Turning the lights out at Television City

It started life at the turn of the 20th century as a piano factory, and then a soup factory.

Then, in 1956, the building at Bendigo Street, Richmond, became part of the dawn of the new industry of television and went from producing 57 varieties of soup to a variety of a completely different kind.

For over fifty years it has been ‘Hollywood-on-the-Yarra’ as it has produced television programs – variety, drama, comedy, children’s programs, sports, news and current affairs – that are among the most loved and most popular in the country.

It was where the Victorian governor Sir Dallas Brooks (pictured, above) made his grand entrance on GTV9’s opening night – 19 January 1957 – by entering the studio in a chauffeur-driven limousine. The two-hour variety program that followed, featuring names like Bob and Dolly Dyer, Toni Lamond, Frank Sheldon, Ron Blaskett, Terry Dear and Lou Toppano’s orchestra, certainly set the tone that this new channel was going to have a clear focus on light entertainment and variety – and it certainly delivered that in the decades that followed.

A few months after GTV9’s lavish opening night, a shy radio star named Graham Kennedy made his first TV appearance and shortly after made his TV hosting debut on a variety show, In Melbourne Tonight. The show would continue for over a decade and earned Kennedy the nickname of the King of Australian TV. It is a title that nobody has dared to challenge ever since.

In 1959, Kennedy was joined by Bert Newton (pictured, right, with Kennedy in 1964) – a personality from rival channel HSV7 who had resigned from his employer on-camera before making the move to GTV9. For his debut at GTV9 he was placed next to Kennedy to present a commercial during IMT. It was the beginning of a long-running professional partnership and a personal friendship that would last decades.

In 1964, with a new rival TV channel – ATV0 – about to debut, GTV9 expanded its premises to a new state-of-the-art studio, Studio 9. It was a studio built specifically for IMT but would go on to host a list of productions in the years that followed – including New Faces, The Graham Kennedy Show, The Don Lane Show (pictured), The Ernie Sigley Show, Hey Hey It’s Saturday, The Paul Hogan Show, Family Feud, Sale Of The Century, The Daryl Somers Show, Tonight With Bert Newton, Blankety Blanks, All Together Now, The Price Is Right, The Footy Show, Burgo’s Catch Phrase, Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush, Starstuck, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Temptation, Bert’s Family Feud and Millionaire Hot Seat.

As well as variety and light entertainment shows, 22 Bendigo Street – or ‘Television City’ as it became known – was home to several drama series including Emergency, one of the earliest TV drama series ever made in Australia, Division 4, The Sullivans, Starting Out, The Flying Doctors, All The Way, Chances, Halifax fp and Stingers.

Eric Pearce (pictured) and American Jack Little formed Melbourne’s (if not Australia’s) first newsreading duo, later making way for others including Brian Naylor, who read the news from Bendigo Street for twenty years, Peter Hitchener and Jo Hall. Mike Walsh hosted a 1960s version of Today, and Tanya Halesworth (and later Mickie de Stoop) hosted a daytime current affairs program, No Man’s Land, in the 1970s.

This Saturday night, the Nine Network pays tribute to the stars and the shows that have come from the famous studios as it prepares to move out from the building.

After Daryl Somers and his team sign off from the final episode of Hey Hey It’s Saturday for 2010 from Studio 9, Nine will cross to Bert Newton and Eddie McGuire in Studio 1, back where it all began with Sir Dallas Brookes and the early days of IMT, to present Lights, Camera, Party! – Television City Celebrates.

The two-hour special will feature some of the people, programs and magic moments that have featured from the legendary television studios over the past 53 years. The studio audience for the program will be made up entirely of past and present Nine Network personalities.

The building at 22 Bendigo Street was purchased by Vivas Lend Lease earlier this year with a plan to redevelop the historic site as a residential and retail precinct. The building’s original red brick exterior is heritage protected but the remainder of the site, including extensions such as Studio 9, will be redeveloped and will include some design aspects that will acknowledge the site’s significant heritage.

