Live blog: all the action from the 2017 TV Week Logie Awards
AUSSIE legend Molly Meldrum took the stage during Samuel Johnson’s Gold Logie speech - then things got even weirder.
SAMUEL Johnson’s Gold Logie acceptance speech being hijacked by Australian legend Molly Meldrum was quite the end to a crazy night at the 59th Annual TV Week Logie Awards.
The actor was lost for words as he walked on stage to accept Australian television’s highest honour.
“Sorry, my family is all based out of a house in Preston,” he began. “Among ourselves we call it the Prestonian Institute for the Temporarily Defeated. I know you are watching in Preston — not tonight.”
It was then just moments into his speech that Johnson — who won the gong for Best Actor earlier in the night for his turn as Molly Meldrum in the Channel Seven miniseries Molly — was interrupted by the industry legend, who told a rather unexpected and rambling anecdote about the actor.
Meldrum recounted being friends with Johnson’s father and said when the actor was suggested to play him, he thought it was a great idea.
“He (Johnson) rings me from Broome, he said, ‘I’ve been offered this role of playing you in a mini series,” Meldrum continued. “I went, OK. ‘When I get back home from this bike ride on this unicycle’ — for his amazing sister with cancer — ‘I’ll come across and study you’.”
“I said, ‘Sam, you already know me, what are you talking about?’
“I know, you wanna study me, I’ll teach you how to be gay and be gay.
“He said, ‘F*ck off!’”
The anecdote trailed off before Meldrum began to wrap up.
“I know it’s very hard to play an old drama queen like myself, and you did a great job, right. So on behalf of the drama queens of Australia, I would like to crown you also with my gold hat, here it is, well done. Thank you everyone.”
And with that, Johnson was crowned with an akubra, and the pair shared a cheeky kiss. A team of people then descended on the stage to wrap things up.
No one could comprehend what just happened.
Logies producers during that Molly speech pic.twitter.com/jotSXp1nyR
— Dan Ginnane (@DanGinnane) April 23, 2017
Can we all give a huge thanks to the person having to caption #molly at the #logies @TVWEEKmag ðŸ‘ðŸ‘👠pic.twitter.com/5gOso56puq
— Craig Nymms (@nymms) April 23, 2017
Molly just pulled a Kanye #TVWEEKLogies
— Demika&Karen 89-LM (@WSpark98NZ) April 23, 2017
I have no idea what Molly said, but that was the best #TVWEEKLogies speech ever.
— Xantre Aston (@xantreaston) April 23, 2017
Speaking after his win, the 38-year-old actor told news.com.au: “(It was) So good. Very emotional. It’s very hard to explain,”
“My whole brain went fuzzy. My heart popped and I couldn’t do the word thing and then Molly’s there and I couldn’t hear him because I’m half deaf and all the speakers are (pointing) out forwards, so I’m standing there going, ‘I wonder what he’s saying?’ Even if I could hear him I probably wouldn’t have understood. The whole thing was just surreal. It was very, like a crazy rainbow heart explosion. It was really cool.”
Afterwards, Johnson said he “had a bunch of stuff planned” to formally dedicate the award to his sister, Connie, who is battling cancer. “I might post my speech on Facebook, maybe,” he said.
Asked if he was sorry he didn’t get to finish his speech, Johnson replied: “How could I be sorry? It’s still really fresh.”
Johnson beat out last year’s Gold Logie winner and favourite Waleed Aly, along with other popular personalities Grant Denyer, Jessica Marais, Peter Helliar and Rodger Corser. Backstage, the actor was humble about his win, putting it down to the community he’s built with his sister and their charity, Love Your Sister. Johnson established the charity in the wake of his sister’s diagnosis with terminal breast cancer at the age of 33. She is now 40.
“I don’t know whether you guys know but no actor from a one-off TV event has ever been nominated for Gold before, let alone taken home the bacon, and it’s partly explainable by the love that we have for Molly ... but I think it’s also partly explained by our 380,000 strong village wanted their snotty little brother to get up there and have a crack,” he said.
“There is literally no precedent for an actor like me in that category, let alone taking the award. My sister asked our village who are committed and engaged and active and gutsy as hell, my sister’s asked them to vote for me and they did in droves. Facebook has been swinging voting results lately and I think we’re no exception. I’m not a TV personality, I’m a Facebook personality. The fix is in.
“Even if you factor in the viewing numbers of Molly, even if you factor in Molly’s inherent iconography, it doesn’t explain me being in that category if you look a the history of it. For me, our Love Your Sister village had a lot to do with it and I’m so annoyed that I didn’t have the presence of mind to acknowledge them.”
The honour came at the end of an epic four-hour ceremony that began with Dave Hughes hammering Australia’s A-list in a harsh and hilarious opening monologue. The comedian skewered everything from Karl Stefanovic’s split and Channel 7 boss Tim Worner’s scandal to Grant Denyer’s car crash.
“Lisa Wilkinson has never been nominated for a Gold Logie. That’s ridiculous, isn’t it? Karl has already won one, so he doesn’t need any more attention, do you, Karl?” Hughes quipped as Stefanovic braced himself in his chair.
“No, I’m not going to give it to Karl. If I do, Ita Buttrose will bash me. Ita said on Channel Ten, ‘Leave Karl alone!’ I agree, you know. Karl, the paparazzi followed him to America. That made me angry. I can’t get them to follow me down the street.
