Profile of Graham Kennedy on Famous Like Me

Graham Kennedy
Born	February 13, 1934 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Died	May 25, 2005 Bowral, New South Wales, Australia

Graham Cyril Kennedy (15 February 1934-25 May 2005) was an Australian radio, television and film performer. Known in his heyday in the 1960s as "The King," he was the greatest star of the first 20 years of Australian television. He later rejected fame and publicity and spent his remaining years in seclusion.

Early life

Kennedy was born in Melbourne and grew up in suburban Balaclava. He was educated at Caulfield North Central School and then Melbourne High School. His parents divorced shortly before World War II, and he was raised by his grandmother. He left school early, working first as a news runner for the Australian Broadcasting Commission on their Radio Australia shortwave service.

Leaving the ABC, he moved to radio station 3UZ, initially in the record library and later as panel operator for popular radio personality "Nicky" (Cliff Nicholls, real name Clifford Whitta), his first mentor. Nicholls, who had been broadcasting since 1932, presented a hugely popular housewife's programme, as well as "Chum's Club" with his wife Nancy Lee (real name Kathleen Lindgren). Nicky's typically Australian voice and his distinctive manner of deriding live-to-air advertisements made him the idol of listeners, and was a major influence on Kennedy, who would become famous for the using same approach on his own TV show.

Radio work

Nicholls put the young boy to air with him on 3UZ as his sidekick in 1950. He died in September 1956, and Kennedy was then briefly partnered by "Happy Hammond". By May 1957, Kennedy was appearing on television (see below), but also presented a 3AK morning radio program with Bert Newton in 1961-1962, which later originated from a studio built at Kennedy's home in Oliver's Hill, Frankston.

In 1970 he appeared on 3XY and in June to December 1975 he appeared on a 3LO drivetime program with Richard Coombe. He went to 3DB in September to November 1976 with Denis Scanlan.

Kennedy also recorded a series of eight thirty-minute radio comedies for the ABC under the title "Graham Kennedy's RS Playhouse", written by Gary Reilly and Tony Sattler and broadcast between 11 August and 23 September 1979. The "RS" in the title is from the surnames of Reilly and Sattler, but also has another connotation in Australian English.

These programmes included:

• The Birthday Boy
• Because He's My Brother
• You Only Live Once
• Sunday Morning Fever
• The Chocolate Milkman
• The Pawnbroker
• Mad Jack's Dentist
• The Good Morning Show

Reilly and Sattler, who wrote the successful television programs Kingswood Country and The Naked Vicar Show, have been compared to the English writing duo Galton and Simpson, best known for Hancock's Half Hour and Steptoe and Son.

Sattler and his wife, actress Noeline Brown, became close friends with Kennedy.

Television work

In Melbourne Tonight (IMT)

When television came to Melbourne in 1957, Kennedy was chosen to present an evening show, In Melbourne Tonight or (IMT), for GTV-9 beginning on 6 May 1957. Only 23 years old, and with no knowledge or experience of television, he began a 40-year career, throughout which he held the title of the "King" of Australian television. Speaking of his TV career in later years , Kennedy said "I was terrified for forty years".

Kennedy was not GTV-9's first choice — they had planned to use either 3UZ personality John McMahon or 3DB's Dick Cranbourne. Producer Norman Spencer defied the wishes of the first sponsor (Philips) by choosing Kennedy. The programme's name had been intended to be The Late Show, but rival station HSV-7 beat them to that name by one week. Because he was presumed gay, particularly by his homophobic boss Frank Packer, who wanted him sacked for it, he faced a certain amount of hostility from senior management. In fact as far as is publicly known Kennedy never had a relationship of any kind (his reported engagement to singer Lana Cantrell was a hoax). His true sexual orientation has never been explicitly confirmed in public, although following Kennedy's death radio personality Derryn Hinch has claimed that he knew Kennedy to be gay and had met several of his male lovers.

