58 Facts About Steve Vizard

Steve Vizard is an adjunct professor at Monash University and University of Adelaide.

Steve Vizard has broadcast on the Austereo, Fairfax and Macquarie radio networks and in 2011 was nominated for best Talkback Presenter in Australia; he has written several books ranging on topics ranging from humour to Australia's population policy; and has written works for theatre including The Last Man Standing, the Melbourne Theatre Company's commemorative Gallipoli production in 2015.

Steve Vizard was born in Melbourne, Australia, on 6 March 1956, the son of Godfrey Lancelot Pitt Steve Vizard and June Purtell.

In 1976, while at Melbourne University, Steve Vizard appeared in the Archi Revue and the following year he and fellow university students established, wrote and produced the University's inaugural Le Law Revue.

In 1985 Steve Vizard co-wrote and produced a feature film, The Bit Part, starring Nicole Kidman, for which he was nominated for a Writers' Guild award for Best Feature Film Screenplay.

In 1987, Steve Vizard performed in the first Melbourne International Comedy Festival, launched by Peter Cook, and was one of the hosts of the Comedy Festival Gala in 1991.

In 1989, Steve Vizard established, wrote and produced the primetime sketch comedy series Fast Forward.

Steve Vizard performed impersonations, most notably of Derryn Hinch, Richard Carleton, Don Lane, Ian Turpie, George Donikian, Geoffrey Robertson and even Gough Whitlam in one instance.

Steve Vizard had won three further Logies as Australia's most Popular Television Presenter as well as 4 Television Society Awards, a Variety Club for Best Comedy Artiste and a Rolling Stone magazine award for Best Television Performer.

Steve Vizard hosted many awards nights and concerts including the 1992 Logie Awards, the Bali Bombing Memorial Concert and the 1995 nationally televised 50th Anniversary of the End of World War Two Concert.

In 1998 Steve Vizard performed with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, narrating Saint-Saens' Carnival Of The Animals.

At the 2006 Logie Awards, Steve Vizard appeared with long-time collaborator Michael Veitch in a sketch that reprised one of their most famous roles, that of two camp, bitchy airline stewards.

Steve Vizard has appeared in a regular role in Mick Molloy's Foxtel comedy series, The Jesters.

In July 2011, Steve Vizard appeared in the television movie Beaconsfield, playing the late 60 Minutes reporter Richard Carleton in the drama about the Beaconsfield Mine collapse in Tasmania and the rescue of miners Todd Russell and Brant Webb 14 days later.

In 2013,2014 and 2015 Steve Vizard appeared as a regular "Agony Uncle" in the ABC's primetime series The Agony of Christmas, The Agony of Modern Manners and The Agony.

Steve Vizard was the one of lead actors in the 2014 award-winning Tropfest film Granny Smith and was a contributor to the ABC broadcast history of Australian comedy, Stop Laughing This Is Serious.

In 1989 Steve Vizard established the independent production company Artist Services with his fellow writer and producer, Andrew Knight.

From 1989 to 2002 when Steve Vizard retired as Chairman, Artist Services grew to one of the three largest production companies in Australia.

Together with Knight, Steve Vizard developed and was the executive producer of several feature films, including The Sound of One Hand Clapping and Dead Letter Office.

In 1995, Steve Vizard sold half of the shares in his company Artist Services to John Fairfax Holdings for a reported sum of A$9 million.

Steve Vizard remained as Chairman until 2002 when he resigned to spend more time on other business and creative interests.

Since 2002, Steve Vizard has been involved in advising emerging Australian talent.

Steve Vizard was a consultant to Network Tens comedy show, The Wedge, casting and working with Rebel Wilson, Jason Gann, Adam Zwar.

In 2010, Steve Vizard executive produced a reality series about Dannii Minogue, Dannii Minogue: Style Queen, which was co-produced with ITV and broadcast in the UK on ITV and in Australia on Foxtel.

From 1990 to 2005, in addition to his on and off air roles with Artist Services, Steve Vizard pursued a number of other business interests and public service roles.

Steve Vizard subsequently served on the Board of the ACTPF from 1995 to 1998.

Steve Vizard has been an advocate for promoting Australian-made content on Australian television, radio and media.

In delivering his 1999 Andrew Olle Media Lecture, Steve Vizard advocated the need to maintain Australian quotas for all Australian commercial television networks as well as proposing that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation should be more fully funded and should commission and broadcast exclusively Australian content.

In 1998, Steve Vizard was elected as a delegate for his home state of Victoria to the 1998 Australian Constitutional Convention in Canberra, representing the Australian Republican Movement.

