Graham Kennedy and Others Revealed

Graham Kennedy and Others Revealed

Henry Gay

Copyright © 2013 by Henry Gay.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2013922249

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4931-3150-1

                  Softcover      978-1-4931-3149-5

                  Ebook            978-1-4931-3148-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 12/05/2013

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Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Remember Graham?

More Family Matters

On The Land

Horse Speak

GK Health and Future

When he turned 60 Channel 9 paid him a tribute.

Conclusion

(Well almost) In his letters.

Amid the coarse language there’s lots of gossip and

memories from Henry Gay

Foreword

Henry Gay is a hoarder (just ask his wife, Maureen). He is also a seriously likeable, trustworthy and loyal friend, and the combination of these characteristics results in the book you now have in your hands.

Henry never threw away the many, many letters written to him by Graham Kennedy, who clearly regarded Henry as likeable, trustworthy and loyal. Otherwise, he would never have confided so many private thoughts to him.

The book explains how Henry and Graham met as teenagers working at Melbourne’s radio 3UZ and maintained their friendship until Graham’s life came to a close in May 2005, aged 71.

I, too, knew Graham Kennedy (and Henry Gay) through my work as an entertainment journalist from 1957 onwards, and I can attest that Henry occupied a privileged position in Graham’s circle, which was small and select. The King protected his privacy and few people were privy to his unlisted phone number. Even fewer got regular letters from him the way Henry did.

Graham fancied himself as a writer, and his fastidious attention to style, punctuation and spelling is evident in the correspondence reproduced here. He worked for me in the 1980s when he volunteered to preside over the letters page in The Video Age, a magazine I edited. He industriously did absolutely every bit of research and preparation for the monthly page and, of all the mag’s correspondents, Graham Kennedy’s copy was the most punctual, the cleanest and needed least correcting (well, his was about line ball with David Stratton’s).

The thing is, Graham was never careless or untidy. Even when dashing off an impromptu letter to his longstanding mate in Hervey Bay, he always ensured that what he wrote would make entertaining reading. Which makes this book much more than a mere tribute by a friend.

It is a unique insight into a talented performer rightly accorded the sobriquet The King of Australian television.

JIM MURPHY

Ivanhoe, Victoria

2013

Chapter 1

Dear Oldest Living Friend,

I realise the ambiguity of the above—I meant, that of all the people I know and consider friends, I’ve known you the longest. John Wesley, my school chum and very best friend, died (years ago) at age 38 and I’ve never quite recovered from it. He was a very special person. His widow and I still keep in touch and she stays with me when she visits Sydney. I keep in touch with Kathy Whitta too but I know you longer, of course. So, like it or not, you are my oldest living friend. Two of my late mother’s sisters are still alive and one of dad’s brothers but they are relatives, not friends.

RELATIVELY SPEAKING… .

So began one of the many letters Graham Kennedy sent me in the last 30 years of our 50 years’ friendship which began in the Melbourne Radio Station, 3UZ record library in 1950. I was under the impression Publishers would vie with each other to publish his letters but how wrong I was. I adapted excerpts of the letters into a play but was told by entrepreneurs it would only be successful if famous actors played the roles but not knowing Geoffrey Rush or Russell Crowe, and wondered who would lose the toss and play me, so the play was shelved; one entrepreneur suggested he’d arrange it to be performed if I actually died during the first act. Obviously didn’t believe in live theatre.

However, the play was finally produced at the Hervey Bay ZPAC theatre, directed by the President, Roger Jennings, and George McLean organized the technical side. I was pleased that at each performance Mark and I were outnumbered by the audience, Mark played the Graham Kennedy role and I stumbled through it playing myself which, I suppose, being a stage show, it’s better than playing with myself.

I can understand why publishers rejected publishing the letters Graham Kennedy sent to Hervey Bay where I and my family moved to in 1978. The publishers all demanded the same thing with the letters, though they didn’t express it as such, except one, whom I could hear salivating on the phone as he asked me, if the letters were controversial. In other words, they were only interested in his sex life.

They were, I’m sure, hoping the letters contained steaming homosexual liaisons with famous people, gossips about the people with whom he worked and gossips about other famous people. But they were going to be disappointed as the letters almost made it an autobiography of the real Graham Kennedy. Not the person seen every night on television, nor what his fans would think he was like. Even a television station, which will be nameless, has (or had) an executive who told me that no one would be interested in Graham Kennedy now… I’m wondering if he is still in that position. (Surely we should honour our pioneers)

I have no intention of analysing the success or the character of Graham Kennedy. The letters will do it much better. Hopefully the letters, and even my remininces will give you another insight of this unique person. If I may offer one personal thought and though he was more admired for his talents than the person himself, I, for one, liked him better as a person than his TV performances, the reason being, because I knew him as a person before he became The King.

