1991: September 28-October 4

Hey, look who’s in love!
While Chris Mayer and Rachael Beck (pictured) are constantly bickering as their Hey Dad! alter egos Simon and Sam, off-screen the two have been secretly dating.  “Yes, I am in love,” Mayer told TV Week.  “It feels great.  I’m really enjoying it.”  During an upcoming production break for the series, he intends to head to Italy, staying in the town of Perugia and studying Italian – and it looks like Beck will be joining him.

It’s goodbye Bob and Cookie!
As the Seven Network’s A Country Practice approaches its tenth anniversary, some drastic cast changes are set to shock fans of the popular drama.  Actors Gordon Piper and Syd Heylen, who play characters Bob Hatfield and Cookie, are not having their contracts renewed at the end of the year, both having worked on the show for much of its ten year run.  Producer James Davern has said that the actors have other commitments – Piper is producing corporate videos and Heylen also runs a marketing company and is keen to spend time in Queensland with his wife who isn’t well – and that the characters will not be written out in any “Wandin Valley massacre” storyline and will be able to return at a later stage.  However, TV Week reports that neither actor had any option to stay on the show.  Also leaving the series is Matt Day, who will tape his final scenes in December, and Georgie Parker and John Tarrant, who will finish up early in the new year.  All three have decided it is time to move on.  To fill the void left by losing five characters some new additions will be signed on.  Former Brides Of Christ star Kym Wilson has joined the series and will make her on screen debut in November, and three other new characters will be written in over the coming months but have yet to be cast. 

Stig cops right out!
Col’n Carpenter star Stig Wemyss has left the Network Ten series after a falling out with the show’s producers.  Wemyss, who has played the role of Colin’s flatmate Michael Preeble since the show started 18 months ago, has told TV Week that he is “extremely disappointed” that an agreement with producers could not be reached.  “I wanted the storylines to explore a bit more of Michael.  I didn’t think that was too much to ask because the character had been there so long.  I’m not saying I wanted it to be the Michael Preeble show or to be any less about Colin (Kim Gyngell), but if you don’t expand a character, he just becomes nothing.  For me, the strength of the show was having an ensemble cast.  It was obvious Michael wasn’t going to be playing a major part in the way the show was going, so I didn’t want to continue.”

Briefly…
Just months after the bomb-blast storyline that killed off three characters, the neighbourhood of Network Ten’s E Street is about to be stalked by a psychopathic serial killer.  Architect Steven Richardson, played by Vince Martin, is set to reveal a darker side as he takes on the identity of ‘Mr Bad’ (pictured) whose first victim is Dr Virginia Travers (Julieanne Newbould).  Producer Forrest Redlich has defended the frightening storyline (“Where A Country Practice and GP do things on alcoholism, venereal diseases and such social subjects, we chose the serial killer.  Unfortunately they do exist.”) and a spokesperson for Ten has said that the network is mindful of the show’s 7.30pm timeslot and all episodes in question have to be approved at multiple levels within the network before being submitted for final approval by the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal.

Ernie Sigley, co-host of the Nine Network’s In Melbourne Today and In Sydney Today programs, talks to TV Week about his upcoming 40th anniversary in showbusiness.  Starting in radio as a teenager, at Melbourne station 3DB, Sigley made the move to television as a performer on HSV7’s Teenage Mailbox (pictured) and went on to a successful television career including several years as host of Adelaide Tonight and later The Ernie Sigley Show, The Penthouse Club (later Saturday Night Live), Pot Luck and Wheel Of Fortune.  The one-time Gold Logie winner also mentions the reported altercation with Don Lane at the after party for the 1988 TV Week Logie Awards.  “I didn’t say anything to him to upset him.  The relationship had been strained for a few years,” he said.

When boxing champion Lionel Rose was told of plans to make a mini-series about his life, he wasn’t enthusiastic.  He told producers nobody would want to see his life story.  “I told them I was unreliable and they couldn’t depend on me to help them out,” Rose told TV Week.  “But they kept at me until I agreed.  I told them I wanted the whole story to be told… warts and all.”  However, TV Week production editor Frank Quill, who also happens to be a member of the World Boxing Council’s executive and considered Australia’s most senior professional boxing official, says that despite Rose’s request that his portrayal be “warts and all”, viewers may be short-changed by viewing the final product.  “Certainly, some viewers, human enough to think everything in Odds actually happened, will be misled,” he wrote.  Rose Against The Odds, which stars newcomer Paul Williams as Rose and former The Flying Doctors star Vikki Blanche as his wife Jenny, screens this week on the Seven Network.  The two-part mini-series also stars Kris McQuade, Tony Barry and Hollywood actor Telly Savalas.

