Vale Norman Spencer
Derham Groves penned this tribute to Survivors pioneer Norman Spencer:
Norman “Norm” Spencer, radio and television director, producer, and manager was born on January 21, 1923, at Brunswick to Walter Spencer, carpenter, and Dulcie (née Pink). They had five children, Ernest, Jean, their child Norm, Ella, and Walter.
The Spencers lived in Minnie Street and Norm attended the Brunswick South State School.
In 1936, Spencer left school and joined Melbourne radio station 3KZ as a turntable operator When he was 15, he was sacked for punching 3KZ’s breakfast announcer, Pat Corby, while filling in for Corby on air because Corby had arrived late and “under the weather”.”
‘The breakfast announcer came in. He was late. I’d done breakfast for about half an hour. I was busy logging the records, and he whacked me behind the ear. Just in fun perhaps, but he bounced my nose off the table,”’ ” Spencer told Bruce Mansfield and Philip Brady on 3AW in 1992.
Spencer retaliated by punching Corby. “He fell back and broke 50 records and I had to pay for them,’ Spencer said. The next day, 3KZ’s Managing Director, Syd Morgan, asked Spencer what he had to say for himself. ‘“Nothing,”’ said Spencer. ‘“If you treated me the way Corby did, I would have done the same to you.” “You know what this means?” asked Morgan. “Yes, I resign,”’ said Spencer.
After leaving 3KZ, Spencer joined Melbourne radio station 3DB. At the outbreak of World War II, he and 3DB’s record librarian, Don Davidson, tried to enlist in the AIF by lying about their ages, but “a kindly recruiting officer looked at their fresh, young faces and tactfully suggested that they came back later when they found the need to shave.”’6 “
Later, Spencer served with the 2/24th Battalion (that is, ‘The Rats of Tobruk’) at El Alamein in Egypt. He then returned home briefly before serving at Lae and Finschhafen in Papua New Guinea and Tarakan in Indonesia. Spencer was then posted to the Australian Army radio station, 9AD, on Moratai Island in Indonesia, as chief announcer.
After spending 5½ years in the Army, he returned home in 1946. Spencer married Amy Crawford, a hairdresser, and re-joined 3DB as its youthful program manager. Norm and Amy had two children, Diane (b. 1947) and Denis (b. 1949). The Spencers divorced in 1972. Norm and his second wife, Carole, also had two children, Phillip (b. 1977) and Brooke (b. 1979).9
Spencer was solidly built and played Australian Rules Football in the semi-professional Victorian Football Association. He was the centre-half back for the Brunswick Football Club for three years, and then for the neighbouring Coburg Football Club for another three years. While Spencer was a “hard man” on the field, he was reported for rough play only once, but got off because the umpire made a mistake in his evidence.
He also played football for 3DB in the annual charity matches against the Sporting Globe newspaper, to raise money for the (Royal) Melbourne Children’s Hospital. Spencer ended his football career playing full back for the Sorrento Football Club in the amateur Mornington Peninsula Football League. His last game was the 1953 Grand Final against Frankston, which Sorrento won by three points. Spencer broke his leg just before the game ended and did not play competitive football again.
He valued playing sport because it took him outside of the media “bubble”.At 3DB Spencer instigated and produced the highly successful 60-minute weekly variety show, The Happy Gang (1953-62), compered by the veteran broadcaster Dick Cranbourne (1905-1972) and his off-sider, the comedian John Stuart. It featured a regular cast of performers including Maurice Callard (1912-1993), Bill Collins (1928-1997), Shirlene Clancy (1938-2021), Tom Davidson, June Hamilton, Rod McLennan, Mabel Nelson, two of the Parker Sisters trio Eula (1923-1985) and
Marie Parker, Charles Skase (the father of the disgraced Australian businessman Christopher Skase), Stan Stafford, and Lou Toppano (1918-2012) and his orchestra.
It evolved out of the Test Variety series, ‘devised by DB as a means of entertaining listeners while they waited for the relayed Test cricket scores from England.’ When the new show debuted on September 25, 1953, it was called The Happy Gang —Rehearsal for TV in anticipation of the introduction of television in Australia in 1956.
