‘Retirement is a dirty word’: Why Dr Harry won’t hang up his hat

He has spent more than half his life in front of the camera but even at 80, Better Homes and Gardens favourite Dr Harry Cooper has no intention of letting grass grow under his feet.

At 80, evergreen TV vet Dr Harry Cooper is just getting started.

The Better Homes and Gardens favourite has spent more than half his life in front of the camera — the last 20 and a half with the Logie winning lifestyle show — and he has no intention of hanging up his trademark hat.

“Retirement is a dirty word for me, it is not in my dictionary,” Cooper said.

“I enjoy working on the show. I don’t want to stop. Wherever there is a job I will do it.

“I love working in television.”

Cooper has been celebrating milestones in the past year; Better Homes and Gardens clocked up 30 years on air, he marked two decades with the show and in February he turned 80.

Cooper was working as a veterinarian in Gladesville, Sydney, when he got his TV break in the early 1980s — but it almost did not happen.

Dr Harry Cooper says at 80, he’s just getting started. Picture: Channel 7

The Better Homes and Gardens favourite has spent more than half his life in front of the camera. Picture: Getty Images

Asked to appear on Channel 7’s then breakfast show, he was turned away at the door of the studio two weeks running.

“My vet partner got a phone call from a producer from Today (forerunner to Sunrise) and told me to be at Seven a half past eight on Monday morning,” he said.

“I turn up the first Monday and the chap on the door said ‘go away, we don’t need you.’

“I turn up the second Monday and I get the same reception.

“And I turn up on the third Monday and I thought ‘if I get shown the door again I will never come back’ and the producer grabs me at the front door and says ‘just leave the car where it is, give the keys to this bloke, come with me, you need to do 20 minutes.’

“I said ‘that is no problem, I can talk underwater with a mouthful of marbles.’

“I was a fill, if you like. A couple of people did not turn up on that third day and that is how I got my start.

“It was a case of third time lucky.

“Life hands you the good and the bad sometimes and on that occasion it really handed me the best thing in the world.”

Better Homes and Gardens stars Graham Ross and Dr Harry. Picture: Channel 7

Juliet Love, Dr Harry Cooper and Johanna Griggs from Better Homes and Gardens. Picture: Channel 7

Cooper went on to be part of Talk To The Animals and Harry’s Practice on Seven.

Harry’s Practice was axed when it came up against a new show called The Block and was soundly beaten.

“Tim Worner (former 7 CEO) rang me up and he said ‘Harry, I want to talk to you about the future’,” Cooper said.

“I said, ‘well Tim, you have just sacked me, what is the point in talking to you about the future unless there is a future.’

“We met for breakfast and he said he wanted me to do Better Homes and Gardens. I said having a vet on Better Homes and Gardens was a crazy idea that would never work but bugger me, people liked it.

“Half my television life has been on Better Homes and Gardens.”

Cooper said he had been blessed to be supported by his “TV family” during tough times.

“I had a really bad year, my annus horribilis, is 2008,” he said.

Johanna Griggs with Dr Harry. Picture: Channel 7

“I had prostate cancer and a hip replacement. I just kept going and I got through that year with the support of everybody and then in 2012 I lost my daughter (Tiffany, who died from colon cancer) and they (his TV family) stepped forward again and supported me.

“I am very lucky, it is like I have two families; one is my family and the other is my TV family.”

Cooper said he had no idea what the key to his success was.

“That is a better question for people around me,” he said

But he hopes he has brought some fun and helpful information to pet lovers.

“I don’t want anyone to ever say he was a great bloke, he was this, that, everything, I just want people to go he was a nice bloke, that will do,” he said.