Kennedy on television was bawdy, irreverent and iconoclastic. His colleague Bert Newton records in his book "Bert! Bert Newton's own story" (pub. Garry Sparkes & Associates, Toorak, Victoria, Australia; ISBN 0 908081-24-3):

"The blood would drain from the face of Pelaco shirt-wearing executives in television, advertising and business until they realised that instead of televisual suicide, this skinny little wiseguy was commercial gold. And then they liked his brand of humour a lot." (p. 91)

"A commercial I shared with Graham, Raoul Merton ('of comfort you're certain when you wear Raoul Merton') changed the footwear buying habits of men." (p. 91)

Newton also writes:

"(Norman) Spencer was the mastermind of IMT; don't let anyone forget that. Nothing happened on IMT that Norm did not approve personally [...] Norman Spencer chose Graham Kennedy as compere; Norm kept his eye on the show from day to day; he pushed the buttons from the control room which put the TV shots into viewers' homes at night; he added the talent around Graham and he set up the organisation." (p. 93)

IMT was devised as a copy of the American 'Tonight Show' format, with the host presiding over sketches, introducing star turns and reading advertisements live, but Kennedy transformed the live reads into a unique comedic art form, deriding the sponsor's products and extending the advertisements to the point of absurdity — on one famous occasion, a scheduled 20-second ad. spot was spun out into 33 minutes of improvised comedy. Foretelling the future of TV, the live IMT commercials were sometimes more entertaining than the show itself.

As well as his grounding in the 'post-modern' radio comedy of Nicky Clifford, Kennedy's style had roots in English music hall and especially in vaudeville. His the often smutty, sometimes camp, and innuendo and double-entendre laden style was undoubtedly influenced by the famous Australian stage comedian Roy "Mo" Rene.

His labrador dog 'Rover' was sometimes brought into the studio to assist with advertisements for a brand of canned dog food. In what was undoubtedly a "setup", the dog one night showed no interest whatsoever in the product, which Kennedy then himself proceeded to eat with apparent relish, straight from the can - or so it seemed.

Rover also achieved television immortality by relieving himself - live to air - upon one of the then huge television cameras, which must have seemed to him to be the nearest thing to a tree. The studio audience collapsed in hysterics, but the duration and urgency of Rover's impressively hydraulic performance might have lead some cynics to question just how impromptu the event really was.

Kennedy was exasperated for decades by questions about "whatever happened to Rover". As late as 1989, on "Graham Kennedy's News Hour" (see below), he answered a viewer's question couched in exactly those words with the withering reply, "... he was a dog. What do you think happened?"

In early June 2005, on the 3AW programme "Nightline" with Philip Brady and Bruce Mansfield, Patti (McGrath) Newton stated that her father had often looked after Rover when he appeared at GTV-9. Graham, it seems, had become increasingly irritated with retrieving Rover from the pound, and so, when Patti's father's dog died, Rover went on to a long and happy life at the McGrath (senior) household.

IMT's theme song was Gee, But You're Swell, written by Abel Baer and Thomas Tobias in 1936.

For thirteen gruelling years, Kennedy ruled supreme as host of IMT and Australia's most popular TV personality. On IMT he was working with a talented on-camera team that included Joff Ellen, Rosie Sturgess, Mary Hardy (the sister of celebrated author Frank Hardy) and Bert Newton. Behind the scenes, IMT's stable of writers included Mike McColl-Jones and Ernie Carroll, the arm and voice behind Ossie Ostrich). They laboured for Kennedy, who with his cast and crew, made the long hours of preparation and rehearsal look effortless and spontaneous. Over a twelve year period Kennedy created a unique style of Australian comedy that had few equals in its day. But the schedule was punishing -- IMT aired five nights a week and concurrently, for several years in the early Sixties, he and Newton also hosted the morning shift on Melbourne station 3AK, which had recently been purchased by GTV-9.

Kennedy finally quit IMT on December 23, 1969, exhausted, and retired from TV for two years; in spite of his fame and fortune, he later described the period as "years of misery". After a special on 2 March 1972 he returned with The Graham Kennedy Show on 19 September 1972, but sparked controversy after a "crow-call" which sounded highly reminiscent of the word f**k was broadcast in March 1975. Forced to pre-record rom that point on, he abruptly departed following GTV-9 censorship of the 16 April 1975 edition.

