Norman Gunston (Garry McDonald) and Denise Drysdale were Gold Logie winners at the 18th annual TV Week Logie Awards, held at the Southern Cross Hotel, Melbourne, on Friday 12 March 1976. The awards presentation was hosted by Bert Newton and televised on the Nine Network.
Gunston, the gormless parody of tonight show hosts who stumped international interviewees thinking he was somehow a legitimate TV presenter, campaigned relentlessly for votes and viewers gladly voted for the character rather than the actor that played him. The character, a self-confessed multi-media superstar from Wollongong, was first unleased on The Aunty Jack Show and Wollongong The Brave before he was to be granted his own show, The Norman Gunston Show, on ABC.
As soon as his Gold Logie was announced, Gunston emerged amongst the assembled crowd in a smoke-filled ballroom at the Southern Cross before his acceptance speech — acknowledging the many people behind the scenes that he has to prop up as well and thanking his landlady for not putting up his rent — before dangling the Gold statuette from a noose.
YouTube: OzKitsch
Norman Gunston also took out the George Wallace Memorial Logie For Best New Talent — again voted in character by the public.
For Drysdale, from The Ernie Sigley Show, it was her second Gold Logie. The win capped off a year where she was given more opportunities to expand her presence in the show to include sketches and singing performances, and to feature in her own special, The Denise Drysdale Show, which was well received.
As well as the Gold Logie, Drysdale won the award for Best Female Personality In Victoria for the second year running.
It was another winning year for the 0-10 Network‘s Number 96, winning Best Australian Drama for the third year in a row and Pat McDonald winning Best Australian Actress for the second time in three years. The wins came after a challenging year for the series which had suffered declining ratings and an attempt to restore its ratings position by staging a bomb blast on the fictional apartment building which led to several long term characters being written out.
For Number 96‘s Melbourne-based counterpart, The Box, there was a win for Paul Karo as Best Australian Actor. The win came just after Karo’s departure from the series, with hopes to expand his repertoire in feature films.
Young Talent Time again won the Logie for Best Musical Variety Show and pop star John Paul Young won Best Teenage Personality. Young had hit the charts with the singles Yesterday’s Hero and The Love Game and his debut album, Hero. He had also become a semi-regular performer and guest presenter on ABC’s pop music show Countdown.
YouTube: Stirling Westrup
For the second year in a row, the award for Best Commercial was won by the stars-and-stripes themed Uncle Sam — this time winning for its Gleaming Teeth toothpaste commercial. The commercial, featuring a cast of around 40, took three months to make with filming taking place around Sydney.
As well as the popular-voted awards, there were 15 award categories determined by TV Week’s industry judging panel. The Nine Network’s A Current Affair claimed two awards: Best Public Affairs Program and host Michael Schildberger awarded Best TV Interviewer. Nine’s Gerald Stone, a former Vietnam War correspondent, was awarded Best News Report for his coverage of the war in Timor. As director of news, he was unwilling to send a reporter to the war zone without assessing the situation himself. After filing his compilation of reports, he returned to Australia and was replaced on the battle front by Malcolm Rennie. It was to be a fatal posting for Rennie, murdered with four other Australian journalists (Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart, Gary Cunningham and Brian Peters) by the Indonesian military. In accepting his award, Stone paid tribute to the journalists that became known as the Balibo Five.
The Nine Network documentary Of Course I Love Jim Cairns was judged Best News Documentary. Produced by John Sorell and featuring interviews by Peter Harvey, the documentary covered the controversial relationship between politician Dr Jim Cairns and his private secretary Junie Morosi. “There was immense interest in Dr Cairns and Miss Morosi at the time,” Sorell told TV Week at the time. “We wanted to give them the chance to answer any allegations, to tell just what happened, just what was going on, what the relationship was and what they meant to each other.”
Producer Hector Crawford was awarded For Faith And Continuing Investment In Australian Drama. Crawford Productions had made a successful pivot from radio to television production when television began in 1956. Its first television program was Wedding Day, broadcast in HSV7′s first week of broadcasting in November 1956. The company’s first drama series, Consider Your Verdict, set the precedent for Crawford’s drama production. It was soon to be followed by Homicide, which triggered a boom in Australian television drama, leading to a string of other productions including Hunter, Division 4, Matlock Police, Ryan, The Box and the comedy The Last Of The Australians. Ironically, Crawford’s Logie accolade came after a year in which his three police dramas — Homicide, Division 4 and Matlock Police — were all cancelled within quick succession, triggering suspicions of conspiracy between the competing networks. However, Crawford was undeterred and at the time of his Logie win he had new projects planned to fill the gap — including an unconventional cop drama, Bluey; Matlock Police spin-off Solo One; a war-time series, The Sullivans;Â and comedy The Bluestone Boys.
Meanwhile, Crawford’s Division 4 won the award for Best Single Episode Of A TV Series for episode Little Raver, which featured Sigrid Thornton in one of her earliest screen roles. She played the part of Wendy Sherlock, a teenage girl with homicidal tendencies who is suspected of slashing a man with a razor blade and who resorts to implicating her parents in order to protect herself.
The award for Best New Drama was the Seven Network’s bushranger drama Cash And Company, starring Gus Mercurio, Serge Lazareff and Penne Hackforth-Jones. The success of the series, which had also sold overseas, had led to a sequel, Tandarra, airing in 1976.
The award for Best Juvenile Performance was won by Jacqui Gordon, the teenage actress who played an intellectually disabled child in the ABC production Sally Go Round The Moon. The drama also starred Kit Taylor, Olivia Hamnett, Paul Mason and Barbara Meale and was part of Quality Of Mercy, an anthology of plays written by female writers.
