coat on, she was locked in. There was no going back.

RICK GROSSMAN, BASS PLAYER 1982-87: We became very close and she became a confidant. She always wanted to have a baby, Chrissy. She wanted to be a mother. And I guess she made a decision that that wasn't going to happen.

MARK OPITZ, RECORD PRODUCER: I first came across the Divinyls in 1980 and I listened to a demo of a song called Boys in Town. And I was immediately my interest peaked. The performance is wild, the vocal performance has just got so much energy. And so the song was great, but the lyrics really, you can see her frustration with, you know, "I must have been desperate, I must have been pretty low". So the lyrics in that song — priceless.

PATRICIA "LITTLE PATTIE" AMPHLETT, COUSIN: Absolutely, Boys in Town is one of the stories of her life. The mickey was taken out of her because she was a beautiful teenager. And boys, in her opinion, gave her a bad time and probably said horrible things to her, what they'd like to do with her, et cetera and she gave some lip back to them.

MARK OPITZ, RECORD PRODUCER: "I don't wanna be there with these boys in town, I want something better. I'm looking for more, I want more…" She wanted more from me, from everybody and most importantly, she wanted more for herself.

All I needed now was a vehicle to promote that song, but fortunately, Pavilion Films approached me about, would I do the music for a film called Monkey Grip? Oh, by the way, would you know of a band that has a girl singer that we could use?" Pennies from heaven, I've got my vehicle.

"I've been thinking you have this habit of using people up and then throwing them away. But it's alright because I don't hate you anymore."

BJARNE OHLIN, GUITAR/KEYBOARDS 1980-86: Chrissy played a character who was the singer in the band. I thought Chrissy was terrific. I thought she really had a presence.

MARK OPITZ, RECORD PRODUCER: And I said, one proviso. While you're shooting the scene that you need for Monkey Grip, I want you to shoot my video and that's the video that you see, the official video. Luckily the video turned out brilliant. We got what looked like a live gig performance, and that's what I was after, because that means that when people look at that, they're attracted to see them live. And Monkey Grip helped us immeasurably.

Denton: And with me now are The Divinyls, thanks very much for coming on the show.

Mark McEntee: Just watch out for that dishwater, mate.

MARK OPITZ, RECORD PRODUCER: With artistic relationships within a band, there's all sort of politics. It was always gonna happen that there was gonna be something between Mark and Chrissy. I mean, they're together all the time, they're writing all the time.

MARK MCENTEE, DIVINYLS GUITARIST: Usually I'll come up with a bit of a tune or something, won't I? And then we'll see if Chrissy's got some words that'll go with it.

CHRISSY AMPHLETT: Usually I've got something a little hanging around I think, oh that'll go with that. So usually that's what happens and then we develop it from there.

MARK OPITZ, RECORD PRODUCER: I think it was no surprise that Mark and Chrissy became an item. Huge chemistry between Chrissy and Mark. But when they were together, it was fire and ice.

PATRICIA "LITTLE PATTIE" AMPHLETT, COUSIN: They adored each other and I know that they fought like mad as well, but by gee they wrote some good songs.

RICK GROSSMAN, BASS PLAYER 1982-87: Mark McEntee and Chrissy had started a relationship and obviously had some sort of disagreement. And I took this photo just after that, fantastic, captures it. The two of them clashed dramatically. They used to have physical altercations. Huge thing that made the band special was that tension. You weren't really sure whether it was going to fall apart or something crazy would happen in the middle of a song.

BJARNE OHLIN, GUITAR/KEYBOARDS 1980-86: Chrissy and I had a full-on confrontation on stage. Where she was trying to whack me, belt me, slap me and I was holding her off me with my guitar. It was kind of ludicrous (laughs).

CHRISSY AMPHLETT, 2006 INTERVIEW: And all that made for a more interesting performance. The cost was no life, no sort of normalcy. There was a lot of drama, there was a lot of it, but it made for a good song or a good performance or a good record.

TONY MOTT, PHOTOGRAPHER: So it would seem I've been photographing bands for quite a long time, lots of different bands, and here is early 80's Chrissy Amphlett at the Cronulla Endeavour Field. I was just an aspiring photographer and in that little period of timing, they became from an obscure band, from a pub band to a big band. I watched the development of the band and Chrissy became the performer she became. This here is Chrissy Amphlett, 1982 at Picadilly Hotel in Kings Cross. I was photographically infatuated with Chrissy, She was a headbanger, she prowled the stage, she was cat-like, the stage was hers, she owned it. Chrissy headbanging, just pure performance.