The Crow Call

On the show of March 5, 1975, Kennedy imitated a crow ("faaaaaark") during a live read of a Cedel Hairspray advert by annoucer Rosemary Margan. Apparently it was not the first time Kennedy had used the joke, but for some reason it attracted attention this time and Nine reportedly received hundreds of complaints, followed by a rash of newspaper headlines the next day. The incident was reported to the Broadcasting Control Board and as a result Kennedy was banned from performing live on TV for an indefinite period and was forced to pre-record the show on videotape.

Some have claimed that Kennedy deliberately engineered the crow-call incident so that the show would have to be pre-recorded, allowing him to get home earlier. Others suggest that he did it so that Nine would sack him. In 2002, in The Age, writer Jonathan Green reported that the crow-call segment was in fact pre-taped, not live, and that in fact the bad language controversy was probably just a pretext for other issues. Rival Nine personality Ernie Sigley, who presented his own variety show on different nights to Kennedy, has claimed the real reason Kennedy was axed was that his ratings were so poor compared to Sigley's.

Even in 1975, it would have been unlikely that utterance of the word f**k itself would have been sufficient to cause the axing of the entire show. According to Age reporter Suzanne Carbone, the first known use of the expletive on Australian TV was in the Sixties, when Nine Adelaide evening news presenter Kevin Crease said "f**king hell" during a mishap in a live advertisement on variety show Adelaide Tonight. Crease told The Age that "The audience fell off their chairs laughing," and that he was amazed no complaints were received, but although he feared he would be sacked, nothing happened.

According to Kennedy's biographer Graeme Blundell, it was actually another and much more political incident which led to Kennedy's final departure from Nine. A few weeks after the 'crow-call' incident, he quit (or was sacked) after the network took advantage of the pre-taping to censor out Kennedy's scathing attack on the then Media Minister, Senator Doug McClelland, for his failure to support local content regulations for TV.

His words, which never made it to air on 17th April 1975 were:

Good evening.

Little serious bit to start with: Senator Douglas McLelland, ahh, is really copping it in the press at the moment. All this week, every paper you pick up, there's a, there's a roast of the Senator.

And like most Australians, I hate to kick a man when he's down (audience laughter).

But in Doug McLelland's case, I happily make an exception (audience laughter).

He has failed, and he knows it too. Now, the public know it.

This misguided Minister took credit for a mythical boom in television production. Now, there is no boom.

Employment in television production is down, this year, by over 30 percent, and that's a fact.

His point system has proved utterly ineffective, and I wonder if you can remember who that little blond-headed fellow was, who works on television, who originally pointed out that it it wouldn't work.

(audience: Graham!)

That's right (audience laughter).

We are all suffering from the lack of local content at the moment. I'm being trashed in the surveys because constantly being thrown at, up against me are shows like the Academy Awards, and cheap television series, all purchased for a few hundred dollars from the Yanks.

Now some of these - when I say a few hundred dollars, by the time it's amortised over the network, that's how much the program costs. Now we can't compete, umm, with the price of these shows.

We cannot: this is a, what is this, a six thousand dollar a night ... uhh, we can play Mrs. Miniver for, err, ninepence.

(audience laughter)

It's beneath my dignity to even go into the laughable and inane carryings-on of the Australian Broadcasting Control Board which the good Minister of the Crown, Senator Douglas McLelland, is in charge of, but I know I can speak for a lot of my colleagues in this industry, and several other industries in the entertainment field, when I demand, here, tonight, nationally, that Senator McLelland be dismissed from office; and I would suggest most strongly that the portfol ... the portfolio itself be dropped.

That's all I want to say.

Australian content on TV was a highly sensitive issue at this time. In the wake of the controversial McLean Report, the Whitlam government was taking major steps to open up the radio spectrum with the introduction of community broadcasting and the ABC's new rock station, Double Jay, but it had done nothing to address the low levels of local content on Australian TV. Aware of the media's crucial role in its own election in 1972, and understandably fearful of a backlash if it forced unpopular content quotas on the industry, the government steered well clear of any serious re-examination of the current structure and did little to increase levels of Australian content on TV.

