Obituary: Diana Fisher

Diana Fisher, royal commentator and TV panellist, has died at the age of 91.

She had been admitted to hospital in Sydney earlier in the week following a two-year battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Born in the UK as Diana Davis, her first job was at the BBC, where she stayed for eight years and met her future husband, Humphrey Fisher. They married in 1959 and came to Australia in 1964 when he was posted as BBC’s Australian representative. They stayed for three years then returned to Australia to live in 1969. Although they later separated they continued to stay friends.

A staunch royalist, she was a frequent media commentator on the royal family, covering the various births and marriages for a myriad of media outlets, including the Seven Network‘s coverage of the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana in 1981.

Affectionately nicknamed “Bubbles” for her love of champagne and bubbly personality, she was a regular on various daytime TV shows, including Maggie, The Mike Walsh Show, Midday, Good Morning Sydney and both 1960s and 1980s versions of Beauty And The Beast.

But her most prominent TV role was as “consumer-housewife” panellist on ABC‘s The Inventors, that ran from 1970 to 1982.

With her fellow panellists, Fisher would scrutinise the innovations being displayed and challenge the designers with questions like “is it safe?” and “does it come in other colours?”, which became her popular catchphrases.

When a TV Times reader commented that “Diana Fisher’s remarks and suggestions are absolutely inane; her questions even worse,” Fisher responded: “Before people criticise they should have a go themselves. I think I represent a large cross-section of people who view the program.”

As well as her television commitments, she ran her own public relations consultancy and was a regular columnist for The Australian Women’s Weekly and Woman’s Day.

She made a rare acting appearance, as a talent show judge, in the Network Ten drama Heartbreak High in 1994.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, TV Times, 30 September 1970, 23 December 1970, 12 August 1978. TV Week, 30 July 1994. The Australian Women’s Weekly, 22 March 1978. Woman’s Day, 16 February 1982, 16 March 1982.