Former A Country Practice star Sophie Heathcote has won a role in Yahoo Serious’ upcoming movie project, a contemporary comedy about Ned Kelly.  “The character I play is really young and silly and very funny,” she told TV Week.  “She is in love with Ned and I am going to have a ball playing her.”

John Laws says…
”There can often be something ghoulish about screening the “final” TV interviews of prominent people, those unfortunate enough to die suddenly soon after such interviews are given.  We have had the “final interview” with Dr Victor Chang, the brilliant heart surgeon shot dead in a Sydney street in early July.  Happily, SBS’ King Of Hearts documentary managed to avoid any overt sense of ghoulishness in giving us a nicely balanced portrait of Dr Chang.  This was, it has to be admitted, the most emotionally-draining documentary you are likely to see in a long time – not because of any exploitative intention on the part of reporter Amanda Hickey, but because of the simple, profoundly moving tributes paid to Chang by his friends, patients and colleagues.  This was a wonderful piece of TV documentary work.  It probably would have turned out a completely different product had Dr Chang still been alive, because Hickey began working on it a few weeks before his death.  Dr Chang was slain only six weeks after talking to SBS.  I have a feeling that public response to the Dr Chang documentary will lead to a speedy re-screening.  It pointed up only too bleakly how the circumstances of his death resulted in such endless waste.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, September 28-October 4):
Saturday:  It’s Grand Final day for the AFL.  Seven’s coverage, started late last night with the Football Marathon, continues through the day – with the traditional North Melbourne Football Club Grand Final Breakfast at 8.00am, followed by live coverage of the Under 19s and Reserves grand finals.  Then at 2.00pm live coverage from AFL Park, Waverley, for the end of season clash between Hawthorn and the West Coast Eagles.  Daryl Braithwaite – the key performer at the pre-game entertainment at the Grand Final – will also appear on Nine’s Hey Hey It’s Saturday in the evening.

Sunday:  Seven presents the first instalment of the two-part mini-series Rose Against The Odds (pictured), telling the story of boxing champion Lionel Rose who captured the world’s attention when he defied the odds to become the World Bantamweight champion as a 19-year old in the 1960s.  Sunday night movies are The Karate Kid II (Nine) and The Abyss (Ten).

Monday:  The conclusion to Rose Against The Odds (Seven) sees Lionel Rose’s sporting career at an end and his entering the seedy world of small-time crime and drug abuse, and the battle to get his life back on track.

Tuesday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), Lucy (Georgie Parker) is shattered when the results of her IVF program come back.  In Chances (Nine), Alex (Jeremy Sims) stuns the family when he re-appears after they had believed he had perished in a plane crash, and Paris (Annie Jones) is devastated when she learns a close friend has AIDS.

Wednesday:  SBS newsreader Mary Kostakidis presents the Ethnic Small Business Awards, live from the Sheraton-Wentworth in Sydney.

Thursday:  Ernie Dingo guest starts in The Flying Doctors (Nine) as a university dropout who clashes violently with his brother (Luke Carroll) and Dr Guy Reid (David Reyne) over the pending death of his grandfather.  ABC’s coverage of the 1991 Rugby World Cup, being held in France and the United Kingdom, begins with late-night coverage of the opening ceremony and the first match between England and New Zealand. 

Friday:  In Home And Away (Seven), Sam (Ryan Clark) finds out who his father is.  ABC’s coverage of the Rugby World Cup continues with the match between Australia and Argentina.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  28 September 1991.  Southdown Press

TV Week Logie Awards: 50 years ago

British actor Jimmy Edwards was the special guest of honour at the 3rd annual TV Week Logie Awards presentation, held at Sydney’s Chevron-Hilton Hotel on 18 March 1961. 

