65 Facts About Graham Kennedy

Graham Cyril Kennedy AO was an Australian entertainer, comedian and variety performer, as well as a personality and star of radio, theatre, television and film.

Graham Kennedy often performed in the style of vaudevillian and radio comedy star Roy Rene and was often called "Gra Gra".

Graham Kennedy is the most awarded star of Australian television.

Graham Kennedy was often referred to as "The King" or the "King of Australian television".

Graham Kennedy was known for his television collaboration with Bert Newton on In Melbourne Tonight and The Graham Kennedy Show.

Graham Kennedy's father worked variously as an engineer and handyman, mowed lawns and washed cars.

Graham Kennedy's first home was a "small, crowded duplex" at 32 Nelson Street, Balaclava.

When Graham Kennedy was two years old, his parents moved to Carlisle Street, St Kilda, for two years.

Graham Kennedy's parents divorced shortly before World War II and Kennedy was largely raised by his grandparents, "Pop" Kennedy and "Grandma Scott", to whom he remained particularly close until her death.

Graham Kennedy never resented him, claiming he equated it with affection.

Graham Kennedy was educated firstly at Euston College on the corner of Chapel and Carlisle streets, secondly at Caulfield North Central School and finally at Melbourne High School, South Yarra.

In 1977, Graham Kennedy chaired a project to raise funds for improvements at Melbourne High which raised more than $100,000 in its first year.

Graham Kennedy accepted a job as a news runner from Collins Street to the ABC studios in Lonsdale Street.

Graham Kennedy's name was Clifford Whitta, and he was to become the most important man in my life.

Graham Kennedy would spend weeks not talking to me for something I had unknowingly said or done.

The program became extremely popular, although Graham Kennedy had his detractors.

Special Friday night editions of IMT were produced under the title of The Graham Kennedy Show and recorded on videotape which had just come into use.

The Graham Kennedy Show began in February 1960 but was not popular in Sydney.

The program was judged stilted compared to IMT itself; Graham Kennedy seemed much more subdued than usual, was tense, and the comedy was not working.

Later in 1960 Graham Kennedy faced opposition when Sir Frank Packer bought GTV-9.

Packer had a phobia about homosexuals and he believed Graham Kennedy to be one.

Graham Kennedy insisted he could pick one a mile off.

Graham Kennedy took occasional nights off to be replaced by Fred Parslow, Jimmy Hannan, and Philip Brady.

Graham Kennedy had a strong understanding of key technical elements of television and perfected his comic timing, and watched the lenses on the TV cameras, adjusting his performance depending on whether he was in a wide shot or a close up.

Graham Kennedy had often disliked having writers on the program, was reluctant for them to be publicly acknowledged, and often ignored all their material, preferring to rely on Tivoli shtick and sketches remembered by veterans like Joff Ellen.

Graham Kennedy had apparently relaxed his attitude towards writers by this stage and seemed happy to use their material with few complaints.

Graham Kennedy rang me in a terrible state and asked me to go down to his house in Frankston.

Graham Kennedy was the first of our mega stars; there seem to be mega stars everywhere now.

On 7 July 1965 Graham Kennedy appeared on a then-innovative live split-screen link with Don Lane, the host of Sydney Tonight, via the recently completed co-axial cable linking Melbourne and Sydney.

In 1974, when Graham Kennedy claimed he wanted a rest, Nine allegedly paid him not to sign with another network.

The Graham Kennedy Show resumed in March 1975, and was Kennedy's first series in colour.

Graham Kennedy replied that he could not show cause, suggesting that the Board take action to limit his appearances, while hinting at legal action should they do so.

Rather than removing him, the ABCB banned Graham Kennedy from appearing live, forcing him to pre-record the show on videotape.

Graham Kennedy appeared as Clive Parker in an episode of the 26-part ABC drama Power Without Glory, which began on 21 June 1976.

Graham Kennedy returned to television in 1977 for what is Network Ten to host a comedy game show, Blankety Blanks.

In 1982 Graham Kennedy provided the voice-over narration for a ten-episode ABC historical documentary The Blainey View.

Graham Kennedy's contract stipulated that his co-presenter would be sports commentator Ken Sutcliffe.

Graham Kennedy reprised the "Chum Song" from Melbourne radio days, saying that it originated in a 1920s children's newspaper column in Scotland.

The recording Graham Kennedy used to close the program was provided by Melbourne music Historian Alex Hehr.

Sutcliffe would "corpse", with tears in his eyes, unable to continue; this became so frequent that Graham Kennedy managed to coin a catchphrase, "I love it when he cries".

Graham Kennedy's News Show was a rarity in that it was a live news show that had a studio audience.

Five nights a week for most of the year, audiences lined up at 10:30 at night just to see Graham Kennedy do his magic in the flesh.

Graham Kennedy always made a point of telling them a particularly crude joke that was timed so they got the punchline just a second before the show was back on air.

Graham Kennedy presented the introduction segment to the Nine Network special 35 Years of Television in 1991.

Graham Kennedy later explained the experience in a piece for TV Week in an article called 'In his own words'.

Graham Kennedy coined the name Logie Award in 1960, after the inventor of television, John Logie Baird.

In 1973, Melbourne newspapers reported that Graham Kennedy was engaged to 28-year-old Australian singer Lana Cantrell, who became a successful New York lawyer.

Many years later, Graham Kennedy wrote to a newspaper that a photographer, taking pictures of him and Cantrell leaving a restaurant together, asked if he could "hint at a romance".

Graham Kennedy always told me right early on that he would never get married.

Graham Kennedy told me that his life was devastated when his parents split up, and he said straight out, "Mrs Fox, I'll never get married", so I never expected anything more of him than what did happen.

Graham Kennedy is portrayed as homosexual in the 2007 biopic The King.

In 1991, Graham Kennedy retired to a rural property at Canyonleigh, near Bowral in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, near his friends Tony Sattler and Noeline Brown, where his main companions were two Clydesdale horses named Dave and Sarah, and Henry, a Golden Retriever.

Graham Kennedy was diabetic, and a heavy smoker and drinker.

On 14 June 2002 Graham Kennedy was found unconscious at the foot of the stairs at his home, suffering a broken leg and skull with suspected brain damage.

The king of Australian TV Graham Kennedy will celebrate his 70th birthday next weekend with a few close friends.

The low-key affair is expected to be at the Kenilworth Nursing Home at Bowral where Graham Kennedy has lived since taking a nasty tumble a few years ago.

Graham Kennedy can't walk any more and gets around in a wheelchair as a result of the diabetes and the years of heavy smoking.

Graham Kennedy won't appear publicly again; he is in his twilight.

Graham Kennedy has made a personal decision to disappear quietly into the sunset.

On 25 May 2005, aged 71, Graham Kennedy died at the Kenilworth Nursing Home, Bowral, from complications from pneumonia.

Graham Kennedy's wasted and frail, aching body could take no more.

Graham Kennedy was discovered the next morning on the floor by his housekeeper.

Graham Kennedy was rushed to the local hospital where pneumonia in one lung was treated effectively and efficiently, a fracture near his hip was repaired and he was diagnosed with brain damage.

Graham Kennedy deliberately pushed the boundaries of acceptability in a socially conservative era.

Graham Kennedy's was an act predicated upon repression; naughtiness loses its point in a world without taboos, where anything goes.