WELL-known Mandurah theatrical couple Peter Keogh and Sacha Mahboub are over the moon about the result of the same-sex marriage referendum and are waiting anxiously for the legislation to be passed.
They have already ordered the wedding cake and are looking for a venue.
Keogh, a Mandurah Performing Arts Centre booking office worker, and former dancer and Morning Melodies host Mahboub are now in their 70s and have been inseparable for almost 30 years.
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READ NOWKeogh was once married to popular English comedian Su Pollard, star of the 1980s comedy Hi-De-Hi.
Later, he spent seven years with theatrical entrepreneur John Frost before meeting Queenslander Mahboub, who was working as a wardrobe master in Melbourne. He hoped to be a chef but fell in love with dance instead.
Keogh recalls the first Sydney Mardi Gras in 1975 when just one truck drove down Oxford Street and people were being arrested.
“The violence was scary but now the Mardi Gras is huge,’’ he said.
The pair are unhappy that many people were stressed by the same-sex marriage postal survey and the time it took.
Why do they feel so strongly about tying the knot after 30 years?
“Because we have fought for this long and hard and some people don’t feel the need to, “Mahboub said.
“If we want to get married, we can.
“There is still a touch of homophobia around and we will no longer feel like second class citizens.
“But the referendum brought out a lot of hate and we were almost back in the 1960s.”
There is also the legal situation.
“If one partner dies, the surviving partner may have spent 30 or 40 years with one man but have nothing to show for it,’’ Mahboub said.
The pair held a commitment ceremony in 2008 with close friend, the late film star Debbie Reynolds.
They planned to marry in England, where same-sex marriage is legal, last year but Keogh became sick and Mahboub went on his own.
In his book My Hi-Di-Hi Life, Keogh said Mahboub was able to cut through the facade he had buried himself behind “and found the me I had kept hidden since the day I was born”.
“When he walks into a room its as if a light has been turned on,’’ Keogh said.
“I cannot imagine being in a world without him.”
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