ACA interviews Reg Grundy

It is not often that this site actively promotes A Current Affair but will make an exception for this coming Monday’s edition as host Tracy Grimshaw interviews legendary television producer Reg Grundy (pictured) and wife, actress and author Joy Chambers at their home in Bermuda.

Grundy first appeared on TV in 1959 as the host and producer of an afternoon game show, Wheel Of Fortune, which had made the move from radio to Sydney’s TCN9.  He then went on to produce more game shows during the 1960s before branching out into TV dramas and movies in the 1970s.  The list of Grundy productions read like a timeline in the history of Australian television, including Ampol Stamp Quiz, I’ve Got A Secret (where he met his future wife), Temptation, Moneymakers, Class Of ‘74, Pot Of Gold, Family Feud, Blankety Blanks, The Celebrity Game, The Young Doctors, Chopper Squad, The Restless Years, Sale Of The Century, Prisoner, Sons And Daughters, Perfect Match, It’s A Knockout, Neighbours, Secret Valley, Wheel Of Fortune, Australia’s Most Wanted, Richmond Hill, Embassy and The Price Is Right. 

Wife Chambers, a winner of two TV Week Logie awards for most popular female personality in Queensland in the late 1960s before becoming Mrs Grundy, went on to appear in a number of Grundy productions including The Restless Years, The Celebrity Game and Neighbours (most recently appearing in the lead-up to the show’s celebrated 6000th episode).  She is also an accomplished author in her own right.

As well as many Grundy dramas selling internationally – most notably Prisoner (pictured), The Young Doctors, Neighbours and Sons And Daughters – he also successfully franchised various game show and drama formats overseas, producing international versions of Sale Of The Century, Prisoner and The Restless Years.  He also produced a game show, Scrabble, for US network NBC.

He sold Grundy Television Productions to UK-based Pearson International in the mid-1990s – it has since been incorporated into the global Fremantle Media group.

Grundy was inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame in 1993 and received Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2008. 

Despite his many years in television, Grundy has remained a very private figure and has very rarely allowed to be interviewed and the appearance on A Current Affair came as the expense of Sunday Night and 60 Minutes which had both also tried to secure an interview.

The interview is said to coincide with the release of his autobiography.

A Current Affair.  Monday 20 September, 6.30pm.  Nine*

Source: The Daily Telegraph (via The Spy Report), Sydney Morning Herald.

 

* Melbourne.  Other areas, check local guides.

Remembering Seven’s Epping era

The Sunrise team earlier this week posted a picture via their Twitter feed showing the demolition (“using Gladiator props as wrecking balls?”) of the Seven Network’s former studios in Sydney.

The studios, in the suburb of Epping, were barely completed when the ribbon across the Studio B doors was cut on ATN7’s opening night – 2 December 1956.  And the opening night almost didn’t happen at all as a massive thunderstorm hit Sydney earlier that day, blacking out many suburbs – including Epping.  Power was restored just in time to allow the studio cameras the required 45 minutes to warm up before airtime.  VIPs arrived at the complex in torrential rain and had to make their way across mud tracks to get to the building.

In its early years the Epping complex hosted many Australian television firsts – the first ‘tonight’ show, Sydney Tonight with Keith Walshe, the first breakfast news show, Today with Ray Taylor, the first current affairs show, Seven On 7, and the first soap operas, Autumn Affair and The Story Of Peter Grey.  ATN7 was the first TV station in Australia to install videotape equipment in the late 1950s.  The station also partnered with Melbourne’s GTV9 to complete the first ever transmission between Sydney and Melbourne via a series of microwave links.

Other shows to have emanated from Epping include Revue ‘61, Startime, Sing Sing Sing (The Johnny O’Keefe Show), Beauty And The Beast, Captain Fortune, Pick-A-Box, The Mavis Bramston Show (pictured), My Name’s McGooley What’s Yours?, Great Temptation, Sydney Today, Eleven AM, The Naked Vicar Show, Kingswood Country, Romper Room, Sounds, Cartoon Connection, Saturday Morning Live, Sportsworld, Terry Willesee Tonight, Wheel Of Fortune, Hey Dad!, Real Life, Sunrise and The Main Event.

