If Anne ‘Willsy’ Wills did not exist she wouldn’t be invented on today’s TV | Peter Goers

As a kid I loved watching her on TV and I still do as she celebrates 80 years, most of them spent as a South Australian icon, writes Peter Goers.

This is a love letter. As a kiddie, I loved Anne “Willsy” Wills on the old black and white TV. I’d sit with my family on our green vinyl lounge suite laughing at Willsy on Adelaide Tonight and loving her doing the weather in her sexy bikini on a hot night. She belonged on TV and we belonged by watching her.

That boy in Woodville in the 1960s would never have imagined that many decades later he’d be sitting at Willsy’s 80th birthday party wearing an earring. All the guests wore one of Willsy’s trademark earrings provided for us by the famously be-earringed guest of honour.

Willsy is South Australia. Willsy is beloved. Cherished. She’s the funniest woman I’ve ever known and she inspires the funny in others.

Former PM Julia Gillard and Willsy at her 80th birthday party. Supplied

Nine years ago, Willsy was starring with that other great entertainer Hans (Matt Gilbertson) in a fabulous Fringe show at the old German Club. It was a big room (as they say in showbiz) and sold out. I arrived late, from my own Fringe show and Willsy and Hans were singing a song. My seat was right down the front and I waited to enter the auditorium on the applause after their song as not to interrupt them. I’m always sending Hans up and I said loudly in front of the entire audience, “Who’s that on stage with Willsy?

Hans said, “Here’s Peter Goers and he’s going around Adelaide saying that Willsy has resurrected my career” ... pause … the pause is crucial to time a gag … “When’s she going to resurrect your career, Goers” ... longer pause ... “But at your age a resurrection is hard to get!” Big laughs.

I’ve learned so much from Willsy as an entertainer and person. Matt Gilbertson and many other entertainers have too.

I adore her. I revere her. I love her as my mate.

Willsy is one of the most loyal and devoted friends I’ve ever known. This is a great blessing. She is extraordinarily solicitous of her many friends, her family and her fans. She is generous – to a fault. If Willsy has a dollar, she spends $1.50 but, hey, you can’t take it with you.

Willsy has an eccentric, old showbiz glamour.

SA TV presenter Anne Wills presenting weather forecast wearing bikini 15 Jan 1966.

SA TV presenter Anne Wills wearing bikini printed T-shirt. tshirt print top

She’s always camera-ready.

She wouldn’t leave a fire without putting on her make-up and earrings. She jests that if anyone sees her without make-up she’d have to kill them. But I’ve seen her thus and she’s just as gorgeous, but the make-up is her mask.

She was raised on Ocean Island – a dot the size of Adelaide Airport in the Pacific and she put Ocean Island on the map.

With climate change that little island is disappearing but Willsy remains as glorious and enduring as ever.

At age five she disparaged her schooling on Ocean Island because she said. “I’m going to be a star” – and she was, as nearly ever, right.

Willsy was one of the entertainers who grew up on TV – who were young on a young medium. She was meant for TV and had 35 years of great success, as rewarded by 19 Logies – an Australian record which will never be beaten.

That she is not in the Australian TV Hall of Fame is outrageous.

But if Willsy did not exist she wouldn’t be invented on today’s TV.

Our Willsy: SA’s biggest star of the small screen

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There is almost no local TV anymore and also TV managements do not favour or revive the careers of older women. But Willsy always supplemented her TV career with live performance – singing with her wonderful sister Sue, and in recent years that duo has been revived in popular live performance. She is beloved, still and always.

She is devoted to SA and SA to her. We respond to her because we know her and trust her to bring joy, glamour and laughs. Our generous response to her is because of her generosity of spirit. And funny. What you see is what you get. She has a fundamental honesty in both public and private life.

Willsy can go anywhere, anytime and come back with a funny story. She’s one of the great cooks and private entertainers. She loves her food.

So I love Willsy, and so say all of us. Her 80th birthday has been celebrated as a festival of Willsy with more flowers than a mafia funeral and endless joy and love. Most importantly, I respect her very deeply. She’s not just my friend – she’s a friend to us all – our funny, fabulous, ribald, dazzling Willsy.

And underneath all that beats a heart of pure gold.

She’ll endure because where there’s a Wills, there’s a way.

Originally published as If Anne ‘Willsy’ Wills did not exist she wouldn’t be invented on today’s TV | Peter Goers