GTV9 has entered into a long-term agreement with the inner city Docklands Studios for future large scale productions – while other functions of the channel will be relocated to new premises in the Docklands precinct nearby.

Somers, whose TV career began as host of Cartoon Corner and Hey Hey It’s Saturday in the early 1970s, had previously suggested that part of the redevelopment be reserved for a TV museum and he has now been reported to be considering producing a documentary on the history of the famous studios.

Lights, Camera, Party! – Television City Celebrates. Saturday 27 November, 9.40pm. Nine (Melbourne – other areas check local guides)

Source: Herald Sun

1979: May 26-June 1

The girl who leads Norman a merry dance
Pamela Gibbons has emerged as one of Australia’s most versatile performers, whether it be acting, singing, dancing or choreographing.  A former member of Ronne Arnold’s contemporary dance theatre with stage acting roles to her credit and a six-month stint in Number 96, Gibbons has recently had the female lead in the ABC drama The Oracle and has been dancer and choreographer for The Norman Gunston Show since it started on ABC in 1975 and has followed the show to the Seven Network.   Gibbons and Gunston (both pictured) will appear in this week’s The Norman Gunston Show in a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers-style song and dance routine.  Working with Garry McDonald (Gunston) has given Gibbons a new confidence in aspiring to a higher standard, such as taking on the role in The Oracle, starring opposite John Gregg, and is now keen to tackle some of the classics of the stage: “That would be a step forward in confidence.  I’d particularly love to play Chekov’s The Three Sisters.  The words are so beautiful.”

Kennedy’s comeback in TV comedy?
Graham Kennedy may return to TV in a comedy series being developed for the Seven Network by RS Productions, producers of The Naked Vicar Show.  Kennedy has already featured in a series of radio plays produced by RS and aired on ABC.  The new TV series, Comedy Playhouse, will be made up of seven half-hour situation comedies, though producers Tony Sattler and Gary Reilly declined to comment on reports that Kennedy would feature in the series.  Since Blankety Blanks wound up production late last year, Kennedy has made a movie – The Odd Angry Shot – and hosted one edition of Sydney TEN10’s Saturday night variety show.

Tanya: Why I came back to TV
Twenty years after becoming one of ABC’s first female TV presenters and after a six-year absence from TV, Tanya Halesworth has returned to host a new ABC series, Sunday Spectrum.  So what prompted Halesworth’s departure from TV, as host (pictured) of Nine’s all-female current affairs program No Man’s Land?  “My youngest son was two, and, well, I’m just the sort of person who hates to miss something I’ll never experience again, and I had a fear of missing out on my boys’ childhood.  I’m not unique.  It’s the sort of situation most women who work find themselves in.”  Halesworth agreed to host Sunday Spectrum as it was “the first suitable, meaning part-time, offer I’ve had since deciding I could come back to work.  And I think the program is something that is needed on TV at the moment.”  Sunday Spectrum is a two-and-a-half-hour program of local and overseas content on general subjects and the arts.

Briefly…
Pop singer Frank Howson and former Early Bird Show co-host Mike McCarthy are working on two children’s series for the Grundy Organisation.  Howson’s project, The Magic Trucking Company, has a strong rock music element and is aimed at eight to 12 year olds.  McCarthy is developing a new format that producer Godfrey Philipp is not ready to give any details on at this stage.  Grundy’s are also planning a children’s drama aimed at breaking down barriers between children of different nationalities.

Cornelia Frances is set to make a return to TV after her departure from the role of Sister Scott (pictured) in The Young Doctors last year.  The actress has had talks with Crawford Productions and is to appear in Cop Shop and Skyways for the Seven Network.

ABC producer Brian Adams has just completed an 80-minute special, in conjunction with Munich’s RM Productions, following the life of Dame Joan Sutherland from her home in Switzerland to touring across the US, Europe, United Kingdom, Japan, Korea and Australia.  The special, Joan Sutherland – Life On The Move, airs on ABC nationally in August.

