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Chopper Read

Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read (born November 17, 1954), is an Australian ex-convict, author, and celebrity.

Early life

Read was born to an ex-army father and a mother who was a devout Seventh-day Adventist. He was placed in a children's home for the first five years of his life. Read grew up in the Melbourne suburbs of Collingwood, Thomastown, Fitzroy and Preston. He was bullied at school, claiming that by the age of 15 he had been on the "losing end of several hundred fights" and his father, usually on his mother's recommendation, beat him often as a child. Read was made a Ward of the State by the age of 14, and was placed in several mental institutions as a teenager, where, he later claimed, he was subjected to electroshock therapy.

By his mid-teens, Read was already an accomplished street fighter, and the leader of the Surrey Road gang. He began his criminal career by robbing drug dealers, based in massage parlours in the Prahran area. He later graduated to kidnapping and torturing members of the criminal underworld, often using a blowtorch or bolt cutters to remove the toes of his victims before killing them (hence the slang term "Toecutter", used for Headhunters).

While in Pentridge prison's H division in the late 70's, Read launched a prison war. His gang, dubbed 'The Overcoat Gang', because they wore long coats all year round to conceal their weapons, were involved in several hundred acts of violence against a larger opposing gang during this period. Around this time, Read had a fellow inmate cut both of his ears off in order to be able to leave H division temporarily. While in his early biographies Read claimed this was to avoid an ambush by other inmates, his later works state that he did so to "Win a bet". Several other members of Read's gang also cut off their own ears in a similar fashion after this incident. Read was ambushed and stabbed by members of his own gang in a sneak attack, when they felt his plan to cripple every other inmate in the entire division and win the gang war in one fell swoop was going too far. Read lost several feet of bowel and intestine in the attack. Ironically, one of the attackers was James Loughlan, a longtime friend of Read's. Read was, at the time, serving a 17-year sentence after attacking a judge in an effort to get Loughlan released from prison.

The nickname 'Chopper' was allegedly based on the protective Bulldog from the cartoon series Yakky Doodle, due to Read's habit of protecting the small and innocent from harm. Read once claimed to have served two years for GBH in 1978 after attacking a local pimp and drug pusher who was attempting to force a 13 year old school girl into prostitution, claiming "It was worth it".

Described variously as witty, charismatic, sadistic, and frightening, Read admits to being involved in the killing of 19 people and a further 11 attempts. Many of his associates in the underworld claim that Read is prone to making up numbers to increase his own notoriety and the sales of his books. Read himself has stated on numerous occasions that he would "never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn."

Career

Convicted of crimes including armed robbery, firearm offenses, assault and kidnapping, Read spent 13 months outside prison between the ages of 20 and 38, then went on to become a successful author of crime novels, selling in excess of 500,000 copies of his works. More recently, he has also found success as a recording artist.

In 2005, Read embarked on a tour of Australia performing a series of shows titled I'm Innocent with Mark "Jacko" Jackson and later toured Sydney in a stage show with a new co-star, former Detective Roger "The Dodger" Rogerson.

In 2001, Read was featured in an advertisement on behalf of the Pedestrian Council of Australia warning of the dangers of drunk driving. Read is seated at a kitchen table and undoes his shirt, and while pointing to the numerous scars and injuries on his body, says:

When I was in prison… I got slashed in the face… my ears cut off…..my eyebrows trimmed and a butcher’s knife here, an icepick here - NOT FUN AT ALL, etc… If you drink and drive and you're unfortunate enough to hit somebody, you ought to pray to God that you don't go to prison.

In 2006, Read appeared in another commercial speaking out against domestic violence. On March 13, 2006, he released a rap album titled Interview with a Madman. He also appeared in the 2002 Australian comedy, Trojan Warrior.

Read allowed use of his name to Australia's heaviest alcoholic lager called "Chopper Heavy". The beer is produced in Rutherglen, Victoria, a town associated with Australia's most notorious outlaw - Ned Kelly.

Personal life

Read married Australian Taxation Office employee Mary-Ann Hodge in 1995 while imprisoned in Risdon Prison in Tasmania for the shooting of his friend Sidney Collins. The marriage produced one child, Charlie. They later divorced in 2001. On January 19, 2003, he married long-time friend Margaret Casser. They have one son, Roy Brandon.