The people working with Graham were all aware of his sexuality, but they were all professionals, so the private life of their colleague wasn’t their concern; there may have been the odd moments but really, they couldn’t have cared less because Graham’s performances on TV provided them with a living and the Television Stations a steady profit, . . .

One of the highlights of In Melbourne Tonight was the Raul Merton segment in which Bert Newton and Graham would spend ten minutes in a routine that the viewers always thought was off the cuff but it was a well rehearsed spot. It was also an opportunity for Graham to remind viewers of Bert’s religion (Catholic) and suggesting he drank a lot; Graham occasionally played camp roles but, according to Bert who told Maureen, my wife, that if the camp bit went too long, Graham would often say, That’s it, my mother may be watching.

Yet, as you will discover, this was a strange remark when you read one of his letters about his mother. Divorce was a Taboo subject with him.

As you read some of his letters you will begin to see another person emerge which will surprise you by his humour and often by his attitude towards his parents. For instance:

Dear Henry 19/2/90

Thanks for the news, etc. I enjoy your random thoughts concerning your family and happy that your son is coming round to you—my father didn’t want to know me until I was making a mark in the biz. (People are horrified when I say that I didn’t care at all that much for my parents—but I didn’t, I’m afraid,

Children should know that they don’t have their parents forever and it should be pointed out to them how much they may regret not showing them love when they WERE around.

I was going to make this a long letter but a couple of bits from yesterday’s Sun-Herald tells you all the news. You’ll notice the insert from another page—Harry paid his judgment leaving me only $28,000 out of pocket.

I hope your health improves, Love Graham.—56! Shit!

Before I remark about the above I must apologise for not having the letters in chronological order for several reasons. Firstly, originally they were in order, placed in plastic sheets by our son and daughter—in-law but have you ever tried to hold over a 100 plastic sheets without them slipping out of your hand? Well I did but I wasn’t game to ask Michael and Louise to sort them again.

The second reason is for the letters not being in chronological order in this book is that I’m a person not in chronological order for the simple reason that, at the age of 80, there is no way I can remember or have the time to sort the letters, and I’m pretending I’m not hearing an inner voice saying Who cares? Just one more thing for you to remember. This is a sort of Memoir and if there is something, reminding me of an incident, a person or a piece of gossip I will have no hesitation in writing about it. Some wise person once wrote, ‘when a person dies, a library dies.’ Or words to that effect. I intend to keep some stories alive.

Of course, in the above letter, when Graham makes comment about his parents you may be shocked yet there’s more to come, and many of his letters refer to his health and age.

The $28,000 he mentions caused him much pain though, at the time, I was unaware of it until I had lunch with him one Sunday afternoon when I was down in Sydney to meet Maureen and a friend, Laurel Hosking, returning from a Mary Kay Seminar in Melbourne. Graham cooked spaghetti with a very tasty homemade sauce, based on a recipe given to him by an aunt,who had married an Italian who, by the way, had influenced his taste in music, particularly opera…

It was during this lunch in his Hunter’s Hill flat, sharing a bottle of red, that I paid him a compliment on his loyalty to Harry M Miller during his imprisonment. Almost spilling his drink Graham immediately changed the friendly mood to one of anger telling me that he was taking Harry to court…

I was tempted to remind him that Harry had been his manager for a long period, and it was through Harry he was living the life of Riley, but I didn’t think, at the time, Graham would have acknowledged that fact. Then the mood changed, we just chatted about other things and I never mentioned the subject again. However, it still rankled with Graham, hence these letters.

Re the other business

It was distressing for me to watch HMM destroy himself in the witness box. From my point of view it was never about money—he brought the action against me for the lucre that he thought I owed him—he came a cropper! The judge’s criticisms of him were scathing. But now I have to forget all about it. I have only 5 shows to complete for the network before the break.

Graham intimated that he may not return to work. But everyone in Show Business says that.

Chapter 2

Loved your letter and all the enclosures. I’d forgotten Dick Magree—and Bill Holmes too, for that matter. Re Murray’s funeral comment: do you think that underneath the youthful arrogance there is, deep down, an absolute c—t?

As we drove past a cemetery Murray suggested we stop and collect some bones for the dog. Murray is our second son.

I’m just back from a drive to Phillip Island. Bob Craig has the most amazing restaurant there. (didn’t realise that Tarwin Lower was on the way—called in to see Joff but he wasn’t there).

I came back