“The show began with a series of “calls,” said Bill McLaughlin, the author
of From Wireless To Radio: The 3DB Story. For example, “Dick Cranbourne would say: “Tonight we’re calling for the biggest leek—and a plumber.”
Dozens of people dropped what they were doing and brought in their vegetables; plumbers arrived with spanners and wrenches.’1 Cranbourne “was the best ad lib man I have ever known in television or radio,”’20 ” Spencer said. The
Happy Gang was the only show that regularly outrated Jack Davey (1907-1959), Australia’s top radio presenter.
Spencer was regarded as “one of the most promising young men in the radio
business”, rising to the position of station producer at 3DB aged in his early 30s.
In 1956 Norm Spencer was appointed the program manager of the new Melbourne TV station, GTV-9. On March 26, 1956, Channel 9’s general manager, Colin Bednall (1913-1974), and he left on a three-month tour of the USA and the UK, to look at television production. Spencer returned with ‘“plenty of ideas” for live shows, as well as purchasing several overseas series, including The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1956-57), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-62), The Buccaneers (1956-57), Dr Hudson’s Secret Journal (1955-57), The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (1950), Dragnet (1951-59), and My Little Margie (1952-55).2
Going on overseas buying sprees for TV shows like this became an annual event for Spencer. GTV-9 officially went to air on January 19, 1957. Spencer’s outstanding achievement at GTV-9 was creating the five nights a week, live variety
show, In Melbourne Tonight (1957-70), which influenced Australian television for decades.
Spencer modelled IMT (as it became known) on The Happy Gang that he had created at 3DB. Initially, he wanted that show’s compere, Dick Cranbourne, to host IMT, however, Cranbourne was 55 and had no desire to leave radio for television.28 Spencer’s second choice was Johnny McMahon (1914-1990) from the Melbourne radio station 3UZ, who Spencer would have probably gone with had
the host of Channel 9’s children’s show, Happy Hammond (1916-1998), not “pestered” him into considering Hammond’s former young co-host on 3UZ, Graham Kennedy (1934-2005).
So, Spencer tried out Kennedy on Channel 9’s telethon for the Red Cross on March 31, 1957. “It was the first time he’d been on TV, and I was struck by his informality and amazing ability to ad lib, no matter the situation,” Spencer recalled. He hired Kennedy for £35 per week to host IMT.
Spencer also hired Graham Kennedy’s onscreen sidekick, Geoff Corke (1935-1993), who had been Spencer’s assistant at 3DB.32 After Kennedy and Corke fell out, Spencer replaced Corke with Bert Newton (1938-21),34 who he had lured from HSV-7. IMT also had a regular cast of comics and singers, including Philip Brady, Joff Ellen (1915-1999), Johnny Ladd (1924-2004), Panda Lisner (1930-2011), who was ‘given away’ by Spencer at her wedding to the Melbourne musician
Jimmy Allan (1926-2004) in 1960, Patti McGrath (b. 1945), who married Newton in 1974, Elaine McKenna (1937-1992), Pete Smith (b. 1939), and Rosie Sturgess (1920-2005), who was Johnny McMahon’s sister-in-law.
However, what set IMT apart were the live TV commercials by Kennedy and Newton, which were the vehicles for their madcap ad-libbing and the reason why the show constantly ran over time. IMT was produced by Tom Miller, Norm Spencer’s senior officer/boss at 9AD, and directed by Spencer, although there was no mistaking who was in charge.
“Spencer was the mastermind of IMT; don’t let anyone forget that,” Newton said. “Nothing happened on IMT that Norm did not approve personally. By the time he left GTV-9 […] he had become the sort of general who surrounds himself with good soldiers. Norman Spencer chose Graham Kennedy as compere; Norm kept his eye on the show from day to day; he pushed the buttons from the control room,
which put the TV shots into viewers’ homes at night; he added the talent around Graham and he set up the organisation.”
Ironically, Spencer directed the first episode of IMT in 1957, and his son Denis directed the last episode in its original form in 1970. Besides being GTV-9’s program manager and the director of IMT, Norm Spencer was also in charge of the channel’s one-off TV specials, such as the telecast of Bullen Bros. Circus and The
Sammy Davis, Jun. Show, as well as its sporting telecasts,4 such as VFL football matches and the 1956 Olympic Games.