Understandably, the proposal to increase local content had long been advocated local producers, writers and actors, but it was bitterly opposed by the networks, who relied on being able to buy large blocks of American programming at a fraction of what it would have cost to produce similar shows locally. The problem was compunded by the Whitlam government's far-reaching 1973 decision to reduce tariffs across the board by 25% -- the first move towards today's controversial "free trade" policies. The immediate result of the tariff reduction was that overseas programming became even cheaper.

Also at this time, the networks were being targeted by the "TV - Make It Australian" campaign, which involved a number of prominent Australian actors and TV personalities including Kennedy and several leading actors from the popular police shows made by Crawford Productions, notably Gerard Kennedy and Charles "Bud" Tingwell. The successive cancellation of all three major Crawford Productions police shows (each broadcast on a different network) within months of each other during 1975 has been portrayed by Tingwell and others as an act of revenge by the networks for Crawford's active support for the campaign and the participation of its contract players. Following this logic, Blundell suggests that Kennedy too was a victim of the Nine's sensitivity about the local content issue. It has also been suggested that, with a federal election looming, Nine used the crow-call as a pretext to remove the politically vocal Kennedy, who was known to support the ALP.

Power Without Glory

Kennedy appeared as "Clive Parker" in the 26-part ABC drama Power Without Glory, which began on 21 June 1976.

Blankety Blanks

He returned to television in 1977 for what is now Network Ten to host a comedy game show, Blankety Blanks. It dominated early evening television for two years between 7 February 1977 and 15 September 1978, and featured friends from his earlier days including Noeline Brown, Barry Creyton, Noel Ferrier, Ugly Dave Gray, Carol Raye and Stuart Wagstaff.

Kennedy won a TV Week Gold Logie Award in 1978 for Most Popular Personality On Australian Television.

The questions were designed as double entendres, such as "Joan and Paul went to bed and Joan asked Paul to blank her". Many questions were quotations of a fictional character named Cyril, and would begin "Cyril said..." with the quotation recited by Kennedy in a sterotypical gay male voice. Later another recurring character in the show's questions was a man named "Dick", leading to "Did Dick?", "Dick did!" exchanges between Kennedy and Ugly Dave Gray. Kennedy also dubbed the crew member who remained behind the show's sets uncovering the correct answers on the board as "Peter the Phantom Puller".

Graham Kennedy News Show Graham Kennedy: Coast to Coast

On 25 April 1988 Graham Kennedy's News Hour premiered on the Nine Network, with Kennedy in the unlikely role of newsreader, with Ken Sutcliffe. It ran until 9 December 1988 and returned on 13 February 1989 under the title Coast to Coast featuring co-host John Mangos replacing Sutcliffe. Coast to Coast ran until 8 December 1989.

On the program he reprised a song which, he said, originated in a 1920's children's newspaper column in Scotland, and was used by Cliff "Nicky" Nicholls and wife Nancy Lee on their 3AW 'Chatterbox Corner' program:

 Being a chum is fun,
 That is why I'm one;
 Always smiling, always gay,
 Chummy at work,
 Chummy at play -
 Laugh away your worries,
 Don't be sad or glum;
 And everyone will know 
 That you're a chum, chum, chum!

Kennedy defied convention with remarks which were outrageously tasteless, and yet hilarious. He said that it would be helpful for the show's ratings if the Pope's aircraft were to fly into a mountain; remarked that Queen Elizabeth II "didn't have bad breasts [...] for a woman of her age" and mocked the San Francisco earthquake with a recreation on the set.

Sutcliffe would "corpse", with tears in his eyes, unable to continue; this became so frequent that Kennedy managed to coin a catchphrase, "I love it when he cries".

Graham Kennedy's Funniest Home Videos

His last programme was Graham Kennedy's Funniest Home Videos which was broadcast between 29 March and 15 November 1990 on the Nine Network.

Last television appearance

He was interviewed by Ray Martin in 1994, later stating that he felt "ambushed" by Martin's probing into personal matters. This was to be his final television appearance. In 1998 he was honoured with a Hall of Fame Logie. He did not attend the ceremony; the award was accepted on his behalf by Bert Newton. Over his life Kennedy collected a total of 14 Logies and 7 Gold Logies, more than any other entertainer in history.