The ABC telemovie Essington won two special Logies. British-born actor Chris Haywood for Best Individual Performance By An Actor for his portrayal of an escaped convict in Darwin in the 1840s, and the telemovie’s writer, author Thomas Keneally was awarded for Best Script. Essington also starred Cornelia Frances, John Hargreaves, Melissa Jaffer, Jacqueline Kott, Michael Craig, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Justine Saunders and Drew Forsythe.
The award for Best Individual Performance By An Actress went to Maggie Millar for her portrayal of a child-basher in the Homicide episode The Life And Times Of Tina Kennedy, co-starring with Tommy Dysart. “At first I refused the role of Betty, Tina’s mother. It was a difficult part and she was a terrible person,” Millar told TV Week. “But I re-read the script and put myself through what I imagined she had been through. I even found some good points in her make-up. It was the most challenging role I’ve ever done on television, but I really enjoyed it.”
Eyewitness News journalist Phil de Montignie, from Melbourne’s ATV0 was awarded Best Single Documentary for You Just Don’t Realise, a graphic depiction of the devastating toll of road accidents. The documentary, which took three months to make by de Montignie with cameraman Terry Carline and film editor Paul Saunders, screened in prime time in the weeks before Christmas, 1975, and public reaction was so great that ATV0 repeated it again shortly after. It was also sold for screening nationally across the 0-10 Network.
ABC’s Countdown was awarded for Contribution To Teenage Television. The program, which began with a pilot series of eight episodes in 1974, became firmly established in 1975 as a favourite with viewers when it took up its regular Sunday night timeslot as television switched to colour. “We wanted to introduce something new and at the same time reflect the various musical tastes of today’s young people,” producer Rob Weekes told TV Week. Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum, the show’s talent co-ordinator, said in his TV Week column: “Perhaps the most amazing thing about the show is that ratings have proved that it doesn’t only attract teenage viewers. Through Countdown, the generation gap has been narrowed, and I would go as far as to say that there are probably more switched-on parents than ever before.”
ABC’s A Big Country, which began in 1968, won its first Logie as Best Documentary Series. The program, which travels across Australia to cover stories of rural Australia, was consistently one of ABC’s most popular programs and had also been sold overseas to countries including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, New Zealand, Norway, Hong Kong, United Kingdom and the USSR.
TV Week Logie Awards‘ industry panel also inaugurated a new category — Outstanding Contribution By Regional Television — awarding Newcastle station NBN3 for The World Of Jesus Christ Superstar. The 90-minute special featured highlights from the stage production’s performance in Newcastle and interviews with cast members including Jon English. “Superstar is such a dynamic show that the continual movement of the characters around the stage was a real worry,” co-director Reg Davis told TV Week. “We had to be prepared for each move and remember which way performers would go because the camera positions were very cramped.”
International guests at the awards included Hollywood actor Lee Marvin, Happy Days star Henry Winkler, Martin Milner (Adam 12), British actress Susannah York (in Australia to star in the film Eliza Fraser) and Gordon Jackson (Upstairs Downstairs). Actor Jack Palance was booked for the awards but had to cancel due to delays in production of his new series, Bronk. “I kept believing until the last minute that I would be able to make it to Australia, but two days before I was to leave it became obvious that I would not be able to go,” he told TV Week. “There was still a lot of filming to be done.”
National Awards:
Gold Logie — Best Australian Male Personality: Norman Gunston (Garry McDonald)
Gold Logie — Best Australian Female Personality: Denise Drysdale
Best Actor: Paul Karo (The Box)
Best Actress: Pat McDonald (Number 96)
Best Teenage Personality: John Paul Young
Best Drama: Number 96
Best Musical Variety Show: Young Talent Time
Best Commercial: Uncle Sam
George Wallace Memorial Logie For Best New Talent: Norman Gunston (Garry McDonald)
Special Award — Best Individual Performance By An Actor: Chris Haywood (Essington)
Special Award — Best Individual Performance By An Actress: Maggie Millar (Homicide)
Special Award — Outstanding Performance By A Juvenile: Jacqui Gordon (Sally Go Round The Moon)
Special Award — Best New Drama: Cash And Company
Special Award — Best Script: Thomas Keneally (Essington)
Special Award — Best Single Episode In A Series: Little Raver (Division 4)
Special Award — Best Public Affairs Program: A Current Affair
Special Award — Best TV Interviewer: Michael Schildberger (A Current Affair)
Special Award — Best Documentary Series: A Big Country
Special Award — Best News Documentary: Of Course I Love Jim Cairns
Special Award — Best News Report: Timor Report (Gerald Stone)
Special Award — Best Single Documentary: You Just Don’t Realise
Special Award — For Faith And Continuing Investment In Australian Drama: Hector Crawford
Special Award — Outstanding Contribution To Teenage Television: Countdown
Special Award — Outstanding Contribution By A Regional Station: The World Of Jesus Christ Superstar (NBN3, Newcastle)
State-based awards (Best Male Personality, Best Female Personality, Best Show):
NSW: Mike Walsh, Jeanne Little, The Mike Walsh Show
VIC: Ernie Sigley, Denise Drysdale, The Ernie Sigley Show
QLD: Paul Sharratt, Jacki MacDonald, Studio 9
SA: Sandy Roberts, Winnie Pelz, Sound Unlimited
WA: Jeff Newman, Marie van Maaren, Stars Of The Future
TAS: Tom Payne, Margaret Anne Ford, This Week
Source: TV Week, 20 March 1976, 27 March 1976.
The 66th annual TV Week Logie Awards, Sunday 16 August, 7.00pm, Seven and 7Plus.
