Presenting our National Living TV Treasures….
Australia's TV Critics name their top 40 Living TV Treasures: stars, writers, producers & execs.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News, Top Stories
Who are our National Living TV Treasures? That was the question put to some of our country’s top TV critics and commentators.
The criteria was simple: name 5 people (performers, writers, producers etc) who you consider to be a “Living Treasure.” They didn’t need to be still active in television, so long as they are still with us. The list is as eclectic and varied as the shows we have loved. Some gave lengthy descriptions, others were straight to the point. Some even threw in the odd network executive and others fessed up that their choice was also a personal friend.
So here, they are according to:
Holly Byrnes, Sunday Telegraph (HB)
Debi Enker, The Age (DE)
Graeme Blundell, The Australian (GB)
Sue Yeap, West Australian (SY)
Amanda Meade, Guardian Australia (AM)
James Manning, Mediaweek (JM)
Erin McWhirter, TV Week (EM)
Melinda Houston, Sunday Age (MH)
Peter Ford, Fairfax / Austereo (PF)
Andrew Mercado, Foxtel Movies (AMC)
Michael Lallo, The Age / Sydney Morning Herald (ML)
David Knox, TV Tonight (DK)
BERT NEWTON
Wow that’s a shock right? But honestly how could he not be included? Yes things have slowed in the last couple of years but prior to that he was a dominating force, a versatile talent, unmatched adlibber and great survivor. Anyone who can front 15 hours of live TV each week and live to tell the story gets an express pass. -PF
ANDREW DENTON
Energetic TV innovator who’s given us food for thought, laughs and tears over many years in shows from Blah, Blah, Blah to Enough Rope. -DE
SHAUN MICALLEF
Our greatest living clown –GB.
BRIAN HENDERSON
“I know everything I need to know, cos Brian told me so.” Says it all really, the Nine News anchor who told us ‘the way it is.’ was and should be. He’s also acted as a generous mentor to those who have followed his lead into TV news, but as a viewer he embodied the broadcasting excellence, experience and confidence others now sadly spruik as mere marketing slogans. -HB
NONI HAZLEHURST
Drama, soap, lifestyle, children’s TV: Hazlehurst has done it all – wonderfully – during her four-decade run on our screens. As one of the best fill-in presenters on Melbourne’s 774 ABC – and with A Place to Call Home having wrapped – it would be great to see Hazlehurst host her own TV chat show. -ML
JOHN EDWARDS
In short, hard to think of anyone who has been so influential in shaping the Australian television landscape, or who has created so much quality television – often against prevailing trends. -MH
KERRY O’BRIEN
A great journalist, interviewer and commanding presence in current affairs television -AM
RAY MEAGHER
At 70, and with 26 years as flamin’ Alf Stewart on Home And Away, Ray continues to be the centre-piece of the soap around the world. And, stone the crows, he won the TV Week Gold Logie in 2010. -EM
DARYL SOMERS
He did what hasn’t happened for a while – getting audiences to watch on Saturday mornings and then on Saturday nights. -JM
GERALDINE DOOGUE
Before Sandra Sully, Chris Bath, Georgie Gardner, Juanita Phillips, Leigh Sales and Sarah Ferguson there was Geraldine Doogue, one of the first women to give TV news grace and poise and continues to imbue her work today with integrity and a wicked sense of humour. She has long been one of my media heroines, who I regard as an under-appreciated industry pioneer and voice of decency and reason.. -HB
KERRI-ANNE KENNERLEY
I want to make sure that KAK gets her recognition for doing the most hours of live television by a woman from GMA to Midday to Mornings. Unlike today’s TV hosts, who are more concerned with checking their social media feeds during breaks, Kerri-Anne was involved, well-researched and always concerned about her guest’s comfort by talking to them before the cameras rolled. Professional. –AMC
DAVID SALE
Yes, he is dear friend of mine but he also created what I believe is the most groundbreaking TV drama in the history of television anywhere in the world. Number 96 was multi-cultural, multi-sexual and non-ageist and many of those iconic characters sprung from this man’s imagination in just one night’s writing. His phenomenally popular series saved Channel 10 and created production history by being the world’s first 5 nights a week prime time soap, the template of which is still being used today. And did we mention that Sale also produced Australia’s first political sketch comedy series The Mavis Bramston Show while he was still in his 20s? Incredible. -AMC
GARRY McDONALD
For 4 decades he’s made us laugh, and made us emote through Norman Gunston, Mother and Son, Offspring and endless roles in between. There’s a fragility and honesty about his work, and laughter is the best of medicines. -DK
MIKE WALSH
