TV Week Logie Awards: 50 years ago

Ernie Sigley and Denise Drysdale were the Gold Logie winners at the 17th annual TV Week Logie Awards, held at the Southern Cross Hotel, Melbourne, on Friday 7 March 1975. The awards presentation was hosted by Bert Newton and televised on the Nine Network. Taking place only a week after the official launch of colour television, it was the first Logies to be telecast in colour.

The pair’s Gold Logie wins came only after a year since Nine launched The Ernie Sigley Show, ending Sigley’s 11-year reign of Logie wins for his popularity in South Australia where he hosted Adelaide Tonight. A clearly emotional Sigley was in tears as he accepted his Gold Logie. “You don’t know what this means to me. It is something I have always wanted. I still can’t believe it. I reckon I’m the happiest bloke in the world right now,” he said to the assembled crowd at the Southern Cross ballroom and to millions watching across the country.

For Drysdale, a former child star and teenage singer and go-go dancer, it was her wit and chemistry with Sigley that led to her due recognition. “I don’t look on myself as a star. I just look at the situation and think that, at last, I have permanent work. Suddenly, all those years of hard work seem worthwhile,” she told TV Week. “I’m very happy at the moment. Life looks really good.”

Sigley and Drysdale also won Logies for Most Popular Male and Female Personalities in Victoria, and The Ernie Sigley Show won Most Popular Show In Victoria.

The 0-10 Network‘s Number 96 won Best Australian Drama for the second year running, while Best Actress, won for the past two years by Pat McDonald, was instead won by her castmate Bunney Brooke. Brooke’s win came after her character, Flo Patterson, was dealt the heartbreak of being left at the altar by Dick Riggs (Colin Taylor). “That was only a 50-second scene,” she told TV Week, “but with those 50 seconds I had to get across the heartbreak that Flo was going through and it was done almost wholly without a word of dialogue.”

For the third year running, the cast of Number 96 made the trip from Sydney to Melbourne for the Logies by train, being welcomed by fans at Melbourne’s Spencer Street station and featured in a midday live broadcast on ATV0. The cast then arrived at the Southern Cross Hotel in a cavalcade of limousines. “It’s always so marvellous to come to Melbourne,” 96 star Joe Hasham told TV Week, “we get such a warm reception”.

Number 96‘s Melbourne-based counterpart The Box also recorded a win with George Mallaby winning Best Australian Actor. It was a fitting tribute to Mallaby, who had not long left the top-rating series, having played the part of TV station manager Paul Donovan for about a year and in the series’ movie spin-off.

Young Talent Time won the Logie for Best Musical Variety Show, with former cast member and reigning TV Week Queen Of Pop Debbie Byrne winning Best Australian Teenage Personality for the second year in a row.

The award for Best Commercial was won by Uncle Sam, the colourful stars-and-stripes themed commercial for deodorant. Produced by Hansen Rubensohn-McCann Erickson, it was a last ditch attempt for the agency to meet a commitment to the product manufacturer, Samuel Taylor Pty Ltd. The original concept was not based on any American motif until the agency invoked the nickname of the manufacturer and then recalled the classic American recruitment posters, Uncle Sam Needs You, but flipped the slogan around to be “You Need Uncle Sam”. The idea grew from there to influence the commercial and the design of the product.

YouTube: Australian Television Archive

The George Wallace Memorial Logie For Best New Talent was won by John Waters for his leading role of Sgt McKellar in the ABC period drama Rush. It was not his first role on television, having previously appeared in guest roles on series like Boney, Homicide and Ryan and as a presenter on ABC’s Play School. Following his stint in Rush, Waters went on to a five-week stint in The Box, a role in the feature film End Play and was signed up for ABC’s upcoming mini-series Power Without Glory.

Rush, set in the 1850s gold rush era, also won the Logie for Best New Drama. The 12-part series, set around the fictional goldfields of Crocker’s Gully, also starred Brendon Lunney, Olivia Hamnett, Max Meldrum and Peter Flett with guest artists including Gerard Kennedy, Terence Donovan, Andrew McFarlane, Terry Norris, Brian James, Lynette Curran, John Stanton, Lesley Baker and Mike Preston.

Veteran actor John Meillon won the Logie for Best Individual Performance By An Actor for his role in the ABC mini-series The Fourth Wish. The series featured Meillon as the single parent of an 11-year-old (played by Mark Shields-Brown) who is dying of leukaemia. “I think it was the best Australian drama ever show on television,” he told TV Week. “It was brilliantly written, directed and produced and a pleasure to work on.” The series was later re-made in colour as a movie in 1976, with Meillon taking on the same role again.

New Zealand actress Pat Evison won the Logie for Best Individual Performance By An Actress for her role in the ABC play Pig In A Poke. Although she was a familiar face in New Zealand with credits on stage and television, she was relatively unknown in Australia until Pig In A Poke, where she played the part of a woman who has been told she is dying of breast cancer.

Actor and writer Fred ‘Cul’ Cullen won his second consecutive Logie for Best Script. His winning script was 12 Bar Blues, a Homicide episode that he wrote to feature his brother, actor Max Cullen.

This Day Tonight reporter Richard Carleton was awarded the inaugural award for Television Reporter Of The Year. The new category was initiated to recognise the increasing importance of news coverage on Australian television. Carleton, TDT‘s Canberra chief reporter since 1970, named the May 1974 double dissolution and the Morosi affair as his biggest stories from the previous year. “But in this job you never really know when something tremendous is going to happen on the political scene,” he told TV Week. Meanwhile, former TDT host Bill Peach, who had recently stepped down from the show after an eight-year run of around 2000 episodes, was given a special award for Outstanding Contribution To Television.

