A final audience of two friends: [1 All-round Country Edition]
Abstract
It was Brown, queen of Australian comedy from the days of The Mavis Bramston Show and The Naked Vicar Show, who was Graham Kennedy’s last audience beyond the nurses who cared for him.
Both [Brown] and [Tony Sattler] insisted Kennedy was not a hermit, as so often described, but simply a man who liked his own company and didn’t like crowds. They both described a man who was often very happy, and great company. “If you have five good friends, you are a lucky person, and Graham had that,” Brown said.
AT the end, the man who had entertained millions really only had an audience of two: his dear show business friends of 40 years, Noeline Brown and her husband Tony Sattler.
A few others kept in touch — Stuart Wagstaff, Bert Newton, John Mangos, the Melbourne journalist Jim Murphy, performer Toni Lamond and his biographer Graeme Blundell.
But it was Brown, queen of Australian comedy from the days of The Mavis Bramston Show and The Naked Vicar Show, who was Graham Kennedy’s last audience beyond the nurses who cared for him.
Brown, who will next week launch her book Long-Term Memoir, in which she describes first meeting “The King” in the mid-1960s, spent five hours with him on Tuesday as he slipped in and out of consciousness.
Although Kennedy’s memory had been bad in the past couple of years and he often didn’t recognise people, Brown said he knew she was there.
When she told him she thought she heard him whisper “scotch whisky”, he responded indignantly: “Certainly not, gin and tonic!”
“He was very ill,” she recalled of his last day. “He really was in a lot of pain. His lungs were full of water, his legs were hurting, his back was hurting, he had lost a lot of weight. He was just skin and bones, and his bones were hurting.”
Once, as he woke up, she asked if he would like some ice-cream. “That would be f…ing great,” he responded.
Even though in his final days his audience had shrunk, he was forever the performer. “There was a sense in which he was always on,” Brown said. “Even when he was unconscious, a trigger word would wake him, would bring out the performer in him. I suppose we were his final audience.”
She said a couple of years ago they had thought he was going to slip away and had even planned his memorial. But he had rallied and this time she thought he would rally again. “But at 4.30am, he surprised us once again,” she said, the tears welling up. “We’ve got nothing planned this time.”
Both Brown and Sattler insisted Kennedy was not a hermit, as so often described, but simply a man who liked his own company and didn’t like crowds. They both described a man who was often very happy, and great company. “If you have five good friends, you are a lucky person, and Graham had that,” Brown said.
LIFE AND CAREER
*1934: Graham Cyril Kennedy born in Melbourne’s East St Kilda on February 15 to Syd, a handyman, and Molly
* To 1949: Attended Caulfield North Central School and Melbourne Boys High School
* 1950: Has first taste of showbusiness as a teenager on radio station Greater 3UZ
* October 1953: First publicity profile in Listener-In
* May 6, 1957: Television debut on GTV-9 variety show In Melbourne Tonight (which goes national in 1960 as The Graham Kennedy Show).
Goes on to host IMT for 13 years (1957-59, 1963-69). Beginning of lifelong association with Nine.
* 1958: Collects first of many Logie awards
* 1960: Fronts The Graham Kennedy Show for two years.
* 1966: Stars as himself in film They’re A Weird Mob
* 1972-75: The Graham Kennedy Show
* 1973: Stint hosting for Bill Peach on This Day Tonight.
* 1974: Announcement on TGKS of ultimately short-lived `engagement’ to singer Lana Cantrell gives one of its biggest rating nights.
* 1975: Again stars as himself in The Box
* 1976: Appears in film of David Williamson’s Don’s Party
* 1977: Hosts comic celebrity quiz show Blankety Blanks
* 1979: Stars in movie The Odd Angry Shot
* 1979: Crowned king of Melbourne’s Moomba Festival
* 1980: Acclaimed performance in film of Williamson’s The Club
* 1984: Run hosting 11AM for Channel 7, one of his few breaks from Nine.
* 1984: Appears in film The Killing Fields
* 1987: Last film appearance in Travelling North
* 1988-89: Hosts news-talk show Graham Kennedy: Coast to Coast
* 1990: Last television hosting job, fronting Australia’s Funniest Home Video Show
* 1990: Gradually moves home base to property Canyonleigh near Bowral in NSW Southern Highlands. Stays as virtual recluse for rest of his life, seeing a few friends only.
* 1996: Last interview, with biographer Graeme Blundell