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Vale: Geraldine Dillon

Geraldine Dillon, an Australian TV cooking pioneer, has died.

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Geraldine Dillon, an Australian TV cooking pioneer has died, aged 84.

She died on Saturday after a long battle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports Dillon paved the way for the plethora of food television in Australia.

She joined the staff of GTV9 in June 1960 and presented six-minute cooking segments for a weekly program called Thursday at One.

She then hosted of Nine’s Fun with Food, Australia’s first cooking show when it aired in 1960.

Fun with Food aired weekly in Sydney and Melbourne from 1960 to 1971, and gained a cult following which led to TV Kitchen sponsored by the Australian Women’s Weekly.

Dillon also gave cooking demonstrations at the David Jones department store in Sydney, presented a cooking segment on 3AK and wrote newspaper columns for The Age and later for The Herald.

3 Responses

  1. I don’t recall the “Fun with Food” program.
    I think in Sydney the pioneering cooking show title would belong to the Sydney County Council (electricity supplier) sponsored “Cookery News” hosted by Barbara Lynch on Channel 9 from 1956.
    Just to show that things don’t change too much, the show with Lynch & co-host Doreen Andrews changed names and channels a few times before ending in 1977 on Channel 10 as “Switched on Living”. It was sponsored by the SCC for the entire 21 years.

  2. I’m glad that you picked up on this David. I read death notices in the Herald-Sun this morning incorrectly posted under funerals rather than death notices, so would have been missed by many. She certainly was ahead of her time.

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