Kennedy, Lane, Patti: Bert Newton’s three greatest partnerships
Bert Newton defined himself as a great sidekick but it was his own partnership — and love story — with his wife Patti that helped him shine bright.
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Bert Newton shone bright as Australian TV’s great star for decades but his success was not achieved without help.
Newton defined himself as a great sidekick, a partner in TV jocularity as well as being the ultimate gala event host and ringmaster of morning TV madness.
There are three major partnerships that defined Newton’s life.
GRAHAM KENNEDY
Bert Newton’s first great partnership was with Graham Kennedy on In Melbourne Tonight.
The pair were at the forefront of the evolution of commercial TV in Australia.
Kennedy and Newton met each other in 1955 when they were announcers on rival radio stations in Melbourne and clicked as two young rising stars.
Kennedy headed to Channel 9 to host In Melbourne Tonight and Newton was pitted against him on Channel 7, fronting The Late Show in 1957.
Thanks to plotting and encouragement from Kennedy, in 1959 Newton moved to Nine, where he was to host a morning show, but delays to that production left him at a loose end for several months.
Asked to fill in on a commercial for Raoul Merton shoes on In Melbourne Tonight one evening, he and Kennedy put on a show turning two-minute advertisements into 12 minutes of madcap fun.
Young, handsome, quick, clever and full of mischief, the pair captivated audiences with their irreverence, playfulness, wit, cheek, and charm.
There was no going back, Newton was immediately part of Kennedy’s ensemble on the five-night-a-week show that was to make Kennedy Australia’s biggest TV star.
Newton was not far behind in the star stakes.
Newton and Kennedy worked together for more than a decade on various shows.
He may have been Kennedy’s sidekick, but he was certainly not in his shadow.
“They talk about Elvis and they talk about other people being The King. For us here in Australia, he was The King, and I was very happy for a long time to be his crown prince,” Newton said of Kennedy.
They complemented each other perfectly.
He and Kennedy also worked together on radio at 3AK.
They shared a 50-year friendship until Kennedy’s death in 2005.
Peter Smith, who worked with Newton and Kennedy on In Melbourne Tonight and other shows, said the pair were stars who lifted each other.
“Bert has this amazing gift of making you feel, when you are on camera with him, you are the most important person there and that nothing else matters.” Smith said.
“The reason why Graham and Bert were so successful on screen together was because of Bert’s incredible gift in that he made everybody — and that included Graham — feel special.
“Graham did not have a lot of confidence if you saw him backstage before the show began but had the wonderful talent of being able to crush that down and go out and give a great performance.
“Bert was always there for him and Graham had great confidence in him. They brought the best out in each other and they loved working together. It was magic.”
DON LANE
Don Lane had one person in mind when he was handed a twice-a-week variety show by Kerry Packer in 1975.
He wanted Bert Newton, despite not knowing him.
Having seen his work with Graham Kennedy, Lane knew that Newton would be his perfect foil.
‘‘We were magic from the time he walked out from the curtain … you don’t try to explain those things,” Lane said in 2003.
“You just take them and you use them and you enjoy them and most of all you appreciate them, because they don’t happen often, they happen once in a rare while.”
Newton was the surprise packet on the Lane show. His role allowed him to bring vaudeville brilliance to the show; he dressed up, played practical jokes, encouraged chaos and brought the unexpected.
He hosted “Don’s Wheel”, a prize giveaway segment, which became a highlight of the show with Newton, often in costume, creating must-watch madness.
And his “What’s New and Unusual” segment was really just a chance for Newton to break something and create mischief.
It was Lane who gave Newton the nickname “Moonface”.
Newton put their success down to Lane’s generosity as a performer.
“I think the chemistry was down to the fact that Don Lane, apart from being a fantastic performer, I can tell you honestly I have not worked with anybody in television more generous than Don,” Newton said of Lane.
“Don works on the old system, which I think is the best, and that is if you are all there together it does not matter who is getting the laughs so long as they are there.”
Peter Wynne, an associate producer on The Don Lane Show, said the key to Lane and Newton’s on-screen brilliance was the element of surprise.
“Anything that happened with the both of them happened on the show and on air. They did not spend a lot of time together off screen and that was the key,” Wynne said.
“As a producer you did not know what was going to happen with Bert, you had no idea where the segment was heading and Don would have no idea either.
“In one way Don had a front-row seat to Bert and he loved it. Don never quite knew what was going to come out of Bert’s mouth.
“Bert would go to any lengths to make sure there was going to be a ‘moment’ on the show.”
Wynne said Newton created his own magic.
“There was an urban myth that everything was written or prepared for Bert, but that is not true,” he said.
“Hardly anything was written for Bert. Bert was the originator of 99 per cent of his stuff.
“He would always go for the angle that would create mayhem.”
PATTI NEWTON
The greatest partnership in Newton’s life was with his wife Patti Newton.
The couple was a team both in show business and in life.
“In actual fact my life would be worth nothing if I had not met Patti,” he said.
Newton and Patti first crossed paths as kids in radio circles and they both ended up at Channel 9.
Seven years younger than Newton, Patti was a singer and dancer appearing on shows such as Swallow’s Juniors and The Tarax Show, before graduating to In Melbourne Tonight, Nine’s five-night-a-week variety show that Newton was flying high on with Graham Kennedy.
Newton hosted his first Logie Awards in 1967 and presented one of the awards – Most Popular Female in Victoria – to Patti.
He maintained it was his favourite award presentation of his long career association with the Logies.
Newton and Patti started quietly dating in 1968 and in early 1969 he let his In Melbourne Tonight audience know he was off the market, finally confirming publicly that he and Patti were an item.
But the wedding did not come quickly.
In fact the couple took a break in 1971 with Patti heading to England later that year to further her career. She stayed away for three years.
In 1974 Newton got his act together, flew to New York and then boarded the QE2 cruise ship where Patti was working as a performer with her group, Patti McGrath and the Movers.
When the ship docked in the Caribbean, he proposed in Martinique on Australia Day, January 26, 1974.
The couple wed on November 9, 1974 at St Dominic’s Church in Camberwell with their wedding rings inscribed with the words: ‘No longer two but one’.
Kennedy was the best man.
Six thousand people congregated outside the church to catch a glimpse of the newlyweds, who celebrated with a reception at the Southern Cross Hotel.
“I don’t really think I have ever been in love with anybody else,” Patti said on Newton’s This Is Your Life in 1997.
“I have always loved Bert. We went together for a long time and then I went overseas for three years because he would not marry me, and then he married me.
“Every day I think how lucky I am that I have got him and I hope that I never lose him.”
Newton, however, knew he was the lucky one.
The couple was the “royal family” of Australian TV, sharing their milestones, such as the birth of their son, Matthew, in January 1977 and daughter, Lauren, in March 1979 with their fans and hosting Ford Superquiz together.
They are proud and adoring grandparents of Sam, Eva, Lola, Monty, Perla and Alby.
Newton and Patti celebrated their 46th wedding anniversary in November 2020.
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