Australians of a certain age may remember Alby Mangels with a kind of fuzzy, golden-hued nostalgia.

In the 1970s and ’80s, the adventurer and documentary filmmaker was a household name thanks to his World Safari films, which screened in theatres and town halls across the country.

“All tight shorts and sun-kissed sinew”, as one ABC journalist has described him, the Dutch-born, Adelaide-raised Mangels was just 21 when he set off with his mate John Fields on a six-year filmmaking odyssey across four continents.

With a single film camera, a shoestring budget, and the company of a string of glamorous bikini-clad women, they immersed themselves in the local culture of the places they visited, while undertaking all kinds of wild, often risky, adventures.

“An idea started to come into my head to go around the world and film it and make an adventure film,” the now reclusive 77-year-old tells Australian Story in its latest episode, Finding Alby Mangels.

“I think at the time there was the Leyland Brothers (pioneering Australian documentary filmmakers) and I thought, ‘Well, I could do that, you know, but on a world basis’. So I got together with a friend, John, a $300 camera and a motorbike each and we took off north up to Darwin.

“People thought, you know, ‘You’re mad’. We were away for six years. We had a lot of mishaps and close shaves.

“But, you know, I had that dream and I was not going to come back to Australia with nothing. And I knew that we could make a good film.”

Alby Mangels and his pet dog Jack in 1990. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

After the first World Safari film was released, Mangels – who was considered a sex symbol and at one point even posed nude for a Cleo centrefold ­– embarked on more adventures that resulted in two further films.

In recent years, he’s been considered a kind of predecessor to rugged outdoor-documentary-TV stars such as Steve Irwin and Bear Grylls, and in his hey-day Australian audiences couldn’t get enough of the so-called “swashbuckling” filmmaker and pop culture icon.

It was reported that in one week during 1984, the three top-grossing films in Australian cinemas were Gremlins, Ghostbusters and World Safari 2.

But then things suddenly went awry after World Safari III came out in 1988. The documentary failed and its star ­– who had owned farms, planes and boats ­– went bankrupt.

“Got too big for my boots,” he tells Australian Story. “I went broke, I lost everything. Went away from everything, from everybody.”

There were also a series of controversies, including claims about faked shots, unpaid staff and animal cruelty, all of which Mangels denied.

After a career revival in the ’90s with the television series Adventure Bound, Mangels again disappeared from the public eye. Three years ago, the ABC reported he was living in a secret island location under an assumed name, while quietly filming in Micronesia.

Finding Alby Mangels includes interviews with Mangels’ sister Maria and nephew Rick Snel, as well as cinematographer Geoffrey Hall, American television executive Mark Finkelpearl and TV historian Andrew Mercado.

The ABC says that having shunned the media for a long time, Mangels agreed to talk to Australian Story about his journey, starting with his difficult childhood ­– he has said he dropped out of school to support his ill mother, and was later kicked out of home by his stepfather ­– and then his unusual trajectory from a “barely literate bricklayer” to world-famous documentary adventurer.

The episode also looks at both his sudden fall from grace and his career revival, with Mangels addressing the accusations that he faked footage and explaining why he turned his back on fame.

A previous interview gives some insight into what drove the younger Mangels: “I never did anything for cinema,” he said. “I just did what I wanted to do and what turned me on.”

Australian Story ­– Finding Alby Mangels airs on the ABC and iview at 8pm on February 9