Bert Newton brings stars back together but family steals the show

The line between ceremony and performance at Bert Newton’s state funeral was occasionally hard to discern.

The eulogies drew applause – not the usual form at a Catholic service – tentatively at first, as Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews paid tribute, a little more confidently following Eddie McGuire’s encomium, and stopping just short of rapturous foot-stomping after the video tribute and photo montage played to the soundtrack of Frank Sinatra’s My Way. Had he been able to take a final bow, Newton would surely have been granted a standing ovation.

There were among the mourners at St Patrick’s Cathedral plenty of not-so-ancient performers: Eddie McGuire, John Foreman, Andy Lee, Chrissie Swan, the D-Gen crew of Rob Sitch, Jane Kennedy, Mick Molloy and Glenn Robbins. But there were many, many more of Newton’s vintage – the likes of Molly Meldrum, John-Michael Howson, Pete Smith, Philip Brady. It’s hard to imagine there will be many more occasions when they come together like this except, perhaps, on other occasions like this.

For an old-school entertainer like Newton, bringing people together – around the radio, in front of the TV, in a theatre and, finally, for a state-sponsored send-off – was what it was all about. He was, as the Premier said, “a great entertainer, and life itself was his stage. He was always there, omnipresent, on our screens and in our homes.”

He’d have loved the fact this event was broadcast on five different TV channels – the three commercial networks he called home through his seven decades on screen, plus the ABC and Sky News.

But it was his son Matthew Newton who pulled off the real showstopper on the cold and drizzly day. And the fact he wasn’t even there made it all the more remarkable.

A long letter written by the 44-year-old New York-based actor-writer-director was read out by his parents’ long-time friend Pete Smith, the former voice of the Nine Network (Nine is the owner of this masthead). Matthew had penned it, Smith said, following a 45-minute phone conversation between the pair a day earlier.

Matthew’s letter painted a picture at odds with rumours that have swirled of a rift with his parents, stemming from an interview they did with A Current Affair in 2010, in which they discussed his mental health and legal issues.

Instead, it suggested an unbroken bond underpinned by shared enthusiasms and mutual love, even if it was not often expressed in such terms.

Beginning with an apology for not being there in person “due to the pandemic”, Matthew spoke about a love of old black and white movies that his father instilled in him as a child. “They were our buddies,” he said of stars such as Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, “and Dad and I began a back and forth conversation about them that would continue without a break for the next 34 years.”

Tales of old Hollywood were their currency, telling and retelling them “how he and I, two Catholic Australian men of different generations, expressed our love and affection for one another without having to actually say it all the time”.

His letter spoke of conversations over Zoom and FaceTime during the past 10 years, describing them as “tools that allowed me to connect and in a way reconnect with my whole family, but especially with Dad”.

He wrote that while his father was known and loved publicly for his ability to make people laugh, “those close to him experienced how he’d show up in the tough times too, no one more than me”.

Matthew Newton in Sydney in 2009.Credit: Janie Barrett

And he revealed that towards the end, the father and son relationship took an even deeper turn.

“One final conversation a few days before we lost him was different from the usual, and we both knew it,” Matthew wrote. “The change was never directly stated but we eschewed the stories and the laughs and just said how much we loved each other.”

It was the public Newton that the high and mighty had come to celebrate, that the cameras were beaming into the homes of the nation, just as they had done so many times before.

But it was here, in this rare glimpse into the private Bert and his relationship with his son, that the man emerged from the legend.

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