Fiona MacDonald, former co-host of It’s A Knockout and Wombat, has died age 67.
She announced her death via her sister Kylie on Instagram:
“Farewell my friends. My sister Kylie is posting this because I have left the building – Hopefully I’m looking down from a cloud. Last night brought an end to a very tough few months. Was very peaceful the boys and Kylie stayed with me to say goodbye. While I’ve never wanted to die, the thought of leaving my tortured body was a relief.”
The former TV presenter was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND) in 2021.
Growing up in remote Queensland, MacDonald followed her sister Jacki in starting her career in Brisbane television in the 1970s. Despite the similar start to their careers, the sisters established early on that neither would compete with the other and rarely discussed the other in interviews, maintaining that their careers were independent of each other and both held on their own merits.
Hosting local children’s shows in Brisbane, including Star Ship 9 and Fiona’s Fun Factory, MacDonald gained a national profile when Wombat was shown across the Seven Network. The pact for the sisters to never compete was challenged in 1984 when Jacki was to host The Ossie Ostrich Video Show on Nine, up against Wombat on Seven. “We talked about it and decided it didn’t matter,” MacDonald told TV Star at the time. “Because it was Wombat, not my show, and it was The Ossie Ostrich Video Show, not the Jacki MacDonald show.”
The close competition was short-lived as MacDonald soon left Wombat and moved to Sydney to co-host It’s A Knockout with Billy J Smith and report for Good Morning Australia on Network Ten.
She then joined the Nine Network to co-host The Home Shopping Show with Brian Bury and was a presenter on Burke’s Backyard. She later co-hosted In Brisbane Today and presented children’s show Look Who’s Talking.
She then left television to run her own marketing and public relations consultancy in the wine industry.
Last year she was featured on ABC‘s Australian Story as she embarked on a nationwide road-trip (‘The Big Lap for MND’) with sister Kylie to campaign and raise awareness and funds for MND research.
YouTube: ABC News In-depth
Fiona MacDonald is survived by sisters Kylie and Jacki, and sons Harry and Rafe.
Source: TV Tonight, Peter Ford, The Guardian. TV Star, 28 December 1984. TV Week, 8 November 1986.
