Johnny Young, producer and host of the long-running Young Talent Time has died age 79.
A statement issued by his family stated that he had died from pancreatic cancer.
Born Johnny Benjamin De Jong in the Netherlands, he was a child when he came with his family to Western Australia. As a teenager he was already performing in bands and had landed a job hosting Club Seventeen on TVW7, Perth.
In the mid-1960s he came to Melbourne and took over as host of the national pop music show Go!! and was a disc jockey at radio station 3XY. He continued to hit the charts with songs including Cara-Lyn and Step Back and wrote hits that went on to become ‘60s anthems, including Smiley and The Real Thing.
In 1967 he won the TV Week Logie for Best Teenage Personality.
He went on to appear on other pop music shows like Happening and co-hosted the TV Week King Of Pop Awards. In 1971, he co-created Young Talent Time with record industry executive Kevin Lewis. The concept of a variety show with a junior cast was not entirely original, bearing similarities to the former Brian And The Juniors. “When (Young Talent Time) first started, people thought it would be like Brian And The Juniors,” he told TV Week in July 1971. “But Brian And The Juniors had that Shirley Temple look about it. All the little girls were so sweet and coy. Young Talent Time isn’t like that at all.”
From the time it began in April 1971, YTT immediately struck a chord with viewers and over the years it made stars out of young performers. Among its most famous alumni are Jamie Redfern, Tina Arena, Karen Knowles, Dannii Minogue, Sally Boyden and Debra Byrne.
By 1972, the show won a TV Week Logie Award for Best Australian Musical/Variety Show. It went on to win the same category for three consecutive years, from 1974 to 1976, and a special award for sustained excellence in 1982. The show also became a goldmine through record sales and merchandising.
YTT continued through the 1980s, embracing bigger production numbers and the glamour of ’80s TV variety. Plans to franchise the format to the US culminated in a short-run series The New Generation, featuring some of the YTT cast and broadcast on American cable television.
YTT made its final appearance in December 1988, and Young was inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards Hall of Fame in 1990.
Later TV credits included appearances on Australian Story, Spicks And Specks, Where Are They Now, Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation, Bert’s Family Feud, The Project, various YTT reunion specials and interviews and in the documentary Molly: The Real Thing.
He also returned to radio, including the breakfast shift at Magic 693 in 1994, followed by stints at 6IX in Perth and 2CH in Sydney.
In 2010 he was inducted into the ARIA Awards Hall of Fame.
Johnny Young is survived by wife Marisha, sister Cornelia, daughters Anna and Fleur, seven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. His son Craig also died of pancreatic cancer in 2014 at age 48.