Film work

Kennedy appeared in a number of films, ranging from brief cameos to leading roles. They include:

• They're a Weird Mob (1966) (brief cameo as himself)
• The Box (1975) (supporting role playing himself)
• Don's Party (1976)
• The Odd Angry Shot (1979)
• The Club (1980)
• Silent Reach (1982) (telemovie)
• The Return of Captain Invincible (1982) (cameo)
• The Killing Fields (1983)
• Stanley (1983)
• Travelling North (1987)

He apparently also had a cameo in On the Beach (1959) which was not used.

Later life

In 1991 Kennedy retired, moving to a rural property at Canyonleigh, near Bowral in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, near to his friends Tony Sattler and Noeline Brown, where he kept Clydesdale horses and a golden retriever named Henry. He never married, despite his hoax engagement to singer Lana Cantrell, now a New York lawyer. In the 1960's Bob Dyer described him as "probably the loneliest young man in Australia."

Kennedy's health declined during the 1990s. A diabetic, and a heavy smoker and drinker, in 2001 Kennedy fell down stairs at his home, and suffered a broken leg and skull. Initial reports suggested that he suffered brain damage, but that appears not to have been the case. He sold his property and moved into a townhouse and later a nursing home. His old friend and former colleague Bert Newton visited him shortly after the accident, and friends Tony and Noelene Sattler rallied to his aid.

Despite a career of high earnings, he was said to have never become rich from his success, and it was stated in the press that his financial situation was, while not disastrous, insufficient to fund his care. Having made millions for the Packer family interests, he believed that "the Packers will always look after me". His confidence was misplaced, and despite a direct appeal by the Sattlers to Nine's current owner Kerry Packer, to assist financially with Kennedy's care, Packer (who is a billionaire) declined to contribute. Soon after this, according to Graeme Blundell, the sum of $150,000 was placed into Kennedy's bank account anonymously. It is believed to have come from former Nine executive Sam Chisholm, who rose from early beginnings promoting floor wax products on In Melbourne Tonight to become Channel Nine's network chief. When Kennedy died, however, his will left most of his money (millions of dollars) to the Sydney City Mission.

Kennedy's colleague on Coast to Coast, John Mangos, was reported in 2001 as having said:

"I can say to his beloved fans that they won't see Graham again. He won't appear publicly again; he is in his twilight. He has made a personal decision to disappear quietly into the sunset."

On 2 February 2004, The Daily Telegraph said:

"The king of Australian TV Graham Kennedy will celebrate his 70th birthday next weekend with a few close friends. The low-key affair is expected to be at the Kenilworth Nursing Home at Bowral where Kennedy has lived since taking a nasty tumble a few years ago. Physically he's not in terrific shape. He can't walk any more and gets around in a wheelchair as a result of the diabetes and the years of heavy smoking."

Actor Graeme Blundell, who worked with Kennedy on the movies The Odd Angry Shot and Don's Party published a biography of Kennedy, King: The Life and Comedy of Graham Kennedy (McMillan, 2003). Although unauthorised, it was reported that Kennedy gave Blundell, via his agent, "best wishes for the book".

At 4:30am on 25 May 2005 Kennedy died at the Kenilworth Nursing Home, Bowral, from complications from pneumonia . After his death the radio broadcaster Derryn Hinch alleged that Kennedy had died of AIDS. Kennedy's biographer Graeme Blundell then published Kennedy's medical records, including a recent negative HIV test, to disprove this allegation.

Although Kennedy himself never stated it explicitly, it was tacitly accepted that he was homosexual. This was made fun of, in a friendly way, at his funeral.

Four of Graham Kennedy's television shows were named in the Top 50 Australian TV Shows of All Time, as decided by ratings data and the opinions of one hundred television industry professionals, announced on Australia's Nine Network on 25 September 2005. Kennedy's "In Melbourne Tonight" topped the poll. "Power without Glory" was #15. "Blankety Blanks" was #20. "Coast to Coast" was ranked #42.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Graham Kennedy