Obituary: Sonia Humphrey

soniahumphrey Former journalist and television presenter Sonia Humphrey has died at the age of 63.

A former dancer with the Australian Ballet Company, Humphrey later decided on a change of direction and completed a production course at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA).  Her fondness for history led to her joining an archaeological dig in Israel before working as a field producer for America’s ABC network, covering the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

Returning to Australia in the mid-1970s, she became a weather presenter and reporter for Eyewitness News at TEN10, Sydney.  This led to her joining ABC in 1978 to front current affairs program This Day Tonight and its successor Nationwide.

Humphrey also presented arts broadcasts for ABC, reported for Towards 2000 and presented consumer affairs program The Investigators.

In 1983, ABC management sought to remove her from the airwaves when she became pregnant, fearing that viewers would object to seeing a pregnant woman on television.  She took the case to the Anti-Discrimination Board and won.

After The Investigators, Humphries went on to host a similar program, Probe, for the Seven Network in the late 1980s.

She then went on to produce documentaries for Film Australia before settling in Tasmania with her second husband, Ian MacDougall, after he retired in 2003.

Sonia Humphrey is survived by Ian, her two sons and her parents George and Beverley.

Source: SMH

Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2011/02/obituary-sonia-humphrey.html

4 comments

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  1. I think it was in The Investigators where she picked up a defective product and said this is rubbish and threw it away. Sad news.

    • Anonymous on 15 April 2011 at 11:04 PM
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    She had a great body too. What a loss.

    • Jane Smith on 10 June 2017 at 8:23 PM
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    Only just found this out re Sonia – we did ballet together at the Lorraine Norton Ballet School in the 1950s-60s – a lovely girl. Remember her lovely parents with fondness
    XX Jane Smith (nee Wells)

    • God on 17 May 2022 at 6:45 AM
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    Her surname has been misspelled as Humphries (third-last sentence).

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