The Gold Logie for Australia’s most popular television personality was won by Pick-A-Box host Bob Dyer.  “This is the most exciting night of my life,” he said as he received his award.

Sydney’s ATN7 won two Logies – one for variety show Curtain Call, the predecessor to variety series Revue ‘61 and which introduced English-born Digby Wolfe to Australian audiences, and one for the play Shadow Of A Pale Horse. 

National broadcaster ABC also won two Logies – Stormy Petrel, the story of the mutiny against Captain Bligh when he was Governor of New South Wales, was awarded Best Drama Series, while the broadcaster also won a Logie for its coverage of the Davis Cup tennis which was broadcast via a special link between Sydney and Melbourne.

National awards:
Gold Logie: Bob Dyer (pictured)
Best Variety Program: Curtain Call (ATN7)
Best Comedians: Buster Fiddess, Bobby Limb (both from The Mobil-Limb Show)
Best Singer: Elaine McKenna (In Melbourne Tonight/The Graham Kennedy Show)
Best Australian Drama: Shadow Of A Pale Horse (ATN7)
Best Drama Series: Stormy Petrel (ABC)
Best Sports Broadcast: Davis Cup (ABC)
Best Actor: Brian James (Stormy Petrel)

State-based awards (Most Popular Male Personality, Most Popular Female Personality, Most Popular Program):
NSW: Digby Wolfe (ATN7), Tanya Halesworth (ABN2), The Bobby Limb Show (TCN9)
VIC: Graham Kennedy (GTV9), Panda Lisner (GTV9), In Melbourne Tonight (GTV9)
QLD: Brian Tait (BTQ7), Nancy Knudsen (BTQ7), The Late Show (BTQ7)
SA: Ian Fairweather (NWS9), Maree Tomasetti (ADS7), Adelaide Tonight (NWS9)

The presentation was telecast live to Sydney viewers in a half-hour broadcast on ABN2, while ABC stations in other states presented a delayed broadcast the following week.

Pictured (left to right): Lionel Williams (Adelaide Tonight), Ian Fairweather, Maree Tomasetti, Elaine McKenna, Bernard Kerr (sports director, ABC), Bob Dyer, Graham Kennedy, Bobby Limb, Panda Lisner, Tanya Halesworth, Nancy Knudsen, Rod Kinnear (program manager, GTV9), Brian Tait, Wilson Irving (program manager, BTQ7)

Source: TV Week, 23 March 1961.  TV Week, 30 March 1961.

Rex Heading

Rex Heading, the man who created Humphrey B. Bear in the 1960s, has died from cancer at the age of 81.

Heading was working at Adelaide radio station 5KA when he became one of the first staff appointed by the city’s first television station, NWS9 – Rupert Murdoch’s first television station – when it was preparing to launch in 1959. He was the new station’s first program and production manager, overseeing early programs including Adelaide Tonight, The Country And Western Hour and the channel’s big-budget Christmas pantomimes.

When NWS9’s resident children’s character Bobo the Clown moved across to rival channel SAS10 in 1965, Heading needed a new character to take his place:

“I believed what we wanted was some form of three-dimensional cartoon character. I had spent time years earlier drawing cartoons for some not very discerning magazines, and so I sat down with a pad and started to draw. After a lot of sketching based around a human outline, the result was Humphrey B. Bear.”

Humphrey made his debut on NWS9’s The Channel Niners and was so successful he was soon given his own show, Here’s Humphrey. The new program was screened nationally across the Nine Network and many regional stations, creating an iconic children’s brand that has lasted generations and would run on Nine almost continuously for over forty years.

In the 1970s, Heading created a breakfast show featuring Cheryl Mills and characters Winky Dink and Hot Dog – and the success of Here’s Humphrey also led to a spin-off, The Curiosity Show. Heading’s contribution to children’s television led to him being made a foundation member of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal's children's program committee, as well as to the committee that founded the Australian Children's Television Foundation.

His success in production at NWS9 led to him being promoted to general manager and then managing director. He was involved in the establishment of regional television stations in Kalgoorlie, WA, and the Riverland district in South Australia, and spent three years working for the Ten Network. He also worked for Crawford Productions and radio 3AW.

In 1996, Heading co-wrote the book Miracle on Tynte Street: The Channel 9 Story and in 2006 was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his service to the television industry as a producer and director.