Some of TVs most famous names have also spent time at Epping.  Roger Climpson was ATN7’s principal newsreader for many years and also hosted This Is Your Life and Australia’s Most Wanted.  Mike Willesee, Graham Kennedy, Clive Robertson, Rex Mossop, Paul Hogan (pictured), Norman Gunston (Garry McDonald), Peter Luck, Bill Collins, Maggie Tabberer, Jana Wendt and Andrew Denton have also worked at the Epping studios.  And of course the many actors and actresses that passed through the various dramas to have come from Epping – series including Jonah, Motel, Catwalk, Class Of ‘74, Glenview High, A Country Practice, Sons And Daughters, Rafferty’s Rules, Home And Away, All Saints and Packed To The Rafters.

ATN7 has now moved to new facilities at the Australian Technology Park (pictured) in the Sydney suburb of Redfern – while news production facilities, including Sunrise, Seven News, Today Tonight and The Morning Show, are based at Martin Place in the Sydney CBD.

Source: Sunrise, Sydney Architecture, Forty Years Of Television: The Story Of ATN7.

TelevisionAU Update 17-Jun-10

http://www.televisionau.com

NEW FLASHBACK #55: 
For over thirty years Peter Hitchener has been a trusted face of news at GTV9, Melbourne.  Starting his career in Brisbane in the 1960s, Hitchener then moved to Sydney's TCN9.  But then when he went further south to Melbourne in 1974, Hitchener was hosting a game show, Gambit, based on the card game Blackjack.  Here he is, with Gambit hostess Ros Wood, making a guest appearance on GTV9's Cartoon Corner, with host Daryl Somers.  Picture: TV Week, 16 March 1974

CLASSIC TV GUIDES
Melbourne:
1959 (First Sydney-Melbourne telecast)
1962 (Station affiliations change for GTV9 and HSV7)
1973 (The Mike Walsh Show begins)
1974 (Class Of ‘74 begins)
1974 (First colour test patterns)
1974 (Countdown begins)
1975 (Number 96’s ‘bomb-blast’ episode)
1983

Sydney:
1959

New South Wales:
1962

Brisbane:
1972 (Number 96 debuts.  BTQ7’s The Big News extends to one hour)

Perth:
1986 (SBS expands to Perth)

TELEVISIONAU - THE HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN TELEVISION
http://www.televisionau.com
http://blog.televisionau.com
http://www.twitter.com/TelevisionAU
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/televisionau
http://au.youtube.com/user/TelevisionAU

1979: December 8-14

Sergeant O’Reilly’s ball and chain!
A happy occasion on Seven’s Cop Shop with the wedding of Senior Sergeant Eric O’Reilly (Terry Norris) and Lorna Close (Moya O’Sullivan).  The wedding, held in an outdoor setting, will go to air this week in Melbourne and Brisbane and later in Sydney.

Arcade builds into a blockbuster
Production on Cash-Harmon’s new soap opera, Arcade, has started at the studios of TEN10, Sydney.  The new big-budget series is hoped be a hit with viewers the same way as their previous hit show, Number 96.  However, unlike 96, Arcade is expected to rely on humour rather than sex and violence.  Among the scriptwriting team for Arcade are former Number 96 writers Johnny Whyte and David Sale.  Whyte was flown in from London especially to work on the Arcade script.  TEN10’s Studio A has been re-modelled into a mock shopping complex, with shop sets designed down to the last detail, while a shopping complex in the suburb of Cremorne is being used for outdoor shots.  More than 1300 people were auditioned for roles in Arcade, and some of the actors and actresses chosen will be making their TV debut in the series, joining more familiar cast names including Lorrae Desmond, Peggy Toppano (Blankety Blanks), Olga Tamara, Greg Bepper (Class Of ‘74, Glenview High) and former Number 96 stars Aileen Britton and Mike Dorsey.  Although a timeslot for Arcade has yet to be decided, producers are hoping to launch the series with a movie-length debut in mid-January.