He contracted Hepatitis C during his time in prison through using a blood-stained shaver. Read revealed in March 2008 that he only has between two to five years to live and requires a liver transplant, which he has refused.

Bestselling author

Read's first book, Chopper: From the Inside, was collected from letters he sent while incarcerated in Melbourne's Pentridge Prison, and published in 1991. It contains tales and anecdotes of his criminal and prison exploits. Further biographical releases followed in a similar vein. However, with the advent of Chopper 5: Pulp Faction, Read began writing fictional tales based on his experiences of criminal life. Attempts were made to ban a children's book written by Read titled Hooky the Cripple.

The 2001 film Chopper, starring Eric Bana as Read, was based on stories from Read's books and independent research, leading to events portrayed on screen which somewhat contradicted Read's version of events. For instance Read claimed in early books to be vehemently anti-drugs, but the film portrays him as a casual drug user. In response, Read stated that "You have to hate something if you have tried it".

Bana has agreed to again play Read in the sequel to Chopper. Read has refused to deny reports that he will have a cameo in the film.

Bibliography

Chopper: From the Inside (1991), ISBN 0-646-06543-2
Chopper 2: Hits and Memories (1992), ISBN 0-646-10987-1
Chopper 3: How to Shoot Friends & Influence People (1993), ISBN 0-646-15444-3
Chopper 1992838553753875: For the Term of His Unnatural Life (1994), ISBN 0646210149
Chopper 5: Pulp Faction: Revenge of the Rabbit Kisser and Other Jailhouse Stories (1995), ISBN 0-646-25065-5
Chopper 6: No Tears for a Tough Guy (1996), ISBN 0-646-29637-X
Chopper 7: The Singing Defective (1997), ISBN 0-646-33923-0
HI(1998), ISBN 0-9586071-0-9
Chopper 9: The Final Cut (1999), ISBN 0-9586071-4-1
Chopper 10¹⁄₂: The Popcorn Gangster (2001), ISBN 0-9579121-0-2
Hooky the Cripple: The Grim Tale of a Hunchback Who Triumphs (2002), ISBN 1-86403-165-4
The Adventures of Rumsley Rumsfelt (2003), ISBN 0-9579121-7-X

Discography

Interview with a Madman (2006)

Public commentary and political views

Read has made public comment about a number of criminal cases, including the Ivan Milat backpacker murder and the Port Arthur massacre. He has frequently appeared on radio and television talk shows to promote his books and discuss his views on many issues. For a short period of time, he also had a column in Ralph magazine. He also was a regular columnist for the British magazine FHM. He currently has a column in Zoo Weekly. His success in selling tales of his criminal past, and a number of recent attempts by other criminals to do likewise, has prompted widespread calls to amend the Federal Proceeds of Crime Bill (2001) — which confiscates the proceeds of drug deals and robberies — to also apply to indirect proceeds of crime, including book sales, TV appearances, and the like. Read has described his political beliefs as "to the right of Genghis Khan". In his book Chopper 2, he lists American conservative G. Gordon Liddy and Bruce Ruxton, a critic of Australia's immigration policies and leader of the Victorian RSL, as his political heroes. He also remarks that he makes a certain Neo-Nazi acquaintance (axe murderer Dane Sweetman) look like a "gay commie." He believes in capital punishment for child molesters.

Cultural references

A fictional character named Chopper Read recently featured in several sketches on The Ronnie Johns Half Hour. Some of these sketches, such as Harden The F*ck Up! have gained a kind of cult following among Read's fans in Australia and across the world. Chopper was portrayed by Heath Franklin. Read has praised Franklin's exaggerated impression.

Acclaimed science fiction author William Gibson based a character (Keith Blackwell) in the final two books of his Bridge trilogy on Read. In the second book of the trilogy, Idoru , Gibson wrote in his acknowledgments:

"Anything I know about the toecutting business, I owe to the criminal memoirs of Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read (Chopper from the inside, Sly Ink, Australia, 1991). Mr. Read is a great deal scarier than Blackwell, and has even fewer ears."