Like No Other Business

Bob Phillips

Description

The author, Bob Phillips, commenced his career in Showbiz as a Carnival hand, worked as a “Spool Boy” & Projectionist for the Hoyts Cinema chain and moved to Television to become Graham Kennedy’s Floor manager on “In Melbourne Tonight” & later Producer of “The Graham Kennedy Show”.
Over the years he worked as either Producer or Executive Producer with TV icons such as Bert Newton, Daryl Somers, Don Lane, Mike Walsh & Steve Vizard.
Bob also managed & represented many of Australia’s top variety performers, and in 1988 together with his actress wife, Judy Banks, he established Australia’s first Television & Media museum - TV World on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.
He is also a regular guest TV historian on ABC Radio.

Sujets

• Personal Memoirs
• Biography
• Television in Australia
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris AU
• Date de parution: 27 février 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798369490105
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

LIKE NO OTHER BUSINESS
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
BOB PHILLIPS


 
Copyright © 2023 by Bob Phillips.
 
Library of Congress Control Number:
2023903291
ISBN:
Hardcover
979-8-3694-9012-9
 
Softcover
979-8-3694-9011-2
 
eBook
979-8-3694-9010-5
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
Cover design Sylvia Blanchard
Photo by Anika Mikkelson on Unsplash
& assets from Freepik.com
 
First published July 200560
Reprinted: 2005, 60 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 9th ed 2020
by STUDIO CITY PUBLICATIONS
285 Bungower Road, Moorooduc, Victoria 3933
 
Printed by KINGSTON DIGITAL
417 Warrigal Road, Cheltenham, 3192 Vic., Australia www.kingstondigital.com.au
 
Our thanks to BARRIE BELL, PETER ENGLISH, ALAN WINDLEY & the major Australian TV networks for photographic and other material
 
 
 
Rev. date: 08/03/2023
 
 
 
Xlibris
AU TFN: 1 800 844 927 (Toll Free inside Australia)
AU Local: [phone] ([phone] from outside Australia)
www.Xlibris.com.au
848570

CONTENTS
 
PREFACE
1 .      PROGRESS “PISSY” PICTURES
2 .      ALL THE KING’S MEN
3 .      RINGSIDE AT CAMELOT
4 .      JUDY AND THE BEAR
5 .      DON’T SHOOT MY COWS
6 .      THE DAYS OF WINE AND SIGLEY
7 .      THE RECORD MAKERS
8 .      RADIO DAZE
9 .      IN SEARCH OF ELVIS
10 .    UP THE RIVER WITH MOOMBA
11 .    HEY HEY IT’S HOLLYWOOD
12 .    THE HIGH PRIESTS OF AUSTRALIAN POP
13 .    THE GOOD SHIP VIZARD
14 .    SOMETHING BIG . . .
15 .    THE ENTERTAINERS - GOOD MATES AND COBBERS
16 .    CHILDREN OF THE SUN
17 .    TWO “LIVING EXHIBITS”
 
PREFACE
The following saga, for want of a better word, is in no way intended to be an autobiography, a serious history, or even an exposé, but merely a portrait of the Australian entertainment industry from the early ’50s to the present.
It recalls a great many of the real characters of the Oz entertainment industry during this era, some anonymous (to protect the safety of the author!) but none fictitious. In fact, a few who were products of the infant Australian “star” system became living legends in their own time, names like Kennedy, Newton, Packer, O’Keefe, Lane, Henderson, Farnham, Somers, Young, The Seekers, Faiman, Vizard, Walsh and many, many more.
The writer was fortunate to work closely with majority of these identities over a long time and shared their triumphs, disasters, laughs, and tears in an industry that truly is like no other business!
x
 
Sometime during the ’60s, on a wintry grey Melbourne day, I wandered into the offices of H. F. Fox and Co, chartered accountants in Queen Street.
In an inner office, the firm’s principal, Henry Fox, and a couple of other grey-suited accountant types were huddled in discussion, closely examining the biggest bra I’d ever seen!
It belonged to Sabrina, the busty blonde sex symbol from Britain, who had taken Australia by storm.
The point (or points!) under discussion obviously related to problems the firm was having convincing the deputy commissioner of taxation that Sabrina’s main tool of trade was, in fact, her tits and the possibilities of special dispensations that could be claimed for special custom-made brassieres and related breast-displaying equipment.
Apart from my own fascination with this piece of ladies’ apparel, I was intrigued by the conversation and later asked Henry Fox about their likely chance of success.
Henry (and he really was a wily old taxation fox!) just smiled and said, “My boy, this is a very peculiar business . . . It’s laughingly called show business, and it’s LIKE NO OTHER BUSINESS !”
***********************************

