Veteran radio and television broadcaster Philip Brady has died at age 85.
His death from pancreatic cancer comes only a week after he formally announced his retirement, having presented his last on-air shift on Melbourne radio station 3AW on 12 January.
Born in Melbourne in 1939, he was educated at Xavier College.
Starting at GTV9 in Melbourne in April 1958 on a two-week trial, he continued at the station for thirteen years as a news reader, an announcer, a regular on In Melbourne Tonight, as ‘Prince Philip’ in The Tarax Show, as host of game shows Concentration and Everybody’s Talking, and presenter on sister radio station 3AK.
He later recalled that he once got ‘banned’ from In Melbourne Tonight for mucking up a comedy sketch. “I got in front of the cameras and had a mental blackout,” he said. “All I could remember was the second last line of the sketch so I said it. You should have seen the look on Graham’s (Kennedy) face. He was horrified. He had no choice but to give the following line and end the sketch five minutes early. In one foul swoop I’d shot five pages of dialogue.” The gaffe saw him sidelined from the show for a week. “Graham didn’t talk to me for ages,” he said.
During his time at GTV he also co-produced his own “radio” program, Broody’s Hide-Out with Pete Smith, that was recorded onto tape and copies circulated amongst friends and colleagues in Australia and overseas.
After the demise of In Melbourne Tonight, he took a break from television and travelled overseas. “I had a gutful of the whole business”, he said at the time, but an invitation from producer Reg Grundy saw Brady returned to television as host of game shows Get The Message and The Money Makers for the 0-10 Network. The Money Makers was Australia’s first five-nights-a-week game show when it debuted in September 1971, offering a top prize of $25,000.
He also hosted Junior Money Makers and Password, again for 0-10. After a brief return to Nine for The Graham Kennedy Show and The Ernie Sigley Show in 1975, he returned to 0-10 in 1976 to host Casino 10.
A return to radio followed with a stint at 3AK, the station by then famous for ‘beautiful music’, and then as producer for Bert Newton’s morning show on 3UZ. His next move was to the Gold Coast, with a daytime program on local radio station Easy Listening 97, while at the same time writing a weekly column for Melbourne-based showbiz paper TV Scene.
In 1990, he returned to Melbourne radio to co-host the Sunday night nostalgia program Remember When with Bruce Mansfield at 3AW. The pair later took over hosting 3AW’s Nightline on weeknights and hosted a series of nostalgia specials, The Way We Were, for the Nine Network.
YouTube: Aaron’s Archive
Brady continued to make guest appearances on TV in the ’90s with regular spots on Good Morning Australia and guest appearances on ABC‘s Saturday night The Late Show and Seven‘s Tonight Live With Steve Vizard.
In more recent years, Brady appeared on the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal and in 2018 was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for services to the broadcast industry.
Source: 3AW, 3AW. TV Week, 30 October 1971. Scene, 1 April 1978.
2 thoughts on “Obituary: Philip Brady”
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Philip
Where does one begin but to say thank you for being there for the sick lonely and grief stricken audience, so much loved and will greatly be missed.
May you be in Gods care and with those you love !
You are much loved and will always be treasured.
Sad to see Philip go. I knew him as a warm man and great supporter of Kew Cottages. His father Wilfred, who was a psychiatrist and a composer, worked at Kew Cottages. It was a big institution for intellectually disabled people in Kew, the suburb where Philip lived and grew up. Perhaps Philip and his family lived on-site, in a government house, at Kew Cottages, as I did – I can’t remember any more.