Exclusive: Inside the private world of Don Burke

DON Burke’s former publicist of five years has spoken out for the first time about the troubled star. She lifts the lid on his four distinct personalities in this explosive first-hand column.

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THERE are at least four Don Burkes that I know of.

For those of us who worked with him during the 1990s, there was the hard, focused, one-take wonder who genuinely was the “perfectionist” TV producer that he claimed to be on A Current Affair on Monday night.

He was exceptionally tough on the people around him — as he was on himself.

He demanded and got the best cameramen, the best soundos, the best researchers, the best producers — terrific people who were dedicated to their jobs because their boss was a tough task master who would rip them a new one if they did not deliver the highest quality work.

Then there was Don the animal husbandry obsessive.

Host and celebrity gardener Don Burke.

The one who bred miniature chooks and loved nothing more than to shock people with talk of miniature dogs mating, miniature chooks mating, miniature cows mating, miniature horses mating, guinea pigs mating ...

This is the Don who would delight in embarrassing young television publicists who might be chaperoning newspaper reporters to Burke’s Backyard outside broadcast “road tests”. This Don also liked to talk about the sex organs of plants — and stroke their stamens while doing so.

I know this Don well for I became that young television publicist in 1991 when I joined the Nine Network at about age 23, the latest in a string of publicists appointed to Burke’s Backyard.

WORKING WITH DON

It was my first (and only) gig in television publicity after completing a journalism cadetship in Wollongong and moving to Sydney to work at The Sunday Telegraph in 1989.

My job, at Nine, was to be the network’s news publicist. I was responsible for managing publicity for the news and current affairs programs — National Nine News, A Current Affair, 60 Minutes, Today, Sunday and Nightline — and all of the tricky personalities attached to those programs.

I reasoned I must not have done too poor a job for within months a handful of extra stars were thrown in for good measure — “problem stars” you might call them. And there were “problem producers” too.

A Current Affair host Tracy Grimshaw with Don Burke.

I would tell myself the bosses must have liked my country girl attitude — I was reasonably unflustered when dealing with oddballs, the self-obsessed, the drunk and those with often bizarre sexual proclivities.

Not much shocks the good folk from the country after all.

It’s more likely though that I was just green and my bosses were happy to load me up.

Don Burke on A Current Affair. Picture: ACA/ Channel 9.

The talent on my watch soon included any stars who hated doing publicity. I’m pretty sure all of the Sydney-based “problems” ended up on my brief — Daryl Somers, mercifully, was on a Melbourne publicist’s list.

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Among those on mine were Graham Kennedy whose urgent brusque faxes demanding more boxes of free booze be sent to the Southern Highlands were soon coming to me, Liz Hayes, who was media shy following a short failed marriage to adman John Singleton, a grumpy Clive Robertson who was happiest dealing with executives when they sent an attractive woman to bargain on their behalf — and Don Burke who was purple with rage that an interview with then Fairfax TV writer Richard Glover, conducted before I’d been employed, had blown up in his face.

Tara Dennis and Don Burke

THE OTHER DON BURKE

The third Don Burke I saw only once but knew he had become a problem for Nine Network executives — one of the reasons they were happy when Burke spun his program off to his own production company, CTC.

What might have become a huge problem for Nine neatly became an in-house problem at CTC for Don and his capable wife Marea, an executive of that company.

This Don was, as legend had it, a menace with women, though until this week I had never heard the names of those women.

As former Burke’s Backyard producer Bridget Ninness and former researcher Louise Langdon have now stated — two women I knew during my seven years at Nine — they were subjected to constant harassment by Burke.

Though I did not witness these events, I have no reason not to believe these women’s stories. They sound credible to me.

Don Burke near his property.

Annette Sharp.

One of the reasons I find it easy to believe them is because of Don’s appearance on A Current Affair on Monday night.

This was not Don 1,2 or 3 with neatly trimmed beard and checked shirt sitting in what looked to be Burke’s own north shore living room.

SMOOTH-TALKING DON

That was Don number four — hush-voiced Don, practiced, smooth-talking Don, the publicist’s dream,

The Don who accepts the invitation to address rumours because he believes he can persuade anyone of anything — even himself.

That Don believes he is the smartest man in the room — the smartest man on the planet — and he will talk and talk because words are like grass to him — abundant yet manageable and entirely tameable, like a good buffalo.

Don Burke and Mark Jackson in 1989.

Dennis Hundscheidt with Don Burke

That Don believes he can strike a deal with the Australian public — the only jury he has ever wanted to convince — and in damning himself with a frank admission of extramarital affairs, hopes to save himself regarding all the rest.

Delusional Don, at his best.