The death of Rex Heading comes only a few months after the passing of Tedd Dunn, the creator of another children’s TV character, Fredd Bear, in 1964.

Source: WA Today, TV Tonight, ABC, Miracle On Tynte Street: The Channel 9 Story.

1979: May 19-25

Wedding bells for Prisoner stars
TV’s love story of the year culminated in a wedding on Sunday 29 April – and there wasn’t a TV camera in sight.  Prisoner stars Barry Quin and Peita Toppano (pictured) got married in a garden wedding at the property of Toppano’s parents (Enzo and Peggy Toppano) in Pymble, NSW.  The bridesmaid at the ceremony was Prisoner co-star Carol Burns and the best man was The Young Doctors star John Dommett.  The newlywed couple had a week’s break from production to honeymoon on the NSW coast.

Bill looks at a peach of a city!
Bill Peach’s new ABC series, Peach’s Cities, is half-way through production.  In the series, Peach explores each of Australia’s eight capital cities.  The first four episodes have already been filmed.  The new series takes a similar format to Peach’s previous series, Peach’s Australia, though will put less emphasis on the historical background and more on the cities’ future and what problems they may face.  Peach’s Cities is expected to air on ABC later in 1979 and will be followed by a book.

My worst moment…
Being a TV interviewer can bring many challenges, whether talking to Mr and Mrs Average or the rich and famous, and sometimes things don’t always go to plan.  Countdown’s Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum recalled an interview with US singer Billy Joel: “I started by asking him a very involved question that took about 75 seconds to ask.  Then I found Billy was in one of those quiet moods.  All he said was ‘yes’.  So I asked Billy if he had anything else to say on the subject and he said ‘no’.  So I did all I could do and asked him long questions to which he gave his short answers.  It was a nightmare.”  Mike Walsh (pictured) didn’t recall his worst but, rather, his most embarrassing interview, featuring magazine columnist, veterinarian Dr Paul: “He came on the show to tell us how to tell the sex of a rabbit.  A local Catholic school and a Church of England school donated rabbits.  The rabbits soon made it clear which sex was which when, undeterred by their public appearance, they got on with the business.  I poured a glass of water over them but they just kept at it.”  TVW7 Today hostess Stephanie Quinlan never forget the day Warren Mitchell walked out on an interview: “Mitchell came for the interview when rebuilding work was going on at the studio.  The sounds of the work were clearly heard and Mitchell walked off the set at least three times.  He eventually agreed to the interview and so, with a prayer for quiet builders, I started the questions.  By that time, Mitchell’s mood was similar to a large black thundercloud so his answers were somewhat loud and rude.  I was surprised that such an educated man could vent his feelings so uncontrollably and show such a lack of professionalism.  I must say he didn’t act like a gentleman.”

Briefly…
The Grundy Organisation is making a pilot for a “topical light entertainment” show for the 7.00pm timeslot for the 0-10 Network.  The project, titled Graffiti, will feature a large cast from both Sydney and Melbourne.

Pete Smith, the long-time booth announcer for GTV9, is now hosting Adelaide Tonight for NWS9 following the departure of Ernie Sigley, now focusing on Saturday Night Live for HSV7 Melbourne.

The second series of Young Ramsay has commenced production in Melbourne.  The 13-part series will again feature John Hargreaves as vet Peter Ramsay and Serge Lazareff as wildlife ranger Ray Turner.

British sex symbol of the ‘50s, Diana Dors, is coming to Australia to promote her book Behind Closed Dors and will be making guest appearances on both The Mike Walsh Show and The Don Lane Show.

Viewpoint: Letters to the Editor:
”I congratulate the staff of ATN7 and TEN10 Sydney who do such a wonderful job of program planning.  It was a stroke of genius to put The Muppet Show and Hans Christian Andersen on at the same time as the Star Wars Holiday Spectacular.  I hope these individuals of such superior intellect could inform a mother, with only one TV set, how she can explain to her two disappointed children that they could watch only one program.  I hope both Channels 7 and 10 take satisfaction in the fact that they upset a lot of children.” B. Hawk, NSW.  (TV Times responds: “All commercial TV channels are in competition to gain the biggest audiences, and “counter-programming” to reduce the anticipated ratings of an opposition channel’s programming is part of their business.  We get many letters on the subject.”)

