Family.

Mike Grandfather on his father’s side, was an eminent artist and teacher. Antonio Dattilo Rubbo emigrated from Italy at the end of the 19th century. Why he chose Australia is a mystery. He had been trained in classical painting at the Naples school of fine Art and was ready for a teaching post somewhere.

Some stories have him  discovering a boat load of beautiful Australian girls, strapping creatures from the sun and surf, stopping in Naples on their way to Europe, and Nonno as we called him, deciding then at there that Australia was to place to live.

Another story tells of  a far too festive farewell party and Nonno getting on the wrong ship, having planned to go to South Africa. In Australia,  he became a revered teacher and regular exhibitor. He taught many of the most important artists emerging in Australia in the new century and was open to the new trends in Europe such as Impressionism and the works of Van Gogh. Later, he became more conservative but was always an important influence on Australian Art. As a personality, he was loved for his coloful ways, his opera singing, his generosity to young artists and to galleries and charities. His is a name still fondly remmbered many years later.

Mike’s father, Prof. Sydney D. Rubbo, became probably even more eminent that his father, and in the totally unrelated fields of Bacteriology and Microbiology. After taking his PhD in London studying blue veined cheese, Syd, came back to Melbourne to be a senior lecturer at the young age of 27.

He next became full professor at the very young age of 34 in 1945. Soon, he was concentrating  on his great interest in cross infection in hospitals, and making important discoveries.

He later helped launch the Salk vaccine in Australia, a tremendous campaign. Even later, he advised on the disinfecting of returning space craft . Towards the end of his life became interested in the possibility of biological terrorist attacks and worked hard for a more peaceful world.

Early in life he had rejected his father's flamboyant Italian and artistic background but towards his early death at 59, Syd became president of the Dante Alligeri Society and took a great interest in his own father’s achievements at last.

Mike’s Mother, Ellen Rubbo, was a dancer and a commercial artist who took London by storm before the Second World War. On returning to Australia she became  a long term exhibiting artist in Melbourne as she raised her family of four kids in post war Australia. She had several solo shows and was an important artist in the visual scene. Always interested in issues, she was passionately against the Vietnam War towards the end of her life in 1976.

Mike has a son, Nicolas Rubbo, from an earlier marriage, who lives in Canada and has a high powered PR job in the banking world. Mike also has a teenage daughter, Ellen Rubbo, presently in a Central coast High School.

Mike’s wife, Katerina Korolkevich -Rubbo, has been mentioned already several times in these pages. She’s from Moscow. She was Mike’s interpreter at a Moscow film festival in 1989. He was there with his feature, Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller. She was impressed by the fact that he found his own film funny and he sat with the Russian audience.

Later, Katya joined him in Canada where he was living, and in  the early nineties, their daughter was born.  I995,  they returned to Mike’s native Australia. Katya works as an interpreter, is a teacher of English as a second language, a painter and is very active in her local Russian Orthodox church. She helped found the Russian church on the Central Coast. She has also collaborated with Mike on several film projects, most profoundly on The Little Box that Sings. The idea for that film came from her.

In her childhood in Russia,  she had been surrounded by classical music which was augmented by a musical ancestry. Her mother Gretta, was born Lancetti, and was a descendant of a family of musicians, particularly violinists.

The most famous cello player at the end of the 17th century was Salvatore Lancetti of Naples, Researching her roots inspired Katya to suggest and help make the documentary on that fascinating instrument, the violin, described as approaching in range and subtly, the human voice.