Noelene Hogan is the mother of five of his children and supported him while he attempted to break into comedy but when Paul Hogan left his wife of 30 years for his much younger Crocodile Dundee co-star he cut Noelene out of his life.
A Woman’s Day story reveals that when Hogan fell for Linda Kozlowski while making Crocodile Dundee in 1986 he turned his back on his long-term marriage and completely stopped communication with Noelene – for 17 years!
The 76-year-old split with Linda, now 58, in 2014 – together they have a 17-year-old son, Chance.
Noelene is apparently setting the record straight before the release of a TV miniseries about Hoges which is being filmed in Queensland. “He doesn’t speak to me,” she told Woman’s Day.
For some time the Hogan divorce was called “one of the ugliest, bitterest divorces in Australian show business history, but Paul has always tried to maintain that while their divorce wasn’t “nice” there was no feud and that they still talked.
But Noelene, now in her late 70s, has said that they didn’t speak for 17 years after the divorce – the second divorce that is, as the pair were divorced for about a year in the 1980s before remarrying. Still Sydney based, Noelene married second husband Reg Stretton in 2000.
The TV series, called Hoges, will star Australian actress Justine Clarke as Noelene and former Neighbours star Josh Lawson in the role of Hogan. It is expected to air in Australia later this year.