TV Week Logie Awards: 50 years ago

Tommy Hanlon Jnr (pictured, right), the American-born host of the daytime game show It Could Be You, and entertainer Lorrae Desmond were the winners of the Gold Logies at the 4th annual TV Week Logie Awards, held at Melbourne’s Chevron Hotel on Saturday, 31 March 1962.

It was the first time that the Gold Logie was awarded to both a male and female personality – a custom that would continue on and off for the Logies until the late 1970s – hence making Desmond (pictured, below) the first female to win the coveted award.  Her award was also the first Gold Logie to be won by an ABC personality.

Hanlon was present at the Chevron to accept his Gold Logie, but Desmond – whose self-titled variety show was a hit for ABC – was in Hollywood at the time of the presentation but in her written acceptance to TV Week, she said it was the “nicest thing” that had ever happened to her:

“Quite honestly I have never been so surprised and delighted.  With every performer, I’m sure the most important thing in the world is to be liked by your own people.  Therefore, any measure of success in your own country is much more warming and rewarding than achievement overseas.  So from the bottom of my heart, thank you to the readers, judges and people concerned who gave me this award.”

Interstate guests were flown to Melbourne’s Essendon Airport via airline TAA’s ‘Operation Starlift’.  Upon arrival in Melbourne, the guests travelled via a fleet of open-roof cars, the procession guided by a police escort as it made its way through Melbourne to the Chevron.

The event was hosted by Gerald Lyons with 1961 Gold Logie winner Bob Dyer (pictured) handing out the statuettes.  The presentation had a 30-minute live broadcast on ABV2 in Melbourne with delayed telecasts in other states. 

The presentation also marked the first ever State-based Logies to be awarded to Western Australian and Tasmanian personalities – with ABC hostesses Diana Ward and Wendy Ellis being voted as most popular in those States respectively.

National awards:

Gold Logie – TV Man Of The Year: Tommy Hanlon Jnr (It Could Be You)
Gold Logie – TV Girl Of The Year: Lorrae Desmond (The Lorrae Desmond Show)

Best Variety Show: Revue ‘61
Best Compere: Bob Dyer
Best Drama Series: Consider Your Verdict
Best Youth Entertainment: Bandstand
Best Female Singer: Patsy Ann Noble
Best Male Singer: Col Joye
Best Comedian: Bobby Limb
Best Documentary Series: Anzac
Best News Feature Program: Four Corners
Best Commercial: Vacuum Oil Company's Mobil Oil

State-based awards:

NSW: Digby Wolfe, Dawn Lake, The Johnny O’Keefe Show
VIC: Graham Kennedy, Toni Lamond, Sunnyside Up
QLD: Brian Tait, Jill Edwards, Theatre Royal
SA: Kevin Crease, Joan Disher, On The Sunnyside
WA: Diana Ward (pictured)
TAS: Wendy Ellis

Pictured above – Top Row: George Wallace (Theatre Royal), Bob Dyer (Pick A Box), Bob Raymond (producer, Four Corners), Graham Kennedy (In Melbourne Tonight).  Middle Row: Brian Henderson (Bandstand), Peter Macfarlane (producer, Revue ‘61), Bobby Limb (The Mobil-Limb Show), Diana Ward (ABW2, Perth), Alf Spargo (producer, Sunnyside Up).  Bottom Row: Wendy Ellis (ABT2, Hobart), Patsy Ann Noble, Dawn Lake (The Mobil-Limb Show)

Top Row: Len Reason (Paton Advertising), Blair Schwartz (On The Sunnyside), Kevin Crease, Col Joye.  Middle Row: Brian Tait, Bill Collins (Sunnyside Up), Dorothy Crawford (producer, Consider Your Verdict), Kevin Ryder (producer, The Johnny O’Keefe Show), Darrell Miley (Federal Entertainment Director, ABC, on behalf of Lorrae Desmond).  Bottom Row: Tommy Hanlon Jnr, Toni Lamond, Jill Edwards, Joan Disher.

Source: TV Week, 14 April 1962.  TV Times, 28 March 1962.  Sydney Morning Herald, 1 April 1962.  The Age, 2 April 1962.  Australian Television Information Archive.

50 years of BTQ7, ABQ2

This weekend marks yet another television station’s 50th anniversary.  Brisbane’s BTQ7 was launched on 1 November 1959.  It was Brisbane’s second TV channel, following QTQ9 that had launched in August of that year. 

