'I'm having too much fun to retire!': Aussie screen legend's new lease of life

I've got a confession to make - and I suspect I'm not alone. While many a girl swooned over hot priest Richard Chamberlain in 1983 smash-hit mini-series The Thorn Birds, for me it was always the even hotter farm stockman Bryan Brown who got my heart skipping like a baby lamb in pasture. Tall, rugged, gritty and devilishly handsome with that unmistakable Aussie swagger, he had me at the first "G'day".

And now? Some teenage crushes fade. But mine is stronger than ever. Bryan's 78 but he's still got it - and then some. So yes, I'm a bit giddy as he pops up on my Zoom screen from his home in Sydney - still sharp, still charming, still sexy. Blimey, no wonder his Thorn Birds co-star Rachel Ward fell for him on set and went on to marry him - over 42, yes that's 42, years ago! So was it love at first sight?

"Oh, definitely for her," comes the reply. He's straight-faced for a nano-second but then he starts laughing and I like him even more. A man with a well-developed sense of humour in addition to his other qualities?

Heck, what's not to love?

"Seriously, we had a lot of fun on The Thorn Birds and got on very well right from the start," Bryan continues. "Rachel was only in her 20s when we made it while I was - and still am - 10 years older.

"I think she thought I was a bit of an idiot and she laughed at me a lot. But, yeah, well. ...it's lasted. We're grandparents now - our two daughters have given us three grandkids. We also have a son, by the way."

A 42-year marriage is quite an achievement for any couple but in showbiz circles it is, as Bryan might say, a bloody miracle. So just what is their secret?

"Always agreeing with your wife is a good idea, I always say! Being the bloke who can say, 'Oh what a great idea, darling' and 'Sorry, that was definitely my fault'.

"But, you know, that's easier said than done. So you don't always manage to do it and when you don't, you think, 'Oh mate, why didn't you just keep your mouth shut?'

"On a more serious note, I guess people get together in the first place because they kind of see the world in the same way and like the same kind of things - like enjoying life. You've got to be on the same page, I think."

In addition to Rachel, Bryan is very much on the same page as actress Greta Scaachi, 65, who plays his sidekick in the cosy TV crime caper set in Australia called Darby and Joan. Greta plays Joan Kirkhope, a no-nonsense English nurse on a quest for answers about her late husband, while Bryan plays Jack Darby, a laid-back Australian ex-cop with a mysterious past. They traverse the state of Queensland in a campervan, solving small-town mysteries along the way - their odd-couple chemistry and camaraderie adding a certain warmth, wit and charm to every case they stumble into.

"Ah, Greta's a great girl. I've known her for donkey's. She's such a number!" enthuses Bryan of his English co-star. "She's so warm and such a good actress. I love working with her, she's really easygoing and she's always got a story for you. Having married a British woman in real life and spent lots of time there, I totally get the British culture and humour. We Australians have got our humour from the Brits and the Irish, I think. The American sense of humour is far more literal."

Travelling around one of the most beautiful parts of the world in a campervan with a good mate... nice work if you can get it!

"Yeah, I know," smiles Bryan. "When the show was first pitched, I really liked the idea. I'll get on to the beauty of Queensland in a minute - obviously it was a draw - but I really liked the idea of a man and a woman - quite different characters but with a real connection - hitting the road together as mates.

"All too often, shows like this are about two blokes. The first scripts didn't disappoint - I really liked the tone of them. And yeah, of course the location was an attraction.

"The idea of driving through Queensland - the rainforests, the outback and the bloody beaches, you know? Australia's all about the ocean and I love that. I even get to surf in Darby and Joan."

It has to be that, as in so many crime series, the location in Darby and Joan is the third star of the show - rather like Oxford in Inspector Morse, Northumbria in Vera and the Buckinghamshire countryside in Midsomer Murders.

"Oh, definitely that's the case," says Bryan. "I know that when I'm watching a British show, I love it if the scenery - the Cotswolds for instance or the Scottish Highlands - is a big part of it. Australia is a very beautiful country and it's good to get it seen. It's nice to imagine viewers from all over the world enjoying the Queensland landscape from the comfort of their sitting rooms."

There have been two series of Darby and Joan so far. They broadcast on the Acorn TV network and a box set of both seasons was recently released on DVD. The team behind it are in discussions about a third series. Certainly, Bryan and Greta are keen - and they're not the only ones.

"I've lost count of the amount of people who come up to me and tell me they love it," he says. "We're talking huge numbers and, yeah, like me and Greta, they tend to be of a certain demographic.

"They like the fact the leads are two people of a certain age who get on OK with each other and have a bit of a connection. They like the whodunnit aspect, the lack of violence and the beautiful backdrop."

Bryan's been working steadily since his breakthrough roles in the 1980s. In addition to The Thornbirds and the 1980 movie Breaker Morant, in 1986 he starred in the Tom Cruise vehicle Cocktail, playing Cruise's mixologist mentor.

"Tom was a 25-year-old bloke at that stage and he had just done Top Gun and got a lot of attention, but he is an incredibly hard-working bloke - a very easygoing and respectful bloke to be around," says Bryan.

"But the biggest thing is that he's always down to push the envelope a bit more. In the script, we were behind the bar but nothing was written about us throwing the bottles around. One day he came into rehearsals and said, 'I went to this bar and the bartender was hurling the bottles around, so why don't we do that?' So we learned how to throw bottles.

"We got very good at it - and it changed bartending. Every bar you went into started doing all that. I take my hat off to him about that."

In addition to being an actor, in recent years Bryan has discovered a successful second string to his bow: writing crime thrillers. His third book, The Hidden, will be published in October. His talent for writing emerged several years ago with his book of short stories called Sweet Jimmy and he is chuffed to bits with the success that followed with his first novel, The Drowning, set in a town in New South Wales.

"I'm as surprised as anyone else that I'm writing novels but I've been telling stories as an actor for 50 years," says Bryan. "I also do some TV producing so I've also come up with ideas over the years and brought writers on to develop them. Now I develop my own stories.

"I've always been a very keen people-watcher. We're all so different and I love observing and wondering why people are the way they are. It's said writers are like magpies in that they pick off certain elements that interest them - that's certainly true of me. I'm constantly making up stories about people."

So, retirement's not on the cards then? He laughs. "I don't think you do retire in the arts. It's more like the arts retire you. People like me don't willingly retire because we're just having way too much fun. As soon as I hear 'action', it's playtime."

• Both series of Darby and Joan are out now on DVD and available to stream on Acorn Media International