Graham Kennedy
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| Graham Kennedy | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 15, 1934 Image:Flag of Australia.svg Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
Graham Cyril Kennedy, AO (15 February 1934 - 25 May 2005) was an Australian radio, television and film performer. Known in his heyday in the 1960s as "The King," and to the younger generation as "Gra-Gra", he dominated the first 20 years of Australian television. He later rejected fame and publicity and spent his remaining years in seclusion.
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[edit] 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.
After Kennedy's death, his friend and colleague John Mangos recorded that: "... he would sometimes talk about the violent arguments between his parents, how he gravitated to his grandmother’s bosom, his two uncles (“one fought the Germans, the other fought the Japs”) and how one of them took liberties with the boy. Graham never resented him, claiming he equated it with affection."
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. 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.
[edit] Radio work
Nicholls put the teenager to air with him on 3UZ as his sidekick in 1950. After Nicholls' death in September 1956, 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 Olivers 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.
Kennedy was also involved in Sydney radio station 2Day FM, owning ten percent of the station when it launched in 1980, and from May 1981 presented a three-hour program of music and comedy on Sunday mornings.
[edit] Television work
[edit] 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. 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 claimed that he knew Kennedy to be gay and had met several of his male lovers.[1][2]
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, Kennedy's style had roots in English music hall and especially in vaudeville. His 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 clearly 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 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. Kennedy had created a unique style of Australian comedy that had few equals in its day. But the schedule was punishing as 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 rested 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.
[edit] The Crow Call Incident
On the show of March 5, 1975, Kennedy sparked controversy as he imitated a crowcall ("faaaaaark") highly reminiscent of the f word during a live read of a Cedel Hairspray advertisement by announcer Rosemary Margan. Nine reportedly received hundreds of complaints, followed by a rash of newspaper headlines the next day, and furious Nine executives reported the incident to the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal.
The Tribunal banned Kennedy from performing on live TV indefinitely, meaning that he would have to pre-record the show on videotape. Some have claimed that Kennedy either deliberately engineered the crow-call incident so that the show would have to be pre-recorded, allowing him to get home earlier, or that he did it so that Nine would sack him.
In 2002 in an The Age newspaper article, writer Jonathan Green reported that the crow-call segment was in fact pre-taped, not live, and that the bad language controversy was probably 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 uttering "fuck" would itself 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 accidentally said "fucking hell" after a late-night mishap in a live advertisement on the 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. Although he feared he would be sacked, nothing happened.
[edit] Critcism of Doug McClelland
Having been forced to tape his shows indefintely by the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal, the network took advantage of the pre-taping to completely edit out Kennedy's scathing attack on Senator Doug McClelland, the then Minister for the Media, for his failure to support local content regulations for TV on the 17 April 1975 edition.
According to Kennedy's biographer Graeme Blundell, Kennedy resigned from Nine after this controversy, just six weeks after the "crow call" incident.
His words which never made it to air were:
- Good evening.
- Little serious bit to start with: Senator Douglas McClelland, 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 McClelland'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 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 McClelland, 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 McClelland 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 compounded by the Whitlam government's far-reaching 1973 decision to reduce tariffs across the board by 25% in 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 cancellation of all three major Crawford Productions police shows 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 TV network's sensitivity about the local content issue. It has also been suggested that, with a federal election looming, Nine used the crow call incident as a pretext to remove the politically vocal Kennedy, who was known to support the ALP.
[edit] After 1975
[edit] Power Without Glory
Kennedy appeared as "Clive Parker" in the 26-part ABC drama Power Without Glory, which began on 21 June 1976.
[edit] 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. This was but one of many Logies he won.
[edit] Graham Kennedy's News Show. Graham Kennedy: Coast to Coast
On 25 April 1988 Graham Kennedy's News Show 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 re-creation 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".
[edit] 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.
[edit] 35 Years Of Television
Kennedy presented the introduction segment to the Nine Network special 35 Years Of Television in 1991. The segment covered the very early days of television variety including his own In Melbourne Tonight.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Hall of Fame Logie
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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Retirement
In 1991 Kennedy retired 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 his two best friends were two Clydesdale horses named Dave and Sarah, and a golden retriever called Henry.
He never married, despite his hoax engagement to singer Lana Cantrell, who became a New York lawyer. In the 1960's Bob Dyer described him as "probably the loneliest young man in Australia."
[edit] Twilight
Kennedy's health declined during the 1990s. A diabetic, and a heavy smoker and drinker, in 2001 Kennedy fell down stairs at his home, suffering a broken leg and skull. Initial reports suggested that he had suffered brain damage. His Canyonleigh property was sold, and he 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 Sattler and Noelene Brown rallied to his aid.
Despite a career of high earnings, press reports said that his financial situation was, while not disastrous, insufficient to fund his ongoing care. Having made millions for the Packer family interests, he believed that "the Packers will always look after me".