Future shocks
Robert Moore, the former host of the long-running Monday Conference, is now presenting Faces Of The Eighties, a series of seven half-hour interviews with influential Australians heading into the new decade.  But Moore predicts that there may be tough times ahead in the 1980s: “We’re a lot more frightened today.  For instance, people have now come to believe – and not just the experts – that we may never see full employment again.  The idea of full employment may just have been a passing phase in human history.  We were lucky enough to enjoy it, but it’s running out now.”  Moore also predicts that Australians will continue to become fonder of a warmer climate, which will see a population boom in Queensland and Western Australia: “If this is true, you’d be pretty dumb buying land for houses in Tasmania and Victoria today.”

Young Doctors take the cake
It was a multiple birthday celebration when TCN9, Sydney, threw a party for the cast of The Young Doctors to celebrate its third birthday last month.  The party, a four-hour cruise of Sydney Harbour, also coincided with cast member Alfred Sandor’s birthday, with a cake and a kiss for the birthday boy from colleagues Rebecca Gilling and Karen Pini.

 

Briefly…
Actor Gary Gray and his new wife Honor Walters were in the money when the horse they co-own, Miss Pere, won the first race at Sandown recently.

Country music star and host of Country Homestead, Reg Lindsay is finally noticing, after ten years of regular visits to the United States, that he is starting to be recognised.  “They know me in Nashville.  They say ‘Why, that’s the Australian fellow’.  I’ve had half a dozen singles released in the US and the album I made in Nashville will be released later this year.  We’re still thinking of a title.”

Mike Dorsey, starring in the new series Arcade, has had to grow a beard to try and distance himself from his former on-screen persona of Reg ‘Daddy’ McDonald in Number 96.  Despite appearing in The Young Doctors since Number 96 ended two years ago, he is still recognised as the former character.

Viewpoint: Letters to the Editor:
”Complaints to TEN10, Sydney, for not televising the 1979 Custom Credit Indoor Championships at a respectable time.  We were very disappointed at not being able to view their outstanding matches, along with their respective interviews, and feel other viewers share our opinion that 10.30pm to 1.30am is not a suitable timeslot for people who work and have to rise early.”  K. Kand, NSW.

“When the commercial channels screen a film in the 7.30pm timeslot, why do they almost double the viewing time by screening innumerable commercials?  People who view at this time usually like, or need, to go to bed early, and if you are enjoying the film, it is annoying to have to switch off halfway through.” M. Walker, NSW.

“Why do we have to put up with Diana Fisher and her silly remarks on The Inventors? Vic Nicolson and Professor Stephenson both know what they’re talking about, but what does Diana Fisher know?  Her remarks about colours etc must nearly drive most people mad.” B. Heald, NSW.

What’s On (December 8-14):
Weekend sport includes the World Series Cricket, live from Melbourne, on GTV9, and tennis with the NSW Women’s Classic, from White City, Sydney, on HSV7.

HSV7’s movie host Ivan Hutchinson presents a 90-minute special previewing all the big-screen movies to be released over the Christmas break – titles including The Muppet Movie, Star Trek, Apocalypse Now, Rocky 2, Meteor, 10 and More American Graffiti.

Former Monday Conference host Robert Moore (pictured) presents the first in a seven-part series, Faces Of The Eighties, interviewing Sir Roderick Carnegie, chairman and managing director of Australia’s second largest company and largest mining company, CRA.

GTV9 has some long-gone Australian series in its late-night summer line-up – Luke’s Kingdom, King’s Men and the comedy Last Of The Australians.

In Skyways (HSV7, Monday and Thursday), Simon (Ken James) and Kelly (Joanne Samuel) set a date for their wedding.  Meanwhile, in Cop Shop (HSV7, Monday), the marriage of Senior Sergeant Eric O’Reilly (Terry Norris) and Lorna Close (Moya O’Sullivan).

Sunday night movies: A Howling In The Woods (HSV7), Night Flight From Moscow (GTV9), The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (ATV0).

Source: TV Times (Melbourne edition), 8 December 1979.  ABC/ACP