Oscar winner visits Rotorua friends

David Seidler wasn't being arrogant when he restricted questions to six.
When you're as fresh off the Oscar-winner's podium as Seidler, it's little wonder he is, as he puts it, "all interviewed out".
Less than a month since he was named winner of the Academy Awards Best Screen Play for his scripting of The King's Speech, he was in Rotorua this past weekend visiting long-time friends Eddie and Ann Bosomworth.
The man who's now considered hot Hollywood property and Mr Bosomworth share a passion for fishing, meeting 30 years ago on Lake Aniwhenua.
After a surfeit of Oscar hype all Seidler wants is to exchange angling tales with Mr Bosomworth and conversation that doesn't include The King's Speech, hence the "six questions" rule.
The Daily Post obliged with only one. At 73, we ask, shouldn't he be thinking of retirement, not lining up another few decades' worth of script writing projects?'
We hit pay dirt. It's a topic he's passionate about.
"Passionate enough to include part of my answer in my acceptance speech but the stopwatch was on me - you only get 45 seconds and well before that the teleprompt's saying 'wind it up, wind it up'."
His father predicted his son would be a late bloomer and both parents set fine examples of being ageless achievers.
"At 78 my father taught himself Cantonese well enough to go to the Chinese Trade Fair and conduct business there."
His artist mother Doris Seidler died last October a nonagenarian.
"I found her last sketch book, Art In My 98th Year. It has the vitality of a young person."
The British Museum has more than 40 of her works.
Her son cites others he admires for their "older years" contributions.
"Churchill was still prime minister at 80, the Queen Mother was sharp as a tack at 102, Picasso was making art and babies in his 90s - well, he was certainly making love, if not babies."
It is Seidler's hope that his record of being the second-oldest person to receive the screen writer's Oscar will be broken "swiftly and repeatedly".
"We are now living long, extended, hopefully fruitful lives. My children and certainly my children's children will, unless they're extremely unlucky, live to be 100. What are they going to do for 35 years?
"To answer your question, no I will never retire. If you've still got a brain you can still be a pain."
As Mrs Bosomworth says, the charm of the man is that he doesn't take himself too seriously.
Seidler was previously married to Rotorua-born Huia Newton. He talks fondly of his Maori "rellies", tosses in a few words in te reo and recounts great fishing exploits shared with Rau Manahi, son of Te Arawa's military hero Haane Manahi.
His only semi-official Rotorua engagement was an hour with University of the Third Age Members - "as a favour to Eddie".