For so long the King of daytime TV. More than that he was one of the first on-air talents to start packaging his own product, setting a style and standard that others have followed. It also became known it was the only way to make serious money. Extra tick for going into battle with the 9 Network- a brave and costly move with no guarantee he would win! -PF
ANDREW KNIGHT
Inspired writer-producer who’s put his astute, humorous yet whimsical stamp on everything from The Fast Lane and SeaChange to Rake and Jack Irish. -DE
CHRIS LILLEY
Daring, boundary defying -GB
REG WATSON
Grundys’ drama series would never have been as popular if it wasn’t for the fertile imagination of Reg Watson who created hit after hit after hit. Furthermore, his iconic shows Prisoner, Sons And Daughters and Neighbours cracked international TV markets in America, Europe and the UK, not to mention foreign versions and remakes (Wentworth). He has never been properly recognised for exporting our culture around the world and the countless careers and hours of entertainment such shows spawned. Legend. -AMC
DEBRA OSWALD
John Edwards’ long-time collaborator… From Sweet & Sour through Police Rescue and on to Offspring, Debra Oswald has penned some of my favourite TV shows of all time. Long may she continue to do so. -MH
JANA WENDT
She was once Australia’s highest-paid personality – and it’s not hard to see why. Quite simply one of Australia’s best television journalists and interviewers. –ML
DAVID LECKIE
TV chief who worked his way through the sales ranks and then took over top job at Nine in mid 90s. After he left Nine was recruited by Kerry Stokes and with the help of former Nine colleagues and some of Sevens finest made Seven the power it still is today. -JM
CAROLINE JONES
A pioneer in current affairs television and an inspiration to women in TV. -AM
DARYL EASTLAKE
This is perhaps telling of my own passion for sport, especially State Of Origin, which for me has been the poorer without Daryl’s booming commentary. His over-the-top enthusiasm has been much parodied, but no one could transport you to the centre of the sporting action like he could. The theatre, the passion, the volume…unmistakeable, irreplaceable. -HB
JOHN CLARKE
One of the funniest, smartest, sharpest and most original comic minds in the country, and he does it all with a straight face. -DE
JUSTINE CLARKE
One of those actors who just lifts your spirits simply by being on screen. Even when she’s playing a rather mournful character (as she regularly does). She’s also pretty good at entertaining small children. -MH
REG GRUNDY
His name is synonymous with the soaps (Neighbours, The Young Doctors) and games shows (Wheel of Fortune, Sale of the Century) so many of us grew up with and his enduring influence is felt in shows like Wentworth, the reimagining of Prisoner. –SY
MICKIE DE STOOP
Now I’m being a bit more radical. Public declaration she’s a good mate. However she fronted two daytime TV current affairs shows that were presented by and for women. These were No Man’s Land and Shoulder To Shoulder. They dealt with issues that just weren’t discussed on TV back then. It was the 70’s and a time of great change and this show reflected that. These were the first of their kind in the world! -PF
SAM CHISHOLM
Soon to turn 75, Sam Chisholm has worked for the Packers and the Murdochs and both did very well with him. He made Nine a formidable fighting unit in the 80s and then left FTA and adapted to the subscription TV business and turned around BSkyB when he bet big time on acquiring football rights. -JM
RACHEL PERKINS
Making television about indigenous Australians that no one else will: Redfern Now, Mabo, The First Australians. -AM
CLAUDIA KARVAN
What an actor. Has never, as far as I know, turned in a bad performance. She’s also, of course, an accomplished writer and producer – Spirited is still one of my favourite, and one of the most underrated – local productions of recent years. -MH
MOLLY MELDRUM
The guru. Incessantly falling over his words, but with a passion that can’t be denied. Endeared in not one but two TV institutions: Countdown and Hey Hey it’s Saturday. A good sport for being the butt of so many jokes, he is utterly irreplaceable. -DK
ANNE WILLS
She’s an Adelaide institution. The biggest Logie winner of all time- these gained back when they had State based award. Year after year she was there collecting and looking amazing. Now she doesn’t even score an invitation to attend. How disrespectful is that? There were the chat shows, the movie review show, the barrel girl days all these confined to Adelaide. Her fame momentarily extended nationally but in Adelaide she remains a firm favourite, with a level of fame and affection lasts even if she’s no longer on TV -PF
NIGEL DICK
Legendary TV executive who’s worked here and in New Zealand and has never stopped learning. –JM
REBECCA GIBNEY
Such a talented, affecting and genuine performer. There’s a reason she won the TV Week Gold Logie Award in 2009 for her role as Julie Rafter. -EM