Viewpoint: Letters to the Editor:
”I read that black and white shows will not come back.  It’s a shame.  What difference does it make to watch a black and white movie or serial once a week?  Give us repeats of Rawhide, 77 Sunset Strip, Wanted Dead Or Alive and Surfside Six.  Can’t one channel give it a try and watch the ratings?” T. Thompson, NSW.

“Having seen for myself the idiotic antics of Ron Blanchard introducing young viewers to his ARVO program and making them wait for Play School and Sesame Street while he converses with a puppet called Alexander the Bunyip, I have decided that ABC is no better than the commercials in providing suitable children’s TV.” K. Lochin, NSW.

“I would just like to say something to the people who think Ian Meldrum is a hopeless compere.  Who was it who put the drug specials on TV to help teenagers in these sorts of jams?  Who was it who spent all his time and effort in these specials?  That’s right – Ian Meldrum.  Also, who is it who is now involved in the ‘Save the Whale’ campaign and who is getting all your kids into it as well so that the whales won’t become extinct.  Right again – Ian Meldrum.” D. Lane, VIC.

What’s On (May 26-June 1)
ATV0 launches a new 7.00pm game show, $10,000 Winner’s Circle, hosted by Sandy Scott.

Overseas stars Jack Lemmon, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Chevy Chase, Leif Garrett and Glen Campbell are some of the guests to appear in this week’s The Norman Gunston Show on HSV7.  Also appearing are Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum, Johnny Farnham and Pamela Gibbons.

ATV0 screens the highly-anticipated first two parts of the US mini-series Roots: The Next Generations, the sequel to the mini-series Roots that earned top ratings around the world two years earlier.  The mini-series airs in two-hour episodes this Monday and Thursday evening and continues in the same timeslot over the coming weeks.

The final episode of drama series The Oracle screens on ABC.

On Wednesday night, GTV9 presents a one-hour special on the Billy Graham Sydney Crusade.

Actress Jacki Weaver is the guest star in this week’s Capriccio on ABC, also featuring the Claire Poole Singers, the Carlson Chorale, Daniel Barenboim and George Golla.

Sunday night movies: Eleven Harrowhouse (HSV7), Hustling (GTV9), Dirty Harry (ATV0).

Source: TV Times (Melbourne edition), 26 May 1979.  ABC/ACP

Tanya Halesworth

Tanya Halesworth, one of ABC's first female television presenters, died earlier this month at the age of 73.

Born in Brisbane in 1935, Halesworth moved with her family to Sydney and after finishing school became involved in small theatre companies and appeared in early TV commercials.

In 1958, the 23-year-old successfully beat 200 other applicants for an announcing and presenting role at ABC's Sydney station ABN2.  Later, in amongst studies and theatre performences, she also appeared as a presenter on Six O'Clock Rock.  In 1961, she won a TV Week Logie award for Most Popular Female Personality in NSW.

Halesworth moved to the Seven Network in 1962, and there met her future husband, announcer and interviewer John Bailey.  Although Halesworth had already been married, and divorced, and had declared that "entirely against man's instincts to be tied down to one woman", she later married Bailey after returning from working in the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s.  The pair worked at TEN10 Sydney before moving to GTV9 in Melbourne. 

In June 1973, Halesworth launched the Nine Network's daytime current affairs program No Man's Land, a ground-breaking effort given the program had an all-female line-up, including reporters Mickie de Stoop and Susan Peacock, and was determined to "liberate the women from the kitchen sinks and laundries for 30 minutes every day to keep up with the news."  The program won a TV Week Logie in 1975 for Outstanding Contribution to Daytime TV.

Halesworth then returned to ABC in the 1980s to host the arts program Sunday Spectrum, then moved to the Ten Network's Good Morning Australia, before leaving television.  She then went on to a career in public relations and later in psychology.

Halesworth returned to Queensland in the late 1990s following the death of Bailey, and continued working until she was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year. 

Tanya Halesworth is survived by her sons John, Michael and Keiran and their families, and six grandchildren. 

Source: SMH, Australian Television Information Archive