Nancy Cato sounds off at supermarket

nancycatoTo any child of the ’60s and early ’70s the name Nancy Cato (pictured) will invoke memories of classic Australian children’s TV.

An aspiring actress from Swan Hill, Cato came to fame as the host of children’s program GMV Juniors from GMV6, Shepparton, in the early ’60s.

She became a national TV identity in 1964 as the host of The Children’s Show and its successor The Magic Circle Club, a popular and lavish children’s series produced at ATV0, Melbourne, for three years.

Her career came to a halt at the end of 1966 after an accident on the set of The Magic Circle Club left her confined to a wheelchair for almost a year.  She made a comeback to TV in September 1967 as host of ABC‘s Adventure Island, a series loosely based on The Magic Circle Club which ATV0 had axed earlier in the year.

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TV Times, 30 November 1966

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TV Times, 30 August 1967

In an article published in The Age newspaper Cato, now 73, has gone public about a secret she’s held since those early days in television.  She was, and still is, profoundly deaf and for all those years nobody was the wiser.  She communicates with the help of lip-reading.

Her condition caught the newspaper’s attention after she used social media to report an incident where she was asked to leave a supermarket because she had a guide dog that assists her in alerting her to things that she can’t hear.  The supermarket manager was not convinced that she was deaf and asked her and the dog to leave — but to be sure to pay for the groceries on the way out!  (She left the groceries behind and walked out)

She wrote about the incident on her blog, Nancy Rants.  The blog also includes stories from her early days in television.

The full newspaper article by Lawrence Money is published at The Age.

Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2013/04/nancy-cato-sounds-off-at-supermarket.html

6 comments

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  1. This child of the 60s and 70s remembers Nancy very well and she is a great person to follow in social media.

    1. Hi Andrew, I only discovered Ms Cato’s blog and Twitter as a result of the article in The Age. She’s a fascinating lady.

    • Bob on 16 September 2017 at 8:49 PM
    • Reply

    11 years old and I had such a crush on Nancy Cato. Now 63 🙂

    • My Name on 8 February 2018 at 9:10 AM
    • Reply

    Please note that this is NOT the author of ‘All the Rivers Run’, but her cousin.

    • Shane Carrick on 14 April 2018 at 10:52 AM
    • Reply

    Hi just inquiring if Nancy Cato t.v. personality is still alive & where living.i resided in Cobram in the Sixties and watched GMV Junior’s Club with Joey the Clown, regards Shane Carrick

    1. Nancy Cato is alive and well and on social media

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