“I’d like to take a shot at The Young Doctors – how the nurses carry on with the young doctors!  One would think that just about every nurse would have her going-on with the doctors.  The nurses on TV soapies are an insult to the honourable nursing profession.” I. Craig, NSW.

“Australian comedies are never usually worth watching, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that Doctors Down Under is not only distinctly worth watching, but it is nearly as good as the original.”  D. Dowell, NSW.

What’s On (May 19-25):
Philip Adams, Harry Butler and Lloyd Rees are the guests on the final Parkinson In Australia (ABC, Saturday).

This Fabulous Century (HSV7, Sunday) looks at fads and fashion – remembering the pogo-stick, mini-golf and yoyo crazes and the many changes in women’s fashions.

In Cop Shop (HSV7, Monday and Thursday), a dangerous epidemic threatens Riverside as police search desperately for a typhoid carrier.  Guest stars include Barbara Llewellyn and John Ley.

On Wednesday night HSV7 presents the Miss Teenage 1979 contest from the Camberwell Civic Centre, hosted by Ray Chapman.

ABC presents the first of a six-part series, Journey Into Japan, narrated by Keith Adams.  The program looks at various aspects of Japanese life including leisure, tourism, culture and tradition.

Sunday night movies: Irma La Douce (HSV7), The Rare Breed (GTV9), Summer Of ‘42 (ATV0).

Source: TV Times (Melbourne edition), 19 May 1979.  ABC/ACP

Ernie Sigley preparing to sign-off

Ernie Sigley, the "little Aussie battler" with over fifty years in radio and television, has announced his resignation from his long-standing role as afternoon host on Melbourne radio station 3AW, signaling a move into semi-retirement.
Beginning at radio station 3DB as a turntable operator in 1952, Sigley went on to become a disc jockey for the station and then graduated to television in 1957 as one of the hosts of Melbourne's first popular music program Teenage Mailbag on HSV7.
He then took a gamble and tried his luck overseas, managing to score work at BBC and at Radio Luxembourg. Returning to Australia in the mid-'60s, Sigley went to Adelaide where he took over as host of NWS9's Adelaide Tonight. Hosting Adelaide Tonight for almost a decade led to Sigley and co-host Anne Wills scoring a swag of TV Week Logie awards for most popular personalities in South Australia.
In 1974, Sigley returned to Melbourne to host The Ernie Sigley Show at GTV9, and which famously paired him up with former go-go dancer Denise Drysdale. They both went on to win TV Week Gold Logies as most popular personalities on Australian television and also had recording success with their single 'Hey Paula' becoming a best-seller.
The Ernie Sigley Show came to an abrupt end early in 1976 when an off-air outburst - after an episode which had been cut short for a sports awards telecast coming down the link from Sydney - aimed at his producer Peter Faiman and boss Kerry Packer saw Packer sack him in person the next day.
After being sacked, Sigley went to ATV0 to host a nightly variety show, Ernie, and in 1978 he replaced Mike Williamson as co-host of HSV7's Saturday night variety show The Penthouse Club, which then became Saturday Night Live.
In 1981, after a break from TV, Sigley made a few token appearances on game shows like Personality Squares before being signed up by Reg Grundy to host the Seven Network's new game show Wheel Of Fortune, a role which he held for three years before handing over to John Burgess. At the same time he launched Wheel Of Fortune, he also returned to 3DB, where his career began thirty years earlier, to host the breakfast program. And in 1982, he had a brief stint as host of the regional variety program Thursday Night Live from Ballarat's BTV6.
In the mid-'80s, Sigley reprised The Ernie Sigley Show for GTV9 which had only a brief run before he went to the Ten Network to host the daytime talent show Pot Luck, a revival of the 1970s Pot Of Gold.
In 1989, Sigley and Denise Drysdale were reunited, hosting GTV9's new morning show In Melbourne Today which later became Ernie And Denise when the program went national a few years later. Sigley also returned to radio, first at 3AK, then to 3AW in 1996 where he continues hosting the afternoon shift until later this year.  Sigley, who recently celebrated his 70th birthday, is expected to stay at 3AW but in a part-time or reduced capacity.