Media legend’s office porn magazine collection and proposal to former staffer

He was one of the country’s biggest names in television but one former staffer was left speechless by his office proposition.

Clive Robertson was, or so this writer was warned three decades ago after laughably being appointed his publicist, a difficult, petulant, curmudgeon.

What my bosses at Channel 9 failed to also mention, though possibly didn’t know, was that Robertson – who died this week aged 78 – was also a lonely man looking for love.

This became clear to me during a meeting with Robertson in 1991 when he informed me that if I were to play my cards right, I might one day be lucky enough to become his wife.

At the time I was 23, wide-eyed and new to television and its eccentric and spoilt characters.

Despite my relative inexperience, I figured it was safe to assume this “proposal” was something Robertson extended to all the young female publicists charged with hunting him down in his sagging tucked-out-of-the-way office on Nine’s vast Sydney compound to discuss promotional opportunities.

Legendary broadcaster Clive Robertson who died this week aged 78.

Back then Nine, with its thriving news division which produced the highest rating news and current affairs programs on Australian television, was a vibrant place to be.

This was the period after media magnate Kerry Packer bought back the television company from Alan Bond and issued an edict for management to rein in the excesses previously enjoyed under Bond.

Among day-to-day changes was a booze ban that saw kitchen fridges across the network emptied of their traditional stock of wine and beer.

For the first time in years, I was informed, Nine staff were, by and large, more sober than they’d been during daylight hours for a long time (though none would have been bold enough to call it a “culture review”).

Despite the sobriety, the place was still a hive of sexism and sexual misconduct though most of the company’s incorrigible sex pests, gardener Don Burke included, were usually on their best behaviour when first introduced to a new employee, which I then was.

With everyone on their best behaviour, it came as a surprise when I managed to navigate my way through the warren of back lanes to Robertson’s office in a nearby cottage only to find myself confronted by a worrying heap at the broadcaster’s door.

A humble doorstop can convey any manner of insights into a person.

Robertson pictured in his office in 1989 was known to have a pile of Penthouse and Playboy magazines as doorstops.

An award or trophy might be interpreted as pretentious or a humble brag, a rock as earthy or thrifty, a purpose-made hardware store wedge as functional and boring.

The doorstop in service at the door of the man who had famously parried with the likes of respected women broadcasters Caroline Jones and Margaret Throsby on ABC radio in the 1970s and ’80s and whose on-air banter was considered by many to be brilliant, acerbic, amusing, droll or deeply philosophical was a foot-high pile of porno magazines.

Even in those unenlightened pre-HR department days, the sight of a pile of Playboy and Penthouse magazines sitting on the ground in a news department office was an unusual sight.

It’s hard to know what Robertson, whose late night news program, The World Tonight had replaced Graham Kennedy’s Coast to Coast in the 10.30pm slot, was hoping to convey with this risque statement.

The twice-married and twice-divorced commentator might have been advertising the fact he was straight. His predecessor, Kennedy, was gay.

The twice-married and twice-divorced commentator was in fact a teetotal.

Robertson had replaced predecessor Graham Kennedy.

I found myself wondering if he might have been trying to make a friend by proffering his dirty magazine collection to the largely all-male production crew, though as I later discovered he had little in common with them as he hated sport and was teetotal.

Certainly he was making the statement he didn’t care who he offended, although as I soon realised this statement was largely at odds with the man who wore his loneliness as a badge.

Our weekly publicity meetings in his cluttered and shambolic office fell into a routine.

I’d step around the porno mags and arrive with a slate of interview requests from newspapers, radio and industry titles, along with the occasional marketing request from the bosses upstairs who mostly seemed to go out of their way to avoid him, and the penny-pinching Robertson would knock back almost everything on the list while arguing he was only interested in paid work opportunities.

He was by then raking in big money after having made his name in radio from 1967 and later finding fans on commercial radio and then television in the decades that followed.

By the mid ’80s, Robertson was a bona fide television star on Network Ten’s Beauty and The Beast where he seemed at home among a women-only panel.

That success preceded an offer from Seven to host 11am and then a lucrative offer from Nine in 1989.

Robertson was a bona fide television star on Network Ten’s Beauty and The Beast before his move to Channel 9.

Within two years his star was on the wane however at Nine where he had earned the reputation of being a grumpy slob.

Despite this, he seemed happy to have my company, if only for about 30 minutes a week.

During these meetings Robertson shared something of himself while knocking back pretty much everything work-related I proposed while simultaneously acknowledging the ratings threat posed by Channel 7 funnyman Steve Vizard, host of Tonight Live, in what became the last great days of duelling late night talk shows on Australian commercial television.

Robertson was once married to actor Penny Cook. Picture: John Appleyard

Cook played the role of Victroria ‘Vicky’ Dean on popular show A Country Practice Picture: Channel 7

He spoke with bitterness about his failed marriage to actor Penny Cook, the star of soap A Country Practice, who had broken his heart by leaving him (possibly through an open bathroom window if memory serves me) and proclaimed himself to be a world-class cuddler, something I never put to the test.

He frequently lamented the fact he hadn’t had a date in years and on one occasion said, as I imagine he did to any woman who gave him the time of day, that “if you play your cards right, you could be the next Mrs Robertson” – a role no woman after Cook would ever again fill.

After leaving Nine in 1992, he returned to the radio airwaves where he remained in demand on stations including 2DAYFM, 2UE, 2SM, ABC Classic FM and also in Adelaide and Perth.

An unlikely romantic, Robertson died this week aged 78 following a battle with cancer.