Hoyts Circle Essendon’s very own Picture Palace

The home of Progress “Pissy” Pictures West Brunswick
CHAPTER 1
PROGRESS “PISSY” PICTURES
THE SPOOL BOY
My very first rather limited glimpse into any form of showbiz occurred in very early school years, when my dad, Alf, took me on an annual pilgrimage to the children’s Christmas party at the Masonic Lodge.
I was a somewhat guilty participant, being a good Catholic schoolboy in a mixed-marriage situation, a fairly common but nevertheless socially unacceptable scenario in the pre-rock-’n’-roll and pre-television days of Robert Menzies Australia of the early ’50s.
The lodge organisers had provided an amazingly bad array of clowns, magicians, and frighteningly inept fire-eaters; one retired early in the event, looking as though he had barely survived a Mekong Delta napalm attack!
But as the performers worked their bums off, I was totally mesmerised by only one person—the projectionist, who battled away at the rear of the hall with an ancient Bell and Howell projector and a dubious collection of kids’ flicks, ranging from Felix the Cat to an early model Tarzan.
I took little notice of anything on the screen but was fascinated with the clattering machine, the shaft of light, and the superpowers the operator seemed to have. Back at home and for weeks after, I played projectionist with an improvised projector made from tin cans, shoeboxes, etc.
Sounds absolutely pathetic! But a decade later, I was working part time for Hoyts Theatres at the old Circle Essendon as a spool boy, which had about as much status as the circus hand delegated to clean up after the elephants!
Hoyts at that time was the major cinema chain in Australia and had given little thought to the horrendous impact the small-screen wonder television would have on the motion-picture business. Every major suburb in Melbourne had a rather grand Hoyts Picture Palace, and they packed them in night after night, with many families having a regular Friday- or Saturday-night booking at their local Regent.
I desperately tried to get a regular job with Hoyts but had to be content with relief assistant operator’s work at some of Melbourne’s best and worst hardtops, as they were known as distinct from the newly popular drive-ins. Whilst still at school, I would often get a call from Hoyts head office only an hour before showtime to grab a cab and race over to locations, such as Hoyts New Malvern, The Trocadero Footscray, or the old Waratah in Ascot Vale. Sadly, most of these grand old movie houses vanished with the advent of TV.
It appealed to me greatly that the cinemas created a wonderful night-worker culture of projectionists, usherettes, and managers, all of whom seemed to be mad party animals, and you didn’t have to get up in the morning!
There were some amazing characters, including Harold, assistant projectionist at the old independent Regal cinema in Essendon. Harold, to most of his teenage admirers, was the nearest you could get to Hollywood—in Essendon anyway. He had little real aptitude or technical knowledge for the job but possessed somewhat of a James Dean personality and combined with a sleek black utility, became quite a hit with the local chicks. I now know why they called them pickup trucks!
I really did want to be a projectionist more than anything else and wrote off countless letters to theatre managers all over Melbourne. Eventually, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, an old operator called Joe, projectionist from the Moonee Cinema in Puckle Street, Moonee Ponds, Dame Edna territory, arrived unannounced at home and offered me a permanent job — could I start tomorrow?
I was totally elated, but alas, the parents, Alf and Glad, said no and were adamant I get a real job. Years later, when I was appointed producer of The Graham Kennedy Show , my father was still concerned that it was really only seasonal work — he was spot on.
Shortly after this unhappy Sunday afternoon, I left school and reluctantly took a cadetship with Chas Steele & Co., a printing and packaging company in Brunswick — absolutely nothing to do with show business but wonderful grassroots people I learnt much about life, human beings, and how to make chicken noodle soup pouches!
By this time, television had jolted the cinema industry like a blow from a giant jackhammer. Graham Kennedy was already “King” of Melbourne television, Brian Henderson’s Bandstand was booming, and a TV dinner in front of Disneyland on a Sunday night was the norm.
Hoyts and the other major cinema chains retaliated with giant screens, enormous mag-optical sound systems, CinemaScope, and practically every other kind of “scope,” but within months, majority of the old Picture Palaces were closed — some to become service stations, supermarkets, and bingo halls. The movie business in Australia was dead, killed by the mini-screen David television!
Never again would those grand old theatres display the “house full” signs they carried so proudly in the boom times of the ’30s and ’40s.

Threading up in the early days pre- television and multiplex cinemas

Hoyts Waratah
Early 1930s, Ascot Vale, Melbourne

Regent Theatre, Fitzroy
 
Once a grand, stately Picture Palace, then Australia’s first tele-theatre for Channel 7, now sadly demolished for a retail shopping centre
The remaining cinemas suffered staff cuts, reduced screenings,