Brisbane also didn’t have to wait long to get their third TV channel, as national broadcaster ABC opened its Brisbane channel, ABQ2, on 2 November 1959. 

Like QTQ9, BTQ7 was broadcasting from studios and transmission towers constructed up on Mount Coot-tha in Brisbane.  ABQ2 opted instead to have its studios in the suburb of Toowong but had its transmission towers at Mount Coot-tha.

Early personalities on BTQ7 included Brian Tait, children’s presenters Nancy Knudsen and Lester Foxcroft, women’s presenter Sybil Francis and newsreader Brian Cahill.

One of BTQ7’s earliest variety shows was The Late Show with Tait.  The program won the first TV Week Logie award for most popular program in Queensland.  In the early ‘60s, BTQ7 launched Theatre Royal, a show that took the vaudeville style of comedy onto television, featuring comedian and The Late Show star George Wallace Jnr and a team of performers including Eddie Edwards, Dick McCann, Jackie Ellison and a young actress by the name of Rowena Wallace (no relation to George).  Theatre Royal was immensely popular, screening every Friday night for six years, and was also shown interstate.  It won six TV Week Logie awards as Queensland’s most popular program.  The show ended after George Wallace suffered a stroke and died in 1968 at the age of 50, but his legacy continued as TV Week then initiated the George Wallace Logie for Best New Talent.

Also to come through BTQ7 in the ‘60s and ‘70s was Annette Allison, a performer on early variety and teenage shows before hosting her own daytime show, Annette.  She then went to Melbourne to ATV0 to read the news and co-host the morning show Everyday (later Good Morning Melbourne).  Dina Heslop was a host of the BTQ7’s children’s program Dina And Percy and was also a contributor to the national This Week Has Seven Days before becoming a producer for later shows like the Logie Award-winning Wombat.  Jacki MacDonald also had a stint at BTQ7 in the ‘70s, hosting her own show, Jacki’s People.  After Jacki left BTQ7, they then employed her sister, Fiona, to host a children’s program and was later a presenter on Wombat.

In the mid-‘70s, Reg Grundy produced a soap opera, Until Tomorrow, at the studios of BTQ7.  The series was a rare venture into daytime drama and screened nationally on the Seven Network, featuring Babette Stephens, Ron Cadee, former TV Week Gold Logie winner Hazel Phillips and a young Barry Otto.

Other programs to have come through BTQ7 over the years included  daytime show Bailey And The Birds, teenage shows National Top 40 and Teen Time, children’s shows Boris’ Breakfast Club and Seven’s Super Saturday, game show Family Feud and variety shows Top Of The Bill and Wak’s Works.

Of course, it would be remiss not to mention BTQ7’s landmark promotional jingle, ‘Love You Brisbane’, that was produced for the channel in the early ‘80s and was used by BTQ for several years.  Sung by popular local performer Kim Durant, the song was even released as a single and was a top-seller.  The jingle was later adapted to TVW7, as ‘Love You Perth’, and regional Queensland broadcaster Sunshine Television (now Seven Queensland) before BTQ7 and Seven Queensland reprised it a few years ago:

Newsreader Brian Cahill had two stints at BTQ7, he was the channel’s first newsreader when it launched in 1959 and, after a stint at QTQ9, was there again in the ‘70s.  During the ‘60s, Cahill was joined at the news desk by former ABQ2 newsreader Ron Brady.  Others to have presented news at BTQ have included Mike Higgins, Nev Roberts, Donna Meiklejohn, Janne Rayner, Ken Hose, Garry Wilkinson, Frank Warrick and present-day newsreaders Rod Young, Kay McGrath and Sharyn Ghidella.

As well as news, BTQ7 produced local current affairs with programs including Haydn Sargent’s Brisbane, State Affair, Carroll At Seven and magazine programs PM Magazine and The Great South East.

BTQ7 last week screened a special, Flashback – 50 Years Of Channel Seven, and tonight (Sunday) newsreader Brian Cahill makes a return to the Seven News desk to mark the fiftieth anniversary of his presenting the first news bulletin on opening night at BTQ.

And, by coincidence, BTQ7’s fiftieth anniversary coincides with a new era for the Seven Network as it launches its new digital channel 7TWO on the same day.

A lot of the material in this article, particularly related to the earlier years at BTQ7, is sourced by the book On-Air 25 Years Of TV In Queensland.  Compiled and edited by Christopher Beck. (1984)