"In another interview ""His Colorful Life"", he professed to Kristina Meredith of Country Press South Australia that he was a born rebel and an adventurer at heart.Alex Mendelssohn migrated from war-worn Hungary in the early 1950s to mine for opal in the stark opal town of Andamooka where the famous "Andamooka Opal" or "Queen's Opal" was discovered in the 1950s and presented to Queen Elizabeth II.