Three of the other four journalism awards went to the Nine Network — with A Current Affair named Best Public Affairs Program, the weekly political news program Federal File (produced by Gerald Stone) awarded for Contribution To TV Journalism, and afternoon news program No Man’s Land awarded for Contribution To Daytime TV.

Journalist David Hill was awarded Best News Coverage for his coverage of Frank Sinatra‘s ill-fated visit to Melbourne. Sinatra had been hostile to local media on his arrival, naming journalists as “parasites” during his opening performance in Melbourne. The incident led to the Australian Journalists Association calling for a public apology. Sinatra’s refusal to do so led to a wider union backlash. Hill, reporting for HSV7 in Melbourne, was at the Southern Cross Hotel as the drama was unfolding. “We were… trying to get a story when a few punches were thrown around the place,” he told TV Week. “It’s all part of the life of a journo. People often abuse you. A good journalist takes a pretty hard line when he is trying to do his job and that is what I was doing, trying to do my job.” Hill went on to ABC’s Sportsnight then led Nine’s innovative World Series Cricket coverage and became executive producer at Nine’s Wide World Of Sports. He then went overseas to lead Sky Television, Fox Sports and Eurosports and eventually became chairman of Fox Television Network in the United States.

Hill’s boss at HSV7, Ron Casey, accepted the Best Documentary award for Casley’s Kingdom. The program, presented by journalist David Johnston, told of Prince Leonard Casley, the self-styled monarch of Western Australia’s Hutt River Province. Johnston spent three days filming in the fiefdom and was knighted by the Prince himself. The ABC documentary Billy And Percy, the story of Billy Hughes’ turbulent years as Prime Minister as written in the diaries of his private secretary Percy Deane, won the award for Best Dramatised Documentary.

Paul Hogan, who won the Logie for Best New Talent two years earlier, was awarded Best TV Comedian. His comedy specials featuring his trademark style of commentary and cheeky characters have been ratings hits. At the time of the award, he and manager John ‘Strop’ Cornell were negotiating to make a show for the BBC and planning to release an album.

The award for Outstanding Creative Achievement was won by Tedd Dunn from Melbourne’s ATV0. After years of playing children’s character Fredd Bear on screen and working in the channel’s wardrobe department, Dunn was finally given a chance to lead the production of Frankie Howerd specials for the channel. “The offer came as a complete surprise,” he told TV Week. “I had been around the station for all those years, when they suddenly ‘discovered’ me.” The success of the comedy specials led to Dunn becoming a full-time producer, working on other projects including The Gown Of The Year and Sounds Of Christmas.

International guests at the awards included Hollywood legend John Wayne, Lee Majors (The Six Million Dollar Man) and wife, actress Farrah Fawcett (pre-Charlie’s Angels fame), Edward Woodward (Callan) and wife Michelle Dotrice (Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em), William Conrad (Cannon) and Australian-born British stars Keith Michell and Diane Cilento. Wayne’s visit to Australia also led him to Australiana Pioneer Village, a historical model town located at Wilberforce, west of Sydney, to film a commercial for shoes where he had to interact with a puppet talking dog!

National Awards:

Gold Logie — Best Australian Male Personality: Ernie Sigley
Gold Logie — Best Australian Female Personality: Denise Drysdale

Best Actor: George Mallaby (The Box)
Best Actress: Bunney Brooke (Number 96)

Best Teenage Personality: Debbie Byrne

Best Drama: Number 96
Best New Drama: Rush
Best Musical Variety Show: Young Talent Time
Best Commercial: Uncle Sam

George Wallace Memorial Logie For Best New Talent: John Waters

Special Award — Best Individual Performance By An Actor: John Meillon (The Fourth Wish)
Special Award — Best Individual Performance By An Actress: Pat Evison (Pig In A Poke)
Special Award — Outstanding Contribution To Television: Bill Peach (This Day Tonight)
Special Award — Best Script: Fred ‘Cul’ Cullen (Homicide)
Special Award — Outstanding Creative Effort: Tedd Dunn (ATV0, Melbourne)
Special Award — Best Comedian: Paul Hogan
Special Award — Best News Coverage: David Hill (HSV7, Melbourne)
Special Award — Best Single Documentary: Casley’s Kingdom
Special Award — Best Dramatised Documentary: Billy And Percy
Special Award — Best Public Affairs Program: A Current Affair
Special Award — Contribution To TV Journalism: Federal File
Special Award — Contribution To Daytime TV: No Man’s Land
Special Award — TV Reporter Of The Year: Richard Carleton (This Day Tonight)

State-based awards (Best Male Personality, Best Female Personality, Best Show):

NSW: Mike Walsh, Barbara Rogers, The Mike Walsh Show
VIC: Ernie Sigley, Denise Drysdale, The Ernie Sigley Show
QLD: Paul Sharratt, Rhonda Sharratt, Studio 9
SA: Bob Francis, Anne Wills, Penthouse Club
WA: Jeff Newman, Sandy Palmer, Stars Of The Future
TAS: Tom Payne, Margaret Anne Ford, This Week

Source: TV Week, 15 March 1975, 22 March 1975. Sydney Morning Herald.

The 65th annual TV Week Logie Awards, Sunday 3 August, 7.30pm (Red Carpet 7.00pm), Seven and 7Plus.