Vale: Pam Ellis

Former TV co-host Pam Ellis, best known for Touch of Elegance, has died aged 90.

Her husband Trevor Lanyon said his wife – who had a long history of chronic respiratory illness – passed away late Thursday evening at St Andrew’s Hospital in Adelaide.

“She was a special lady in all our hearts,” he told The Advertiser.

“We were together for 40 wonderfully fulfilling years. She was the love of my life.”

Initially hosted by Jaye Walton, morning show Touch of Elegance ran more than 20 years, with Margaret Glazbrook and Pam Ellis as later hosts.

Pam Ellis (pictured left) worked in the modelling, fashion and television industries, but she began her career – at age 15 –  as a secretary in the advertising department of The News.

After working as a flight attendant for Australian National Airlines, later known as Ansett, by the mid-1960s, she opened the Pam Ellis Modelling Academy  and compered fashion parades at department stores.

She was also an organiser for the Miss Advertising and, later, the Lions Miss Personality quests.

By the 1980s she was offered a job at the then channel SAS-10, which became Channel 7 in 1987, securing advertising clients for Touch of Elegance. She went on to become its assistant producer and then co-presenter for close to 11 years.

In 1987 she married her second husband Trevor, then Channel 7 station manager.

Trevor Lanyon said Ms Ellis was frequently recognised from her Touch of Elegance days when they were at shopping centres because she had a warmth that viewers could relate to and never forgot.

“The number of people she touched over the years …” he said.

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