Graham Cyril Kennedy AO (1934 - 2005)

Born 15 Feb 1934 in East Saint Kilda, Victoria, Australia

Ancestors

Died 25 May 2005 at age 71 in Bowral, New South Wales, Australia

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Biography

Graham Kennedy AO is Notable.

Graham Kennedy AO was born in Victoria, Australia

Graham Cyril 'Gra Gra' Kennedy AO was born on 15th February 1934, the son of Cyril "Syd" Kennedy and Mary "Molly" Scott. He grew up in Balaclava (officially known as East St Kilda), at 32 Nelson Street, where the City of Port Phillip has honoured his memory with a plaque. He was educated at Caulfield Central School and Melbourne High School.

Graham made his television debut with GTV-9 on 6 May 1957, aged just 23 years. TV credits include Blankety Blanks, the long-running In Melbourne Tonight (known colloquailly as IMT), The Graham Kennedy Show, Coast to Coast and the first series of Channel Nine’s infotainment Australia’s Funniest Home Video Show. His last major television appearance was as a late night newsreader on Graham Kennedy's News Hour on the Nine Network between April 1988 and December 1989. He starred in a string of movies, most notably David Williamson’s The Club (1980), but also They’re a Weird Mob (1968), Don’s Party (1976), The Odd Angry Shot (1979), The Killing Fields (1983) and Travelling North (1987). ^[1]

Graham, and Panda Lisner, from In Melbourne Tonight won the first TV Week Star Of The Year Award in 1959. It was Graham who then suggested the name Logies (named after the Scottish inventor of television, Alexander Logie Baird) for the prestige awards in Australian television – and subsequently won a record 19 of them; six of which (1959, 1960, 1967, 1969, 1974, 1978) are Gold Logies (also a record). ^[2] He became known as The King of Television. In 1998, Graham was inducted into the Logies Hall of Fame. He also received a special Logie in 1967 for Star of the Decade. ^[3]

Graham was awarded the Australian Government's Centenary Medal in the 2001 Queen's New Years Honours List for his 'outstanding services to the entertainment industry'. ^[4]

Graham retired in 1991 to a country property near Bowral, New South Wales, in the Southern Highlands southwest of Sydney. In 2001 he had a fall down stairs at his home and suffered serious injuries, including a broken skull, which led to the sale of his property and his eventual move into a nursing home. ^[1]

Aged 71 years, he passed away on 25th May 2005 in the Kenilworth Nursing Home, Bowral, New South Wales, from complications from pneumonia. ^[5] In his final years he had been hampered by the effects of a stroke. Graham never married and, at the time of his death, had no known family. He was particularly close to co-stars, Bert Newton and his wife Patti (nee McGrath), and Noeline (nee Brown) and her husband Tony Sattler.

Graham was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), posthumously, in the Australia Day 2006 awards for 'service to the entertainment industry as an actor, comedian and presenter significantly influencing the development of the radio, television and film industries in Australia, and to the community'. ^[6]

The same year, 2006, TV Week introduced the Logie award Graham Kennedy Award For Most Outstanding New Talent, in his honour. It is the first Logie award named for a personality.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} IMDb: Graham Kennedy; accessed 15 Jan 2022
2. ↑ Television: The Logies; accessed 15 Jan 2022
3. ↑ Wikipedia: Logies Awards; accessed 15 Jan 2022
4. ↑ Australian Honours: Centenary Medal; accessed 15 Jan 2022
5. ↑ 'Obituaries,' The Age (Melbourne, Australia), 25 May 2005. No further information was recorded
6. ↑ Australian Honours: AO

See also:

• Wikipedia: Graham Kennedy
• Wikidata: Item Q2111930, en:Wikipedia