The Divinyls definitely had a game plan. They were very ambitious and they got there quite quickly, possibly too quickly. They had hit single after hit single. And they went to America quite quickly after that. Next thing I know they're doing the US Festival playing in front of 80,000 people at some big festival.

BJARNE OHLIN, GUITAR/KEYBOARDS 1980-86: This is a dream come true that I'm actually in New York City, I'm with the band. we're here to record our first album at the Power Station, one of the greatest recording studios around.

CHRISSY AMPHLETT, 1988 INTERVIEW: And I was the only girl on the tour, and I remember trying to find a spot on the bus where I could be alone and I'd be asleep and I'd wake up and I'd have all these roadies standing over staring at me and teasing me. You had to sink or swim, you had to stand up for yourself. So I suppose I built up this shell around me and this persona. So people were a little afraid of me and they wouldn't come near me. And it worked. And on stage I was quite aggressive. Men were quite scared of me and I liked that.

VINCE LOVEGROVE, DIVINYLS MANAGER 1981-87: She was too controversial, she was too loud on stage, you know, blah, blah, blah, which was a really weird thing because there was Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil, The Angels, all those kinds of bands at the time. But because she was a woman, they didn't see it. They just thought you can't have a woman being that wild on stage. The Americans saw it immediately.

VINCE LOVEGROVE, DIVINYLS MANAGER 1981-87: She wasn't interested in Australia she wanted to hit straight globally. And when the time came for the band to record Pleasure and Pain, it was groomed for the American radio market.

VINCE LOVEGROVE, DIVINYLS MANAGER 1981-87: Mark and Chrissy were seen by American record industry as being rough around the edges, which was part of their charm, they wanted to smooth them out. Nothing would ever smooth Chrissy's rough edges out, but what could smooth them out was a smooth record production.

BJARNE OHLIN, GUITAR/KEYBOARDS 1980-86: Credit to Mark and Chrissy, they worked on it and turned it into something that had a Divinyl edge to it. So it did change from being something that was very smooth and keyboardy to being something that had grunt.

RICK GROSSMAN, BASS PLAYER 1982-87: She loved the lyrics, I remember that. Identified with the lyrics. A fine line between pleasure and pain. She sang the words, and I know Chrissy wouldn't sing any words that she didn't believe in.

PATRICIA "LITTLE PATTIE" AMPHLETT, COUSIN: When my career first started, we female performers knew that the expectation was that we remained seeming like the girl next door, almost virginal.

CHRISSY AMPHLETT, 1998 INTERVIEW: So I went the other way and was as horrible as I could possibly be. And it was because I didn't want to be all nice and show biz and put on this phony smile because everybody, I felt all the girls up to then were, and they weren't really what they might have been.

PATRICIA "LITTLE PATTIE" AMPHLET, COUSIN: I mean, she had courage. She was a pioneer. She was a feminist saying, "look out, here I am. Move, move out of my way. I'm not staying in the background any longer."

TONY MOTT, PHOTOGRAPHER: Chrissy Amphlett, without a doubt, is not the easiest person in the world to know or be around. I don't think anyone would ever say she wasn't difficult. She was difficult.

RICK GROSSMAN, BASS PLAYER 1982-87: I didn't think she was difficult at all. She just had an opinion. She had a strong opinion on things and she would always stand by her guns.

"She looks so beautiful. She could be the most ferocious person."

PATRICIA "LITTLE PATTIE" AMPHLET, COUSIN: No! Chrissy's 'Chrissy Amphlett' was an act. It was, as her mum said, "it's theatre, darling, theatre". When she was on stage, I'm now Chrissy Amphlett, rock performer.

CHRISSY AMPHLETT, ENOUGH ROPE INTERVIEW, 2006: I mean, it was very enabling, 'cause everybody's egging me on for more, more, more, and I was gonna give them more, more, more. And you know, before you know it, you're dedicating your whole, you know, 24 hours a day, seven days a week is for this performance and this person.

BJARNE OHLIN, GUITAR/KEYBOARDS 1980-86: She was hard and tough and impenetrable on the surface. But inside, she had this, you know, beautiful softness and real tender, uh care and concern for people and the world.

