“There will never be another Don Lane”
10 years since the passing of Don Lane, Bert remembers a TV legend.
- Published by David Knox
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Bert Newton has given an interview with Woman’s Day to mark 10 years since the passing of the legendary Don Lane.
Newton has nothing but kind words for the lanky Yank whom he says saved his career.
Newton was without a regular TV gig after Graham Kennedy quit his nightly show. But out of the blue, Don called with an offer to be his sidekick for The Don Lane Show.
“We’d never worked together before, but the moment those cameras came on, we clicked. Working with Don was magic. Actually, Channel Nine didn’t want me to do Don’s show. I’d been so associated with Graham Kennedy, they were looking for someone else, but Don insisted,” he explains.
The Don Lane Show ran twice weekly from 1975 to 1983, renowned for the chemistry of two TV stars.
“Don was such a generous performer, he didn’t care who got the laughs so long as they were there. Don was an all-rounder – he could sing, had a great sense of comedy and he was a terrific interviewer.”
He added, “I miss him terribly. Looking back at the fun we had, literally falling off couches in floods of laughter, mixing it up with showbiz greats like Bob Hope, Sammy Davis Jnr and Debbie Reynolds… there will never be another Don Lane. He was my TV bestie.”
Don Lane died on 22nd October 2009.
You can read more here.
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7 Responses
First things that come to mind when I think of Bert and Don on the show are when Don jumped up and told James Randi to P… off and the funniest sketch for me was Bert dressing up as Demis Roussos. Good memories. I miss real fun entertainment on our TV screens.
For those interested…here are some other Don Lane highlights
youtube.com/watch?v=UUds-hFqhlg
A well respected TV Production that attracted high profile guests.
From memory there was one year when they were on air four nights a week at 9.30pm, but went back to 2 nights a week due to reduced ratings
… don’t remember four nights, but WIN4 dropped it back to only Thursdays in order to introduce our own Tonight Show (first with Malcolm T. Elliott then John Tingle) on Mondays. I was program manager at WIN at the time and recall once sitting at the back of the studio audience at GTV for the Don Lane Show. Someone had obviously alerted Don to the fact that I was there and during a commercial break he gave me heaps about WIN dropping Monday nights – all in good fun though. Don and I ended up living around the corner from each other in Sydney in the 90s and often bumped into him a the local Chinese restaurant. As Bert says “nothing but kind words” to be said about him.
Can’t beat the good old entertainments. Not much excitement with todays ‘entertaining’ shows.
Don Lane was so good, I really do miss do The Don Lane show.
I would tune in to see Bert’s antics especially the wheel. He and Don had chemistry. They were both generous performers who just wanted the whole show to be as entertaining as possible.
Amen to that, Don was an extraordinary entertainer and showman which is sadly missing in today’s TV landscape – variety isn’t dead – it just hasn’t been done properly in such a long time. Thank god for youtube where his work shines on