Logies 2018: The golden era wasn’t the Gold Coast, it was Melbourne in the 1960s
FORGET the Gold Coast. The real golden time of the Logies was in Melbourne in the ‘60s and ‘70s when Hollywood flocked to town, drinks were flowing and the host flew by the seat of his pants. So what went wrong?
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FORGET the Gold Coast.
The real golden time of the TV Week Logie Awards was in Melbourne from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s.
That is what stars including Bert Newton, Denise Drysdale and Pete Smith reckon as Aussie television’s night of nights gets set to turn 60 this Sunday.
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The late 1960s and 1970s was when Newton had a lock on hosting the Logies which was televised from Melbourne’s iconic Southern Cross Hotel.
“It really was a golden era,” Smith says.
“It wasn’t that many years earlier that television was a novelty.
“It wasn’t taken for granted the way it is today.”
Back then, Hollywood’s biggest stars would take the long flight Down Under from Los Angeles (no 14-hour direct flights in those days) to be guest presenters.
And what a line-up it was.
Western movies legend John Wayne headed a list that included McMillan and Wife’s Rock Hudson, Star Trek’s William Shatner, The Six Million Dollar Man’s Lee Majors and The Partridge Family’s David Cassidy.
Other big names included boxing champion Muhammad Ali, Gina Lollobrigida, Mickey Rooney, Lee Marvin, Cade’s County’s Glenn Ford, MASH’s Loretta Swit, McHale’s Navy’s Ernest Borgnine, Marcus Welby MD’s Robert Young, as well as Macdonald Carey from Days of Our Lives, Robert Reed from The Brady Bunch.
Brits included The Saint’s Roger Moore (later to be James Bond), Keith Michell (The Six Wives of Henry VIII) and Edward Woodward (Callan).
“John Wayne gave me my gold Logie,” Drysdale says.
“It was an amazing thing. I’d been in London and was as poor as a church mouse.
“When I came back (to Australia) here I am a year and a half later getting a gold Logie which was phenomenal for me.
“I said to him ‘I don’t know whether to say hello or stick ‘em’ up’ and he laughed at that and gave me a big cuddle.”
Smith adds: “The Hollywood stars used to get here a night or two before the Logies and they were made so welcome in the Aussie way.
“It really impressed them and they went back home and had nothing but good things to say about the television scene in Australia.”
Last week The Mod Squad was on everyone’s lips when a 1970 Logie for Best Overseas Show went up for auction.
It is easy to forget that US crime drama was so popular in Australia that it won five Logies in a row.
Peggy Lipton was originally meant to attend the 1970 ceremony but pulled out due to ill-health.
Co-star Michael Cole caused a huge uproar with his drunken acceptance speech, including an expletive, in 1973.
“When Michael said “s***” it was the first time it had been said on Australian television so it was quite a moment,” Newton says.
“The program aired on Friday night and the network received a couple of hundred calls complaining. When it was replayed on Sunday afternoon they edited out his piece and they got 2000 calls complaining.”
Newton hosted his first Logies in 1968.
Bizarrely, the event was held in the Zodiac Room of the Fairstar cruise ship.
1969 started the run of Logies at the Southern Cross.
And Newton hosted on the fly.
He didn’t rehearse.
He liked the idea of winging it.
Sometimes that got him into trouble (upsetting Ali when unwittingly said “I like the boy” at the 1979 event is the most famous.
“That things that went wrong are often the things that stand out (we remember) because of that live aspect,” Smith says.
Most of the time Newton’s off-the-cuff zingers gave the telecast a spontaneity it sorely misses now that every presenter works off a script.
“The question I’m asked most of the time is ‘are the Logies different today’,” Newton says. “The answer is yes. In the early years the format was much simpler.
“It is chalk and cheese.
“I don’t think any compere these days would have much opportunity to shine.
“For almost all of the Logies I did I started at the beginning and I was still there at the end.
“One of the charms of the Logies is that it was the first awards show seen in Australia in a cabaret setting. People’s spirits are moved along a little by a couple of drinks.
“In the early days they also allowed smoking in the room.
“I’d look out and it was like seeing a fire on top of a volcano.”
The Logies of the late 1960s and 1970s were full of weird and wonderful categories — and very politically incorrect.
In 1970, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were given a special gold Logie for Providing TV’s Greatest Moment in Their Moon Telecast.
There was a Logie for Best Commercial and twice that category was won by cigarette ads — Winfield and Kingford.
That could never happen today.
In 2018, The Benny Hill Show is considered a sexist relic but it won a Logie for Best British Show in 1974.
Reg Varney’s saucy On the Buses was another victor.
Ford was accused of racism when he refused to sit next to visiting Mannix actor Gail Fisher at the 1973 awards.
Ford also snubbed Senator Doug McClelland at the awards because of Labor criticism of then-US President Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War.
For a while there was a Best Australian Teenage Personality category.
Winners included Johnny Farnham, John Paul Young and Debbie Byrne.
For a number of years the Gold was split in two — Most Popular Male Personality and Most Popular Female Personality.
In 1975, The Ernie Sigley Show was such a hit that Sigley won Male and Drysdale won Female.
The following year Drysdale scored again with Norman Gunston (Garry McDonald) winning the male Gold.
“Back then it was the biggest thing that could happen to you,” Drysdale says.
“It is a thrill to win something and know that people like you.
“Ernie and I just clicked. He was very generous.
“He let me be funny. Every time he opened his mouth I knew where he was going and vice versa. We had fun.”
Drysdale is still very much in the spotlight thanks to Studio 10 but other names from that era have drifted into the ether.
Rugged actor Gerard Kennedy, who played Sen Det Frank Banner in crime drama Division 4 won back-to-back Gold in 1971 and 1972.
Bob Dyer was given a special Logie for TV Quizmaster of the Decade in 1968. Barry Crocker was so big in 1970 that he won Gold for Sound of Music.
Tony Barber won in 1973 for Great Temptation.
Rosie Sturgess (In Melbourne Tonight), Frank Wilson (New Faces), and Mary Hardy (The Penthouse Club) were some of the Victorian winners.
“These people were so prominent — more than the international stars,” Smith says. “Unfortunately with the passing of time they do get forgotten but back then they were a big part of our lives.”
Of course it wouldn’t be a deep dive back into the era without mentioning Graham Kennedy who won multiple Gold Logies during the era.
“I presented most of Graham’s Logies to him and it really was giving it to a very close friend,” Newton says.
All good things must come to an end and so it was with this colourful era.
The sheer volume of Hollywood stars led to a backlash among some members of the local television fraternity.
“There was some criticism from Australian performers that we were bringing out Hollywood has-beens,” Newton says.
“The interesting thing was seeing, as compere that during the commercial breaks that the people who had been most vocal in their criticism were the ones lining up for autographs.
“I was in my element standing beside these stars of an earlier era. Great memories.”
Newton went on to host the Logies 20 times.
His final stint was in 2010.
Performers including Wendy Harmer, Shaun Micallef, Steve Vizard, and Gretel Killeen had a crack at solo hosting and failed.
Andrew Denton shone in 1999.
There were a couple of years of multiple hosts but now there is no master of ceremonies.
No one is game.
Dave Hughes does a comedy monologue at the start and that is it.
“Bert should still be hosting,” Drysdale says.
“If he lived in America he would still be hosting. It would be his gig for life. You were always in safe hands with him.
“(Nine Melbourne legend) Pete Smith was the best person to sit next to. He is the funniest man on earth.
“It (the Logies) was an exciting, glamorous night. It was a big deal even being invited. I’ve only missed one. It is still a big deal.”
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