PATRICIA "LITTLE PATTIE" AMPHLET, COUSIN: I'm really sad that not many people knew the real Chrissy to see that lovely side of her and compare that with Chrissy Amphlett on stage? What? Two different people.

RICK GROSSMAN, BASS PLAYER 1982-87: When we first started playing, going on stage drunk or on drugs was unheard of. We wouldn't do that. As the years went by on those long tours of America, the substance abuse for all of us went up. Chrissy was drinking a lot, a lot more than she used to.

MARK OPITZ, RECORD PRODUCER: Chrissy drinking problem only really came about when she really thought that it was necessary requirement to keep the character going, because she'd become the character and what alcohol did was keep her in character 24/7. So alcohol was her bad friend.

PATRICIA "LITTLE PATTIE" AMPHLET, COUSIN: I don't know whether she could switch on and off the bad girl or whether that just became part of her, I think, because of the alcohol.

LARRY WRITER, BIOGRAPHER: The record company did little to stop Chrissy from drinking. They told her she performed better when she'd had a few drinks.

CHRISSY AMPHLETT, 2006 INTERVIEW: Alcohol was my everything. And it was my quick fix. And it was how I coped in the beginning. And then it was the only way I knew how to cope.

So she drank more and more. And it reached the point where she wasn't able to stop.

(Divinyls play Pleasure and Pain live at Boggo Road Jail, 1993.

LARRY WRITER, BIOGRAPHER: Throughout this period the band was not what it was, there was animosity among the group. The record company thought they needed some improvements, so they hired some very, very good American session musicians. The drummer who was brought in to beef up the sound was a gentleman called Charley Drayton. And he was a calming influence.

CHARLEY DRAYTON, HUSBAND AND DRUMMER: I'd say Chrissy was singular. There's not too many singers like her. I think she felt inspired a certain way by how I listened to her sing and how I, kind of the chemistry we sort of had musically. It was an experience up to that point that I had not had musically with anyone.

LARRY WRITER, BIOGRAPHER: When Charlie came into the band, Chrissy and Mark were still together. They were arguing and in the end they broke up. Chrissy grew closer and closer to Charley.

CHARLEY DRAYTON, HUSBAND AND DRUMMER: One of my best friends had kind of pulled me to the side and said, 'hey man, there's some other kind of energy going on between you and Chrissy.' I was like, 'absolutely not. That's not like a line we're gonna cross here. He's like, 'no, (laughing), takes a good friend to sometimes tap you on the shoulder and kind of go, there's something going on'. And then things sort of became romantic at that point.

PATRICIA "LITTLE PATTIE" AMPHLET, COUSIN: It was probably a bit tortuous at times because Marky was still with the band and you know, figure that one out. That would not have been easy for anybody. NEXT WEEK

MARK OPITZ, RECORD PRODUCER: I Touch Myself just leapt out of the radio. It was a worldwide hit.

TONY MOTT, PHOTOGRAPHER: And from there it didn't happen, and it's the greatest lost band of the world.

VINCE LOVEGROVE, DIVINYLS MANAGER 1981-87: They gradually had been imploding within themselves.

CHRISSY AMPHLETT: Everything was falling down around me and I couldn't control everything anymore.

PATRICIA "LITTLE PATTIE" AMPHLET, COUSIN: The audience loved her, but I think she was hating herself.

LARRY WRITER, BIOGRAPHER: Being offered the role in The Boy from Oz was a godsend to her.

TIM FINN: Chrissy Amphlett and myself wrote three songs. 25 years later, they're going to be released. People are gonna hear Chrissy Amphlett's voice again fresh, you know.

CHARLEY DRAYTON, HUSBAND AND DRUMMER: Makes me cry every time I hear it.

Divinyls lead singer Chrissy Amphlett was a rock icon who lived hard and burnt bright until her death at 53.

Her bad girl persona and powerful voice enthralled fans here and around the world.

Over two engrossing episodes, family, friends and former band mates reflect on the highs and lows of Chrissy's wild life and her rich legacy.

The episodes feature previously unseen footage and three unreleased songs by Tim Finn and Chrissy, recorded 15 years before her death.

Part 2 airs Monday October 5, 8pm, on ABCTV and ABC iview.