Anthony Donald Joseph Field, AM is an Australian musician and actor. He is
best known as a member of the children's group The Wiggles and the 1980s and 90s
pop band The Cockroaches. While still a teenager, he helped found The
Cockroaches with his brothers, Paul and John. The Cockroaches recorded two
albums and enjoyed moderate success, interrupted by Field's service in
Australia's regular army, until they disbanded in the late 1980s.
Field attended Macquarie University to receive training in early childhood
education, and founded The Wiggles with fellow students Murray Cook, Greg Page
and former bandmate Jeff Fatt in 1991. He worked as a preschool teacher for two
years before the success of The Wiggles forced him to focus on children's music
full-time. Despite Field's strong dislike of touring, The Wiggles became
one of the most successful and active groups in Australia. Field, who wore
blue while performing with the group, was responsible for the production
aspects of their stage and television shows, CDs, and DVDs. His issues with
chronic pain and depression, which almost forced him out of the group at
the height of their success, are well-documented.
Early life and education Field was born in Kellyville, New South
Wales. He is the youngest of seven children, and grew up in north western
Sydney. He came from a long line of musicians, especially the women in his
family. His great-great aunt was "Queenie Paul", known for performing at
the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney, and his grandmother Kathleen accompanied silent
movies in the mining town of Cobar. Field's mother, Marie, made sure that
all of her seven children learned how to play at least one musical instrument. He
attended the all-boys boarding school St. Joseph's College, which his
great-grandfather Paddy Condon, an Italian immigrant and master stonemason,
helped build. In 1979, while they were students at St. Joseph's, he and his
brothers Paul and John formed the pop group The Cockroaches.
He was inspired by his sister Colleen to study Early Childhood Education, and
became convinced that teaching preschool children "was my calling". He was also
attracted to the field's freedom, artistic nature, and lack of discipline,
which was different from his experience in boarding school. Field put off
university when The Cockroaches became successful, but he was dissatisfied with
touring and plagued by "perhaps irrational, but very real, feelings of
inadequacy and depression". By his mid-twenties, he decided that he did not
want to tour any longer, so he took two breaks. His first break was as an
infantry soldier, medic, and rifleman in the 5th/7th Battalion, Royal Australian
Regiment, Australia's regular army from 1982 to 1985. He played the bagpipes in
parades and on training missions, but ended his military service in July 1985
and suffered from a bad back as a result of his training. He also went
backpacking in the U.K., listening to roots music, to children's music by
artists like Raffi, and to recordings of children's books.
When The Cockroaches disbanded in the early 90s, Field enrolled at Macquarie
University. While at university, he decided to record an album of children's
music, enlisting the assistance of fellow student and guitarist Murray
Cook, former Cockroaches roadie and vocalist Greg Page, former bandmate and
keyboardist Jeff Fatt, and Macquarie instructor and composer Phillip Wilcher,
who later left the group. The Wiggles
The Wiggles recorded their first CD in 1991; it sold 100,000 copies. Field
worked as a preschool teacher for two years before the success of The Wiggles
and their extensive touring schedule, which Field strongly disliked, forced
him to quit. After the production of their second album, The Wiggles adopted
colour-coded skivvies to wear on stage. According to Field, he wore blue because
Cook and Fatt already owned shirts in their colours, so he and Page "met in a
Sydney department store and literally raced to see who got the blue shirt".
Each Wiggle developed a "schtick" based on their actual behaviours, which
evolved into caricatures, and served the same purpose as the uniforms in
differentiating their characters and making them memorable to young children;
Field's was eating. Field created and played the original Captain
Feathersword; the role was taken over by Paul Paddick in 1993. Field also played
Wags the Dog. By the mid-1990s, despite the success of
The Wiggles, Field reported being suicidal and "frequently gripped by
anxiety, sadness, and negativity". By mid-2004, shortly after his marriage and
the birth of his first child, Field's serious medical issues, worsened by
their heavy tour schedule, caused him to consider quitting or re-inventing The
Wiggles, despite their great success in the U.K. and North America. After
meeting chiropractor James Stoxen in Chicago in 2004, Field improved his
health to the point that he was able to continue. He began to hire teams of
chiropractors for himself, his fellow bandmembers, and castmembers in every
city they performed, which he credited with making it possible for them to
fulfill their touring requirements. In early 2013, Field became the only
original member of the group to remain after Fatt, Cook, and Page retired. He
remained in the group because he wanted to continue to educate children and as
Wiggles manager Paul Field stated, "to placate American, British and Canadian
business partners". Field's musical influences include
Lightning Hopkins, Elvis Presley, and the Rolling Stones. He plays several
instruments, including the tin whistle, bagpipes, guitar, drums, trumpet,
violin, percussion instruments and didgeridoo, and has been known to sing
in a deep rich bass voice. Field, with input from the other members, produced
most of the Wiggles' music, DVDs, and live shows.
Personal life In 1999, Field was named "Bachelor of
the Year" in Cleo Magazine. In 2003, he married Michaela Patisteas, a former
dancer whose family owned Griffiths Coffee in Melbourne. They have three
children, who have joined the Field family business by appearing in several
of The Wiggles' TV shows and videos. Beginning in 2007, Field, who is a
registered breeder of Miniature Fox Terriers, did some voiceover work for
the TV show "RSPCA Animal Rescue," for Channel 7 in Australia.
Field, in describing his enthusiasm for competitive sports, has stated, "My love
of cricket is abiding", a sport that "instills the same loyalty and passions
in me as I know baseball does for many in North America". He is a fan of the
Australian rugby league club the Wests Tigers. He is also a fan of singer Julio
Iglesias. As Field's fitness improved, to the point that his training regimen
became comparable to that of an elite athlete, he gained an interest in
gymnastics and acrobatics. Field went public about his experience
with clinical depression in mid-2007 to draw more attention to the condition. He
has stated that "being on the road is a dangerous job for someone with
depression," but has dealt with it through diet, exercise, talking about
it, and having a good support system. He chronicled his health struggles and how
he overcame them in his 2012 book How I Got My Wiggle Back.
Field is a devout Catholic, something that he reported helped him deal with
his chronic health issues and depression, especially the spiritual
practices of prayer and devotion to the Virgin Mary as expressed by Our Lady of
Guadalupe. He has two large tattoos on his arms: one is the Virgin Mary with
the words "My life is in your hands" in Spanish; the other is a heart with the
words, "My love, my heart" in Spanish. The names of his wife and his three
children are also tattooed on his arms. He admits that he got his tattoo of the
Virgin, which he hid from fans for a long time, during a visit to Mexico
while on tour in North America, in the middle of a bout with chronic pain and
dental problems, as he put it, "in a moment of madness".
Field was made a Member of the Order of Australia on 26 January 2010 "for
service to the arts, particularly children's entertainment, and to the
community as a benefactor and supporter of a range of charities".
Works cited Field, Anthony; Truman, Greg. How I Got
My Wiggle Back: A Memoir of Healing. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
272pp. ISBN 978-1-118-01933-7. References
External links Official website