The Morning Show’s Larry Emdur releases memoir, Happy As

In his memoir Happy As, Larry Emdur explains his accidental path to TV hosting and reveals a testy encounter with a former Seven chief.

Larry Emdur’s friends and family were gobsmacked to discover he was writing his memoirs.

Not because the veteran TV host doesn’t have great anecdotes, but rather because they’d never even seen him so much as turn a book’s page.

“I was kicked out of school having failed English miserably,” Emdur admits, laughing that he preferred surfing to studying.

“So, yes, this (writing a book) was a very interesting concept. I wondered from the start whether I could actually do this, but I wanted to show my kids that you can tackle things every now and again that scare you.”

Emdur has proven his teachers wrong, penning his biography Happy As.

Larry Emdur has written a memoir called Happy Days.

Like so many people, the pandemic had Emdur longing for happier times. And what began as musings on his 40-odd years in showbiz, eventually became a love story to his Bondi Beach childhood.

“It turned into this sort of nostalgic, growing up in Bondi being surrounded by a loving family, seagulls and fish and chips,” he reflects.

“You know, whenever I post one of those old photos (on social media) it seems to be the stuff that people jump on now. Maybe because the last couple years have been so horrendous, people are just yearning for this simpler time.”

Larry Emdur at his beloved Bondi Beach. Picture: John Feder/The Daily Telegraph

Writing the book wasn’t easy, and not just because Emdur’s still perplexed about where to put an apostrophe or comma. Talking about his past meant stirring memories of his beloved father, who died 15 years ago.

“We were fishing and surfing buddies. We were just very close,” he says.

“There’s a lot of that in the book and some of that was very difficult to write.

“Some of these chapters I was able to punch out in a few days and then a couple on Dad I had to walk away from and come back to days later and then walk away from again.

“It took me to some really interesting places and probably dealt with a lot of things I hadn’t really sat down and said out loud before.”

He likes to imagine the book will be a time capsule for his extended family, with precious memories preserved (with Emdur’s lighthearted spin) for future generations.

Emdur says his television career has been a rollercoaster.

Rest assured, the host hasn’t shied away from addressing the challenges of his public life as well, joking that as “Australia’s most axed host” his years on TV have been a rollercoaster.

“There’s a picture of you walking along the beach sadly with your dog under the headline: ‘Axed’,” he explains of The Main Event’s 1992 demise.

“It’s very difficult to explain (how that feels), but what I did say to (my wife) Sylvie, when we first got serious was, ‘Look, this is the business. And I can’t bank on it. I can only look for the next contract, and that can sometimes take three to six months’.

“What I could guarantee was that when things went bad, I wouldn’t sit around waiting for the call. We’d instead go on an adventure. So, when Price is Right got axed, we packed up the house and went to live in LA for a year.”

Larry Emdur and his wife Sylvie. Picture: Getty Images

Of course, contract negotiations could be equally ego-bruising.

“At my last negotiation with (former Seven chief) David Leckie – may he rest in peace, wherever he is – he said to me: ‘Emdur, you f--kwit, I have 100 people at this network who would walk over broken glass and eat s--t to do your job for free’,” Emdur recalls.

Interestingly, Emdur never set out to become a TV star; at one point even flirting with the idea of becoming a garbage man to allow for more surfing time.

In Happy As, Emdur explains his accidental path to TV hosting and why he’s never expected fame or fortune to last. Even now, in the sweet spot of his career, Emdur quips “everyone has a shelf life”.

“This is what I’ve learned in television, and I learned this early: it’s never your choice (when your career is over),” he says.

“The Morning Show could end for me next week. We’ve seen careers end so quickly in this business. Sometimes it’s an obvious reason and other times it’s just for a change of scenery or a change of whatever, whoever.

Emdur and MORNING Show co host Kylie Gillies.

Emdur, Gillies (left) with producer Sarah Stinson. Picture: Supplied.

“That happens all the time. I’ve seen it happen. It’s happened to me. It’s happened to people sitting next to me.”

Even though working on The Morning Show would have allowed him to fulfil that childhood dream of days spent surfing, Emdur confesses he hasn’t done so once.

“For 15 years I’ve had that time and I haven’t capitalised on it,” he says.

“I just lost the love for it at some point. Bondi became a battleground and there’s just the hassle of people yelling at each other and abusing each other. I don’t remember it that way. I remember it as so calm and fun.”

Luckily, he now has his book to carry him back to that happy place whenever he likes.

Happy As, published by HarperCollins, will be out later this year on August 3 and is available for pre-order at Booktopia.

Originally published as The Morning Show’s Larry Emdur releases memoir, Happy As