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How Mark ‘Chopper’ Read Went From A Deadly Criminal To An Australian Folk Hero
manwithacamera.com.au / Alamy Stock PhotoMark “Chopper” Read was one of Australia’s most controversial celebrities.
Mark “Chopper” Read was a walking contradiction: a violent criminal who became a bestselling author, a man who openly claimed to have killed 19 people yet was never found guilty of murder, and an ex-convict who went on to become one of Australia’s most recognizable media personalities.
Read was an understandably controversial figure. Before his writing career took off, his biggest claim to fame was having his ears cut off while behind bars. Later in life, he would write a children’s book, record a hip-hop album, and host a painting exhibition. His story inspired the Andrew Dominik film Chopper, which helped to launch comedian Eric Bana’s career.
Some people wondered if Read deserved his celebrity status. Others questioned how much of his story was true in the first place.
So, just who was “Chopper” Read?
From The Streets Of Melbourne To Australian Prison Yards
Mark “Chopper” Read was born in Melbourne on Nov. 17, 1954. As a child, he was bullied at school and physically abused by his parents. By 14, he was a ward of the state, and he spent his teen years in and out of mental health facilities.
During this time, he also became the head of the Surrey Road gang, and he took part in hundreds of street fights. He didn’t win all of them — but he wasn’t afraid of getting hurt. He only wanted to inflict pain on those who had wronged him.
Journalist Andrew Rule, who co-wrote Read’s memoir, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2013, “His main feature was not that he was necessarily bigger or stronger or tougher or a better fighter than all the others, because others would transcend him in all those things, but he was fearless of consequences.”
Mark “Chopper” Read“Chopper” Read in his younger years.
Read turned to a life of crime, but he was no ordinary offender. He largely stole from drug dealers — it was profitable, and they couldn’t exactly report their losses to the police — and later became a mob enforcer who kidnapped and assaulted people who had outstanding debts. His signature weapon was bolt cutters, which he used to cut off his victims’ toes one by one.
According to Read himself, he never harmed an innocent person, and this came to define him. But the crimes that he committed were still punishable offenses, even though they were carried out against other criminals.
So, Mark “Chopper” Read found himself imprisoned in the late 1970s after kidnapping a judge in an attempt to get a member of his gang freed. He would spend most of the next two decades of his life behind bars.
“Those were my very paranoid days,” Read told The Guardian shortly after the release of Chopper. “I was certifiably insane. I wasn’t a well person.”
Prison helped Read build his legacy, but his knack for violence continued to be a problem.
Mark ‘Chopper’ Read’s Life Behind Bars
Mushroom PicturesEric Bana as Mark Read in the 2000 film Chopper.
While incarcerated, Read frequently found himself embroiled in gang-related conflict. He seemed desperate to start a prison war, but his violent attitude also made him an outcast within his own gang — and eventually led to his fellow members stabbing him repeatedly.
“No one trusted him, he was unpredictable,” former prison chaplain Peter Norden told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “When he came out of his cell, people gave him about a three-meter berth… I always said in prison the people who were the most dangerous, were the most insecure people. He was a victim of the system, and mostly he wasn’t a successful crook.”
Mark “Chopper” Read did not get away with most of the crimes he committed. His name appeared in headlines often, but at that time, he wasn’t a celebrity — just a repeat offender. Read didn’t see it the same way, though.
“The media created me,” he reflected to The Guardian. “Maybe it was my black sense of humor in the face of adversity that appealed to one or two journalists. I’m on some shooting charge and, the next thing you know, there are 50 members of the press in attendance. The case became a half-hour comedy session. Even the judge would burst out laughing.”
As much as he tried to act tough and laugh things off, however, Read had clearly grown desperate while behind bars. He had fallen out with his gang and made enemies of other inmates. He requested to transfer to another wing of the facility. Prison officials told him no.
Find a GraveMark “Chopper” Read lighting a cigar with a blowtorch.
So, to force a transfer, Read enlisted the help of a fellow inmate, and, together, they used a razor to cut off both of his ears. Doctors weren’t able to reattach them, but the act did get him transferred.
As Mark “Chopper” Read wrote in his first memoir, Chopper: From the Inside: “I told them, ‘I will be leaving H Division, tomorrow.’ They said, ‘no you won’t’ and I said I would. So I went back and got Kevin to cut my bloody ears off. You reckon I didn’t leave H Division straight away? The classo board nearly came down and carried me out themselves.”
Read was eventually released in 1986, but he returned to his old ways almost immediately. Just seven months later, he was accused of killing a drug dealer named Siam “Sammy the Turk” Ozerkam after supposedly shooting him through the eye outside a nightclub.
In this case, though, Read was acquitted on the grounds of self-defense — and according to a 2013 report in the Herald Sun, he confessed on his deathbed that he had lied about killing Ozerkam and three others.
Then, in 1992, Read was convicted of shooting a man in the chest and sent back to prison until 1998.
This stint was a little different from Read’s previous time behind bars, though. In 1990, journalist John Silvester had begun writing about Read to debunk claims that a cult following was developing around the criminal. Read wrote back, at first threatening Silvester, but quickly realizing that writing to the journalist could bring him more publicity. And by publishing those letters, Silvester inadvertently fostered the very cult following around Read he had originally debunked.
‘Chopper’ Read As A Controversial Celebrity, Author, And Musician
Mark “Chopper” Read“Chopper” Read and Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis.
Silvester hadn’t asked Read to write to him, but Read kept sending letters anyway — to a nearly manic degree. He wrote so much, in fact, that his letters were able to be turned into nine books before the ’90s came to an end with the help of Silvester and Andrew Rule. Most of them were published while Read was still in prison.
“Nobody had ever spoken or written in that way in Australia,” Silvester told The Guardian in 2000. “He said, ‘Yeah, I’ve done everything you think I have and worse,’ and he said it with black humor and a total lack of contrition.”
The first book, Chopper: From the Inside, was a smash hit and was quickly succeeded by Hits and Memories in 1992 and How to Shoot Friends and Influence People in 1993. What started as autobiographical and semi-autobiographical stories eventually turned into crime fiction and then, bizarrely, a children’s book.
The books even helped Mark “Chopper” Read find love.
A fan of his, Mary-Ann Hodge, began to visit him in prison, and the two married in 1995. When he was released three years later, they moved to a farmhouse in Tasmania, where they had their son, Charlie.
Read grew bored with his farm life, however, and the marriage ended in 2001. He then married his second wife, Margaret Cassar, in 2003. They also had a son named Roy.
Find a GraveIn 2007, “Chopper” Read filed for bankruptcy due to gambling debts.
“When I was 50 and I saw my second boy born, I became a fully paid-up member of the human race,” Read later wrote. “I have no regrets, but those moments told me what I should have been — a good human being.”
Over the next decade, Read sold more than 500,000 copies of his books, inspired a cult classic film, performed live comedy across Australia, appeared in public service announcements, exhibited his paintings, and released the rap album Interview with a Madman.
Then, he was diagnosed with hepatitis C and announced he would not be applying for a potentially life-saving liver transplant. Mark “Chopper” Read died on Oct. 9, 2013, at the age of 58. More than a decade later, his legacy remains as complex as it ever was.
After reading about Mark “Chopper” Read, learn about the life of “Freeway” Rick Ross, the drug kingpin who literally read his way to freedom. Or, go inside the story of Tilly Devine, one of the most notorious women in Australian history.
The post How Mark ‘Chopper’ Read Went From A Deadly Criminal To An Australian Folk Hero appeared first on All That's Interesting.
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