According to Graeme Blundell's book, shortly afterwards 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 estate to the Sydney City Mission.
His friend John Mangos has written :
- "I was often asked if he had cancer or AIDS. In fact at 67, he had diabetes, some rheumatism, the odd creaky joint, a healthy capacity to whinge and the usual symptoms connected with smoking and drinking. But by now the horses were gone and the dog had died. He was eating less and drinking more. One night, he fell down the stairs. He was discovered the next morning on the floor by his housekeeper. He was rushed to the local hospital where pneumonia in one lung was treated effectively and efficiently, a fracture near his hip was repaired and he was diagnosed with brain damage. We were to learn he had Korsakoff’s syndrome (an alcohol-related condition) and we decided to keep it private."
Korsakoff's syndrome is a form of amnesia seen in chronic alcoholics; briefly stated, victims eat too little and drink too much.
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".
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."
[edit] Death
At 4:30am on 25 May 2005, Kennedy died at age 71 at the Kenilworth Nursing Home, Bowral, from complications from pneumonia. [3].
John Mangos wrote in The Bulletin:
- "A week before his 69th birthday, he was bedridden and infirm. His wasted and frail, aching body could take no more. I paid a short and emotional visit. Still, the ashtray was by his bedside next to a radio tuned to ABC Radio National. I leaned over to kiss him on the forehead and he whispered, 'Don’t get too close, it hurts'."
[edit] Hinch controversy
After his death the radio broadcaster Derryn Hinch alleged that Kennedy had died from an AIDS related disease. Kennedy's biographer Graeme Blundell then published Kennedy's medical records, including a recent negative HIV test, to disprove this allegation. Hinch fought back saying he didn't say Kennedy had AIDS, but that he was homosexual, had symptoms similar to those of Kaposi's Sarcoma, and died of pneumonia, thus implying Kennedy's death was AIDS related.
[edit] Funeral
Kennedy's close friend Tony Sattler offered the Nine Network the right to televise the funeral. Nine declined the offer, claiming it could not justify the cost of the outside broadcast, this despite the millions of dollars of revenue that Kennedy earned for Nine in his many years at the network. The rival Seven Network accepted the offer to televise the funeral and, in a gesture of goodwill, offered their coverage free of charge to the Nine Network. Hence, the one hour funeral service was aired simultaneously across both Seven and Nine Networks.
Kennedy's funeral was held on the morning of May 31, 2005 in a small community theatre in the town of Mittagong, presented by Stuart Wagstaff. The service was attended by many of Kennedy's friends, colleagues and associates.
Kennedy had never explicitly stated that he was homosexual, but at his funeral, his friends were at last free to make jokes, in a friendly way.
[edit] After his death
Four of Graham Kennedy's television shows were named in the program 50 Years 50 Shows which counted-down the top 50 Australian TV shows of all time, as decided by ratings data and the opinions of one hundred television industry professionals, 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, and Coast to Coast ranked #42.
In the Australia Day honours of 26 January, 2006, Kennedy was posthumously appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), for "service to the entertainment industry as an actor, comedian and presenter significantly influencing the development of the radio, television and film industries in Australia, and to the community". The award was made effective from 5 May 2005.
Kennedy's lover for 20 years, Rob Astbury, published a book called King and I: My Life With Graham Kennedy about his relationship with Kennedy. Former friends of Kennedy were enraged by the publication of intimate details of Kennedy's life.
A miniseries examining Kennedy's life titled The King (the story of Graham Kennedy) will begin filming in December 2006. It stars Stephen Curry as Kennedy and Stephen Hall as Bert Newton, with Garry McDonald, Shaun Micallef, Steve Bisley, Jane Allsop as Noeline Brown, Beau Brady, Leo Taylor as Sir Frank Packer, and Bernard Curry as John Wesley. The project will cost AU$2.1 million and will be screened on pay TV in Australia in mid 2007.
[edit] Further reading
- Blundell, Graeme (2003). King : the life and comedy of Graham Kennedy. Sydney: Pan Macmillan. ISBN 0-7329-1165-6.
| Rob Astbury 2006 "King and I" publisher DNA Publishers www.kingandi.com.au | id = ISBN 0-646-46454-X
[edit] External links
- Profile of Graham Kennedy
- Bio by John Docker at museum.tv
- King of comedy, fears of a clown
- How the King lost his voice
- TV king's tragedy
- The King is not dead
- The King Sells Up
- The two Grahams/Graemes
- Blankety Blanks
- Graham Kennedy biography (ABC)
- ABC news obituary including video and audio links
- The King and I
- Laughterlog.com - Biography with list of radio, television and film appearances
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kennedy, Graham Cyril |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Entertainer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 15 February 1934 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Melbourne |
| DATE OF DEATH | 25 May 2005 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Bowral, New South Wales, Australia |
