Inside entertainment broadcaster Phil Brady’s extraordinary 67-year-long career

Melbourne TV and radio star Philip Brady, who has died after a battle with cancer, put his extraordinary 67-year career down to luck and longevity, saying “I don’t sing, I don’t dance, I don’t tell jokes” but “I’m very blessed”.

After 67 years working in TV and radio, Melbourne entertainment legend Phil Brady credited luck for his extraordinary career.

The 3AW favourite passed away peacefully in Kew in the early hours of Tuesday, February 11 after a short battle with cancer.

Brady, 85, recently announced his retirement from 3AW, where he hosted the Remember When program since 1990, saying it was “time to move over and give the younger guys a go.”

“I have been very lucky, I have been very, very blessed, because I am not an entertainer, I don’t sing, I don’t dance, I don’t tell jokes,” Brady said.

“If there is one thing I have going for me it is longevity.

“I once asked the actress Bette Davis, ‘What was the secret of your longevity, Ms Davis?’ and she told me, ‘Honey, just keep breathing’.”

Growing up in Kew in Melbourne, Brady set his heart on forging a career in radio at the age of 5, although it was TV where he got his first foothold in show business.

Brady began his career at Nine in 1958. Picture: Andrew Tauber

“My grandparents had a wind-up gramophone with the steel needle and old 78 records, and every weekend I would be down there winding up the gramophone and playing records and pretending I was (Melbourne radio broadcaster) Norman Banks and reading ads from the paper,” Brady recalled in a previous interview to mark his six decades in show business.

“From the age of five I was single-minded. I just wanted to be a radio announcer – nothing else. But it did not work out that way because I ended up in television and did no radio until about three years into my career.”

After finishing school, Brady was training with elocution teacher Lee Murray when an opportunity came up at Channel 9.

“I was learning to read commercials with Lee Murray and he got a call from Tom Miller at Nine who was producing In Melbourne Tonight saying we need a temporary booth announcer, a voice over man, for two weeks,” Brady said.

“My father drove me down to Nine in Richmond on Good Friday 1958 and I read some scripts and I got the job. I had no ambition to be on television at all.

Mike McColl Jones, Philip Brady, Bert Newton and Pete Smith at Channel 9. Picture: Supplied

“We had a TV set, but I had given up watching TV for lent, then suddenly on Good Friday when I did the audition I thought I had better watch TV over the weekend because I am starting on Monday and I had better see what it is all about.

“I was 18, just out of school about two months and somehow I just walked into the job. It was just a lucky break.”

Brady’s next stroke of good fortune came two weeks later on a Saturday night when he was asked to close the station – say goodnight to viewers when Nine went off air at 11pm.

“They put some make up on me and pushed me in front of the camera and that was my TV debut,” he recalled in 2018.

“I talked about the next day’s highlights while stirring a cup of Bournvita and closed the station.

“About two weeks later Graham Kennedy (Nine’s biggest star and host of In Melbourne Tonight) took a shine to me and thought ‘I can use this guy and have a bit of fun at his expense’, which he surely did.”

Brady went on to appear in more than 3000 episodes of In Melbourne Tonight and hosted the Thursday night edition of the show for two years in the mid-1960s.

“They were golden, magical years with Graham and Bert (Newton),” he said.

He hosted radio shows on 3AK in the ’60s and was 3AW’s weekend announcer from 1971 – 1979.

Philip Brady and Bruce Mansfield.

During the 1970s, he hosted quiz shows including The Moneymakers, Casino Ten, Password, Get the Message, Concentration and Everybody’s Talking.

“The Moneymakers was trailblazing because it was on at 7pm five nights a week,” he said.

“Until then programs were only on once a week, not every night of the week, but in 1971 the 0-10 Network (Channel 10) decided to strip two programs across the board five nights a week. The Moneymakers was one of them and the other was (soap opera) Number 96.”

Brady held various roles in the ‘80s including producing Bert Newton’s 3UZ morning show, being the audience warm up guy for The Don Lane Show, and hosting a radio show at Tweed Heads.

He rejoined 3AW as co-host of Nightline and Remember When with Bruce Mansfield in 1990. He spoke at length about his life and career in a 2018 interview on 3AW.

Charming, urbane, well-travelled and with a deep knowledge of the entertainment scene, Brady struck up friendships with many of the stars he interviewed.

Brady announced his retirement from 3AW aged 85. Picture: David Crosling

“I became good friends with Bob Hope and we would speak to each other on the phone on birthdays and Christmas,” he said.

“He said one Christmas Day, “Philip there are two calls I look forward to on this day, one is from you and one is from the president.

“I met him in Bert Newton’s dressing room when he made an appearance on the Don Lane Show and we just hit it off. That is where our friendship started and the same thing happened with Perry Como, George Burns and Bette Davis. I became phone pals with a lot of people.”

He also stood up Elvis Presley in Las Vegas.

Brady was invited to the great performer’s show at the Las Vegas Hilton by his bodyguard Red West in 1975.

After the show Brady was asked to go backstage and meet Presley, but he turned down the invite as he had tickets to see Dean Martin at Caesars Palace later that night.

“I said I’d love to meet Elvis next time, but there was never a next time, Elvis died two years later. I’m the guy who stood up Elvis,” he said.

Originally published as Inside entertainment broadcaster Phil Brady’s extraordinary 67-year-long career