“I could walk down Bourke Street with four hookers and a wheelbarrow of drugs and they wouldn’t follow me.”
SEE THE FULL LIST OF LOGIE WINNERS BELOW
Award winners for the evening were Jessica Marais for Best Actress and Johson who won Best Actor and made an emotional, heartfelt speech dedicating his award to his sister Connie who has cancer.
Picking up the Logie for best TV Presenter, The Project’s Waleed Aly echoed his Gold Logie speech last year, telling the audience he’s “surrounded by people who are better than me and can improve me”.
“There is, I think, a mythology in our game that if you front a show, then you are a show,” he added. “That is really, really not true for our shows. I feel vaguely fraudulent, frankly, standing here.
“There are times I sit in a production meeting and I honestly think any idiot could host the show. I am genuinely delighted tonight to be that idiot. So thank you very much.”
It wouldn’t be the Logie Awards without an awkward presenter pairing. Enter comedian Sam Pang and the first ever female Gold Logie winner, Lorrae Desmond.
“Oh, you’re on TV?” Desmond quizzed Pang towards the end of a painfully long spot. “Can you introduce me to Jessica Marais? ... I love her. I wish I was presenting with her.”
Pang’s reply said it all: “Me too.”
The Project scored a second win of the night, picking up the Logie for Best News Panel/Current Affairs. The whole presenting team headed for the stage to accept the gong while also helping co-host Gorgi Coghlan and her massive dress.
Kerri-Anne Kennerley’s status at television royalty has been cemented with the 63-year-old being inducted into the Logie Hall of Fame. The veteran presenter receives the honour after 50 years in television and is only the third woman to make the list. It’s also the presenter’s first ever Logie.
Accepting the honour, Kennerley entered the stage to a standing ovation.
Kennerley noted it’s the 31st Logies ceremony she and husband John have attended. John was by her side at the ceremony tonight in his wheelchair after breaking his neck last year.
It’s been a tough 12 months for the couple, and Kennerley took an emotional moment to thank her partner.
“In the last 13 and a half months it’s been a pretty big learning curve. A lot of lessons we didn’t want to learn or have to learn. But we have learned, darling, and we will continue to learn,” she said.
“I can honestly say I would give away 50 years of this career and all those incredible experiences and anything else I could think of just to have you standing right here by my side holding my hand.”
I promise you one thing, though, darling we haven’t finished yet.”
In previous years, comedian Shane Jacobson has swanned around the room and shamed Gold Logie nominees with forgotten footage of their early days in the industry. But tonight, the tables turned. As he took to the stage to present alongside Edwina Bartholomew, the Sunrise star caught him off guard. That’s when she hit play on a clip from a 1994 episode of Man O Man. And Jacobson was a contestant. The images speak for themselves.
Introducing the tribute to those the Australian entertainment industry has lost over the past 12 months, Larry Emdur remembered Reg Grundy, the man responsible for bringing iconic game shows like Wheel of Fortune and Blankety Blanks to Aussie screens.
Casey Donovan performed a heartfelt acoustic cover of David Bowie’s Heroes to a standing ovation.
GOLD LOGIE
Samuel Johnson
BEST ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAM
Have You Been Paying Attention, Ten
SILVER: BEST ACTRESS
Jessica Marais, Love Child, Nine
SILVER: BEST ACTOR
Samuel Johnson, Molly, Seven
SILVER: BEST PRESENTER
Waleed Aly, The Project
BEST NEWS PANEL/CURRENT AFFAIRS
The Project, Ten
BEST DRAMA PROGRAM
Molly, Seven
MOST OUTSTANDING SPORTS COVERAGE
Channel Seven, Rio 2016 Olympic Games
GRAHAM KENNEDY AWARD FOR MOST OUTSTANDING NEWCOMER
Elias Anton, Barracuda
MOST OUTSTANDING ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAM
Have You Been Paying Attention, Ten
BEST SPORTS PROGRAM
NRL Footy Show, Nine
MOST OUTSTANDING CHILDRENS PROGRAM
The Nightmare Before Graduation, ABC Me
MOST OUTSTANDING COMEDY
Please Like Me, ABC
LOGIE HALL OF FAME
Kerri-Anne Kennerley
OUTSTANDING NEWS COVERAGE
Sky News Election Coverage 2016
BEST LIFESTYLE PROGRAM
The Living Room, Ten
BEST FACTUAL PROGRAM
Goggle Box Australia, Foxtel and Ten
MOST OUTSTANDING MINISERIES OR TELEMOVIE
The Kettering Incident, Foxtel
BEST REALITY PROGRAM
The Block, Nine
MOST OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR
Damon Herriman, Secret City, Showcase
MOST OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Debra Lawrence, Please Like Me, ABC
MOST OUTSTANDING PUBLIC AFFAIRS REPORT
Australia’s Shame, Four Corners, ABC
BEST NEW TALENT
Rob Collins, The Wrong Girl, Ten
MOST OUTSTANDING ACTRESS
Anna Torv, Secret City, Showcase
MOST OUTSTANDING ACTOR
Henry Nixon, The Kettering Incident, Showcase
MOST OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES
A Place To Call Home, Showcase
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