Willesee’s silent pauses and steely stare skewered many

The media veteran saved the AFL’s Sydney Swans from bankruptcy in their early days.

Mike Willesee at work in the 1980s.

Australia has lost one of the greatest journalists and interviewers of all time. Michael Willesee was a loving and generous family man who had all six of his children around him when he died yesterday morning at 10.30 from throat cancer, which had cruelly spread through his body.

He was a master in so many ways, not just in broadcasting, but as a businessman as well.

Together with Graham Kennedy and John Laws, Willesee introduced FM radio to Australia in 1980 when the trio founded 2Day FM radio station.

His contribution to thoroughbred horse racing was huge.

At a personal cost of millions of dollars, he helped save the Sydney Swans from bankruptcy ensuring they would go on to win two premierships.

Willesee was born in Perth in 1942, the second of six children to Gwen and Don Willesee.

Don was a senior minister in the Whitlam government, so it is fair to say the young Michael grew up in a home full of robust discussion and debate during one of the most exciting and tumultuous times in Australian political ­history.

Willesee at home in 2017. Picture: Britta Campion

His love of the Swans came after playing AFL for West Perth before being drafted to play in the seconds for South Melbourne, later to become the Sydney Swans.

After a journalism cadetship on Perth’s Daily News and a stint on The Age, Willesee started on the pioneering ABC current affairs program This Day Tonight. It was here that Willesee would begin to stand out and really fly, not easy when your colleagues include ­giants such as Richard Carleton, Gerald Stone, Peter Luck and Mike Carlton. After hosting the ABC’s Four Corners for three years, he moved to commercial television and the Nine Network where his own production company, Trans Media, launched A Current Affair in 1972.

It was then that millions of viewers were introduced to his ­silent pauses and that steely stare that struck fear into the hearts of so many politicians and villains.

John Hewson will never forget it because he lost the unlosable federal election to Paul Keating because of a Willesee king-hit question about the cost of a birthday cake once GST was taken into account. Hewson’s red-faced, confused and bumbled answer lost him the election 10 days later.

But, typical of Willesee’s respectful manner, Hewson was one of the first to pay tribute to this great journo when news broke that he had died.

After a disagreement with the Packer family, Willesee went across to the Seven Network to launch another current affairs program, Willesee at Seven, and would soon become the first host of This is Your Life. But once he learned the surprises were staged, he lasted only one year.

Twenty years later, I asked this great mentor of mine for his advice regarding taking on the role as host of This is Your Life for the Nine Network.

“Be careful, mate,” he warned me in 1995. “When I did it the people I was supposed to be surprising all knew.”

I was horrified and from that moment on I put the fear of God into our producers to ensure the surprises were as genuine as possible, or else we would drop the whole show. Willesee was always the real deal.

I first met Michael when I was a cheeky, irreverent reporter for Sydney’s The Daily Mirror. Early one morning I was sent to his home to ask him to reveal how many millions his latest three-year contract was worth.

I was confronted by him in his black-belt judo suit telling me where to go.

“Just give me the figure and I’ll be out of here, Mr Willesee,” I told him. The pause, the stare, and then he smiled and closed the door.

He never let me forget that first meeting.

By the time I left 60 Minutes to come home to my family, 15 years after that first meeting, he and I had been slated by Nine’s management to co-host A Current Affair Mark II. The plan was he would eventually step down and ease me into the senior hosting role. But two things put paid to that: Willesee had one drink too many and then went on air and giggled through a story introduction, and the second was the Cangai siege.

The siege started after two killers took two children hostage in a house in Cangai, near Grafton in northern NSW, in 1993. After Willesee managed to speak to the killers and the children on the phone and get it to air, he was pilloried for potentially putting the children’s lives at risk.

He later admitted, if given the chance again, he would have handled it differently. On the same day I had our hired helicopter land half a kilometre from the siege house, against police orders, to ensure we got the first pictures of the drama on air that night.

The police desperately tried to charge both of us, without success. The fallout meant that I did not become host for a number of years.

In the late 90s, a plane crash in Kenya that almost killed Willesee and his great mate, cameraman Greg Low, led him back to his strong Irish Catholic roots. His new-found faith in God gave him the momentum to make several religious documentaries. And it was that relationship with God that gave Michael even more strength over the past 2½ years to do everything he could to stay positive.

During the past few months Don Willesee Jr, Peter Meakin, John Singleton and myself have had a number of lunches with ­Michael, who seemed comfortable. He was completely at ease with himself as he regaled us with the most incredible stories of his travels from around the world. We were at his favourite Chinese restaurant, at the same table I surprised him in 1996 for his own tribute on This is Your Life.

Michael died peacefully surrounded by the children from his three marriages.

He leaves behind Kate, Michael Jr, Amy, Josh, Jo and Rok and 11 much-loved grandchildren, with another on the way.

Mike Munro is an Australian journalist and television presenter