ROB SITCH
I’m Mike Moore. From D-Gen and Frontline to The Hollowmen and now Utopia, backed of course by the rest of the Working Dog team. Need I say more? – SY
DENISE DRYSDALE
Pure show-biz, full of fun and sass, whether as a 1960s music-show go-go girl, a panelist on The Circle or an actor in Please Like Me. –DE
DEBORAH MAILMAN
Gorgeous, full of life, she lights up the screen in everything she does and you just want to throw your arms around her. The Secret Life of Us, Mabo, Redfern Now, Offspring –she hasn’t put a foot wrong. -DK
MAGDA SZUBANSKI
In the days since Robin Williams sad passing, it’s made me treasure the talented people who have kept as all laughing over the years. And for me there’s been no greater court jester deserving of recognition in this country than the irrepressible, utterly lovable Magda Szubanski. I said love I said pet. She’s made us cry with laughter on screen, and adore and cheer for her off it, whether she was losing weight or coming out. -HB
BRIAN WALSH
The cynics will say I’m sucking up to the boss but as a TV commentator, I never have a bad word to say about the company that Brian presides over. Unlike some free-to-air networks who treat their viewers with contempt, Foxtel respect their viewers by starting and finishing shows on time and allowing series to run their course rather than ripping them off mid-stream. Plus the IQ (and its wonderful “Series Link”) is the greatest invention in TV since the video recorder and user-friendly. This happens because Brian is unashamedly old school and loves the medium. And let’s not forget that he also singlehandedly saved Neighbours when it was on the verge of being cancelled for a second time on Ten. Thanks. -AMC
PETER FAIMAN
In the 70s and 80s he was producer/director behind the big and lavish TV shows. He had big budgets to work with and he’d use it all and go over it to create the look needed. He delivered a style of TV that had the ‘wow factor’ before we’d even coined the term. Shows hosted by Don Lane, Paul Hogan, Bert etc that were of a style and standard we’d previously only seen on overseas shows. He employed young kids who themselves have gone onto impressive TV careers after being trained in his style. Sadly the days of limitless budgets are gone but an eye for detail and willingness to take a risk live on. -PF
SARAH FERGUSON
The Walkley Award-winning Ferguson has long been one of the ABC’s best reporters on its flagship current affairs program, Four Corners. (She exposed the mistreatment of Australian live animal exports to Indonesia in her 2011 report A Bloody Business, for instance.) But it was her short reign as fill-in host on 7.30 that brought her to prominence. Her remarkable interviewing skills should be parlayed into a new project: a weekly political program, perhaps?- ML
So there you have it.
There were plenty of “runners-up” that critics wanted to include but that’s how they stacked up.
Feel free to debate the list and add your own suggestions below.
My thanks to all who participated.
28 Responses
Would love to see a top 100 or even a profile spotlight each week of on-screen, behind the scenes and management folk.
My personal vote is for Gordon Bennett, a living legend of HSV7 who has recently celebrated 58 years of production and management – a true gentleman with more than 1000 stories of our industry.
Thanks David for your insightful website which is a regular in my daily surf.
Surely Mike Walsh, too old for me but my mum and her generation thought he was deity.
Molly is also a glaring omission.
You better look closer?
Totally agree with all the above and below…with the exception of Chris Lilley…I dont feel he has done enough or been around long enough for this particular list.
Wonderful list and brought back great memories of some talented performers.
If I was to play the game though of which one doesn’t belong with the other ones…Chris Lilley doesn’t belong in that list at all.
If in the next 10 years if he comes up with another original idea and it becomes successful then I may rethink. Relies too much on the same old shtick and has become tiresome in my opinion.
@David Knox: I love Julia and enjoy everything she does… especially with Eurovision… but don’t know about “national treasure”… I’d pencil her in as a maybe.
As for Lee Lin Chin… well, I should nominate her because otherwise she’d get the knife out and plot to have me destroyed. But as Sandra Sully says, Lee Lin is only good enough for the weekend news!!!?!?
Actually… there’s one name for the list… Sandra Sully… Definitely a national TV treasure!
What about Chris Lee?? He wrote the set-up episodes of The Secret Life Of Us, Rush, Police Rescue, Rafferty’s Rules, Big Sky, Cody, Stringer – and the miniseries Howzat, Paper Giants, and Gallipoli.
JE
I’d like to add Liz Hayse.
Oh shoot, here I go being the lone dissenting voice again.