From 1998 to 2005, Steve Vizard was the president of the Council of Trustees of the National Gallery of Victoria.

From 2001 to 2005, Steve Vizard was chairman of the Victorian Major Events Company which attracts major sporting, arts and cultural events to Victoria and Australia.

In February 2002 Steve Vizard was the convenor with the Premier of Victoria of a National Population Summit at which 50 of Australia's most prominent leaders spoke to over 1,000 delegates in a bipartisan debate about all aspects of Australia's population.

The bipartisan resolutions from the Summit and the speeches were edited by Steve Vizard and published by Penguin in Australia's Population Debate.

From 1997 to 2005, Steve Vizard served as a member of the committee of the Melbourne Cricket Club.

Steve Vizard wrote with composer Paul Grabowsky, a substantial new theatre work with music, Last Man Standing, for the Melbourne Theatre Company as their production for the Anzac and Gallipoli commemorations in 2015.

Steve Vizard has been the recipient of an Australia Council grant for Poetry and a University of Melbourne Writers Fellowship.

Steve Vizard was nominated for a Writers Guild Award for Best Feature Film Screenplay in 1985; and won Writers Guild Awards for Best Comedy Television in 1989,1990,1992 and 1993.

In 2001 the Steve Vizard family reported to the police money missing from their family accounts, and Hilliard was charged with stealing and falsifying the accounts of the Steve Vizard family companies, and in 2005 Hilliard was convicted of falsifying accounts.

The judge rejected claims Hilliard had made against Steve Vizard relating to the use of overseas tax havens and that Hilliard had returned the stolen moneys to Steve Vizard.

In September 2009, an appeal by Hilliard against the judgement against him was rejected by the Full Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria, which affirmed that Hilliard had misappropriated over $3 million from Steve Vizard, rejected Hilliard's claims against Steve Vizard, and ordered Hilliard to repay the missing moneys and costs.

Hilliard alleged that Steve Vizard had insider traded while a director of Telstra.

Separately, later in 2005 ASIC said it would commence civil proceedings against Steve Vizard for breaching his director's duties by engaging in insider trading.

The Steve Vizard case provided a number of lessons for us, and hopefully we have dealt with our communications with the media a lot more effectively since.

Since its establishment in 1991, Steve Vizard House has provided over 100,000-room nights free accommodation for needy people visiting inner Melbourne hospitals.

On 27 April 1994, the Steve Vizard Foundation purchased 45 antiquities from an auction held by Christie's of London.

In 1991, Steve Vizard purchased from Lord Alistair McAlpine the iconic Australian painting First Class Marksman by Sidney Nolan, the only painting of the original 1945 Ned Kelly Series not owned and on public display in the National Gallery of Australia.

Steve Vizard donated the painting to the Steve Vizard Foundation and the painting was on public display in the National Gallery of Victoria.

In 2010, the Steve Vizard Foundation sold the work for an Australian record of $5.4 million and committed the proceeds for charitable purposes, including indigenous scholarships.

In 1997, Steve Vizard was a founding trustee with Walter Mikac of the Alannah and Madeleine Foundation, to assist in education against violence to children.

In 2008, three years after settling the civil legal proceedings with ASIC, Steve Vizard voluntarily handed back his membership of the Order of Australia.

In 2004 Steve Vizard was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Deakin University Australia.

In February 2010, Steve Vizard began a brief stint on Melbourne radio station Triple M, filling in for Eddie McGuire who was in Vancouver covering the Winter Olympics.

From March 2010 Steve Vizard presented a daily Morning show on Macquarie Radio Network's Melbourne Talk Radio until the station's closure in March 2012.

Steve Vizard conducted the first interviews with the schoolgirl at the centre of the St Kilda Football Club scandal and with David Galbally QC before the delivery of his report into the players' scandal; and covered the Chilean mine disaster and pursued the defrocking of convicted priests by the Catholic Church, on behalf of abused victims.

Steve Vizard's radio show received 3 nominations at the 2011 Australian Commercial Radio Awards including Best Talk Presenter in Australia.

Steve Vizard married Sarah Wilmoth in 1988 and they have five children.

Steve Vizard was awakened at 3am by his 16-year-old daughter who had seen an intruder in her room, and Steve Vizard pursued the intruders into the street in the nude where he was nearly driven over by the getaway Alfa Romeo.

In 2002, Steve Vizard sold Roxby Park to South Australian Tuna fishing magnate, Tony Santic, the owner of three time Melbourne Cup winning horse, Makybe Diva, who renamed the property Smytzer's Lodge, and uses it as the home of his Makybe Diva breeding and bloodstock operations.