Graham Cyril Kennedy AO (15 February 1934 – 25 May 2005) was an Australian entertainer, comedian and variety performer, radio and television host as well as a personality and actor of theatre, television and film. He was often referred to as "The King of Television" or simply "The King" and called "Gra Gra" (pronounced "gray-gray").
Honoured as an officer of the Order of Australia, he was a six-time recipient of the Gold Logie, including the Logie Hall of Fame award, and won the Star of the Year Award in 1959. He is the most awarded star of Australian television. He was known for his radio and television collaboration's with Bert Newton, including on In Melbourne Tonight and The Graham Kennedy Show.
Kennedy was born in Camden Street, Balaclava, a suburb of Melbourne to Cyril William Kennedy and Mary Austin Kennedy (née Scott). Kennedy's mother, who was 18 years old at the time of his birth, was employed at a local picture theatre. His father worked variously as an engineer and handyman, mowed lawns and washed cars. In 1939 he joined the RAAF as an air gunner. Kennedy's first home was a "small, crowded duplex" at 32 Nelson Street, Balaclava. A 20 cm diameter plaque was placed on the property by the City of Port Phillip, coincidentally in the week of Kennedy's death.
When Kennedy was two years old, his parents moved to Carlisle Street, St Kilda, for two years. His parents divorced shortly before World War II and Kennedy was largely raised by his grandparents, "Pop" Kennedy (who had been an electrician at Melbourne's Tivoli, Royal and Bijou theatres) and "Grandma Scott", to whom he remained particularly close until her death. Kennedy later said that he had:
often wished his mother and father had never married. 'I wasn't enamoured of either of them [...] they betrayed me [...] divorce is not too much fun for a little nine-year-old [...]
After Kennedy's death, an article in The Bulletin by his friend and colleague John Mangos recorded that:
... he would sometimes talk about the violent arguments between his parents, how he gravitated to his grandmother's bosom, his two uncles ("one fought the Germans, the other fought the Japs") and how one of them took liberties with the boy. Graham never resented him, claiming he equated it with affection.
Kennedy was educated firstly at Euston College (which no longer exists) on the corner of Chapel and Carlisle streets, secondly at Caulfield North Central School (now Caulfield Junior College) and finally at Melbourne High School, South Yarra. In 1977, Kennedy chaired a project to raise funds for improvements at Melbourne High which raised more than $100,000 in its first year.
During a school break in 1949, Kennedy worked at his uncle's hairdressing shop at 475 Collins Street, where he met clients who worked in the same building for the Radio Australia shortwave service of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). He accepted a job as a news runner from Collins Street to the ABC studios in Lonsdale Street. Shortly after he joined radio station 3UZ, working in the station's record library.
Clifford "Nicky" Nicholls Whitta was a Melbourne radio personality. A radio performer since 1932, he presented a housewives' program, as well as "Chatterbox Corner" with his wife Nancy Lee (Kathleen Lindgren). In an era when Australian radio announcers routinely adopted false British accents and a "hard-sell" approach to advertisements, Whitta's authentic Australian voice and irreverent attitude towards his sponsors brought him a large audience. In Nancy Lee's 1979 biography Being a Chum Was Fun she says: "Nicky went on to become the most popular announcer ever on Melbourne radio".
In his foreword to Nancy Lee's book, Kennedy wrote:
About 40 years ago, when I was a snow haired six year old, I can remember being totally captivated by a grown man pretending to be a naughty little boy on 3AW's children session called "Chatterbox Corner". His name was Clifford Whitta, and he was to become the most important man in my life. Years later I was even more fascinated with this man when he conducted a breakfast program and let the boy who played his records actually talk on the air with him.
Nicholls moved from 3KZ to 3UZ (where Kennedy was working), bringing with him his teenage panel operators Alf "Alfie Boy" Thesinger and Russell Archer. However, eighteen-year-olds, Thesinger and Archer were conscripted for National Service. Nancy Lee's book records:
I asked Nicky, "Have you decided on anyone to help you in the session yet?" When I heard the chosen one was to be young Graham, I was surprised. "Oh, no, not Graham! [...] he's a nice boy, but he can't talk." Nick said, "Mum, leave him to me."
Nicky became a father-figure, personal friend and mentor to Kennedy, and the two built an extraordinary on-air rapport. Kennedy wrote:
Being straight man to one of the greatest entertainers of our time was not all that easy. We were not always chums. He would spend weeks not talking to me (except on air) for something I had unknowingly said or done. Once he even suspended me from the programme for some trivial matter. [...] I worked with him until his sudden death in 1956. I never stopped being a fan. I did not realise then that I had been prepared for another career on another electrical medium: the most potent communication device of the century.
Nicky died on 8 September 1956.
By May 1957, Kennedy was appearing on television, but also presented a 3AK morning radio program with Bert Newton in 1961–1962, which later originated from a studio built at Kennedy's home in Olivers Hill, Frankston.