There are a miriad awards that people in the Arts/TV/Cinema world can aspire culminating in many “Hall of Fame” positions. The concept of a “Living (National) Treasure” is one that should be isolated from popular platitudes. Unfortunately, with the induction of such notable recipients as Clive Palmer into the Australian National Living Treasure system, the whole thing seems to be on a downward slope.
Applying “Living Treasure” and TV in the same sentence is something I have great difficulty supporting. Give them another sparkly bauble instead and let’s raise “Living Treasure” back to where it belongs.
I’ll add my vote for Jonny Young, from Perth teenager in 1963 fronting Club 17 for Station TVW, through “the Go Show”, “Up-Tight”, Happening ’70-’71-’72”, and of course, “Young Talent Time” He’s worked alongside the late, lamented Kevin Lewis from 1968 to Kevin’s retirement, ten on his own, John has produced and/or presented just about all of what Lewis/Young and Television House has packaged through the years. And while we’re at it, we can’t forget Jamie Redfern, YTT’s first international star(going to America with Liberace) and now running his own Melbourne-based talent school and agency. Both truly living TV treasures!
Not sure they viewed these as channel specific. A number of the performers have worked on SBS shows: Shaun Micallef, Claudia Karvan, Jana Wendt. I like the Les Murray idea. You didn’t mention Lee Lin Chin or Julia Zemiro though.
I’m surprised none of these journos or commentators thought about SBS?
I thought someone might have nominated Les Murray.
Or even former SBS names George Donikian or Mary Kostakidis? Both challenged the popular perception of newsreaders in this country and both very successful and well regarded in their roles at SBS, and in George’s case another 20 years at Ten.
An excellent list. The other ones i can think off is Mike Willesse and Johnny Young.
*Correction, Hector is dead.
I’m told Andrew Mercado will be discussing the list on the Today show Thursday morning after 8:30am!
Surely Hector Crawford deserves an honourable mention?
I felt compelled to register and comment.
What about Bevan Lee?
Yes Bevan would be another good inclusion, likewise John Holmes, if perhaps better for Hall of Fame. Also, APTCH is no longer in prdn therefore it has indeed wrapped, even if it was at network’s behest.
Delighted to see our talented & well respected Noni Hazelhurst recognised a National Treasure. In the ref. made to her introduction here, there is the comment ” with A Place To Call Home having wrapped” – that ref. is, in my opinion, not quite correct, and I consider this National Treasure and her fellow cast members of that Series were very poorly treated – Channel 7 axed this progr. half way through the 2nd Series, although a 3rd Series had already been written by writer/creator Bevan Lee. Seven Network’s brutal, rushed ‘ending’ to the last episode shown, to “get rid of it” left many stories/mysteries untold & created a united Australian outrage by viewers. One of the reasons stated for this action by 7 Network was concerning the age of viewers – they were aiming for the 45s & under, but believed it was being watched by those over 55 years of age! A Facebook…
Bert, Molly and Kerri-Anne … definitely! As for some of the others … who???? 🙂
Oops… my bad !
Of course he is, David.
I agree re Noni Hazlehurst and radio, but sadly she seems to have disappeared from Melbourne’s ABC, even as a filler-in-erer. She’s just great on radio.
Kerry O’Brien is also missing. Don’t agree with Chris Lilley, hardly a legend, and I don’t think Asher Keddie’s been around long enough to add to the list – fabulous as she is.
Kerry O’Brien is listed. John Laws is a radio not TV figure. Asher would be a great inclusion, many critics noted how hard it was to settle on 5.
The list is not about how long one has been around, nor is it supposed to be a Hall of Fame based on achievements per se. It was up to critics how they interpreted it, although I personally see Living Treasure as being a term of endearment, that carries a level of affection.
Not a lot of pure writers listed.
Great choices, David, especially Molly.
And what a treasure he is – there will never be another Molly !
Love him or hate him, what about Lawsie?
At the very least, old Golden tonsils has been around forever and is an institution on Aus radio..
Lorrae Desmond should be on that list
Ray Martin anyone ?
i am surprised Asher Keddie did not make the list… one of the most versatile, amazing actresses in Australia. She has won 6 Logie awards (including the prestigious Gold) and numerous other awards. She has played the iconic Ita Buttrose to critical acclaim; as has she portrayed Nina Proudman on one of Australia’s best drama’s, offspring. Recently, the SMH regarded her as one of the 75 most powerful people in Australian TV. So the question is after all she has done: Why is she not a National Living Treasure?
Great list David. Chris Lilley the only dud & Sarah Ferguson has not been on our screens long enough to become a legend.