Without permission, Spencer took a TV camera down to a small room below the Olympic pool, ‘which gave viewers a stunning view of tumble turns and a frightening perspective on the ferocity of the Hungarian/Soviet water polo games,” Sian Watkins of The Age said.
Spencer believed that “everyone, particularly cameramen, got two years training in two weeks during the Games”. Spencer worked very hard at Channel 9, but attributed his success to learning from the likes of the veteran 3KZ broadcasters Norman Banks (1905-1985) and Terry Dear (1913- 1995), and the veteran 3DB managers Dave Worrall (1894-1968) and Stan Clark.
Everything seemed to be going well between GTV-9 and Spencer until he and the Australian impresario, Harry Wren (1916-1973), travelled to the USA in October 1959. They signed several Hollywood stars, including Betty Grable (1916-1973), Kathryn Grayson (1922-2010), and Mickey Rooney (1920-2014), for IMT and Channel 9 specials and Wren’s stage show, Many Happy Returns (1959).
But on their return, “the television company had withdrawn its financial support because it considered that Spencer had not selected stars who would have a good ‘“’drawing power’ on television.” While this no doubt undermined his authority at GTV-9, it was not the main reason why he left.
‘Packer’ was the one-word reason Spencer gave Bruce Mansfield and Philip Brady.
In 1960, Sir Frank Packer (1906-1974), the owner of the Sydney TV channel ATN-9, bought Channel 9 to create the ‘Nine Network’. Spencer believed that Packer would not support live shows like GTV-9’s previous owner (Sir) Arthur Warner (1899-1966) had done. Spencer and Packer also disliked each other intensely, having previously almost come to blows in Fleet Street, London, because Spencer had beaten Packer to the Australian rights for the American TV Western
series, Maverick (1957-62).
Nevertheless, most people were shocked when Spencer suddenly ‘defected’” ‘ to the opposition Melbourne TV channel, HSV-7, on August 1, 1960. Furthermore, he
persuaded or prompted Happy Hammond, Panda Lisner, the harmonicist Horrie Dargie (1917-1999), the American comedians Jonathon Daly (b. 1942) and Ken Delo (1938-2016), the set designer George Havrillay (1921-2001), and the music director Arthur Young (1904-1965) to also move from Channel 9 to Channel 7.
At HSV-7 Spencer was appointed the head of programming and production and the assistant general manager to Keith Cairns. As the Herald and Weekly Times Pty. Ltd. owned both Channel 7 and 3DB, his former radio employer, the move almost felt nostalgic for Spencer. His mission at HSV-7 was to invigorate its live shows, including its popular variety show Sunny Side Up (1957-66), which, like In Melbourne Tonight, was also modelled on The Happy Gang.
Spencer’s first live show at Channel 7 was a one-off variety special called The Happy Night at 10 p.m. on October 20, 1960. It was hosted by Happy Hammond and featured a big cast, including the Australian Boys Choir, the host of Sunny Side Up Bill Collins, the actress Lorna Forbes (1890-1976), the comedians Peter Crago, Buster Fiddess (d. 1972), Barney Grant, Peter Langton, and Lennie Lowe (1916-1999), the singers Rod McLennan David Sterie, and Fay Trebilcock, and the game show hosts Larry K. Nixon, Malcolm Searle (d. 2008), and Frank Wilson (1924-2005).
The show’s surprise highlight was a live cross to Graham Kennedy and Geoff Corke doing IMT on GTV-9. ‘With viewers seeing the pictures of both shows on both stations, and congratulations all round, the three-minute exchange ended with Channel 7 leaning over backwards to be fair by putting in a filmed commercial instead of Buster Fiddess at the “break,” and Graham rocking himself with glee at
the IMT office desk and failing to put his [Raoul Merton shoes that he advertised on the show] on it polished surface,” ‘Janus’ of The Age said.
Norm Spencer quickly perceived that HSV-7’s premises at Dorcas Street, South Melbourne, lacked adequate studio space for producing quality live shows in front of sizeable live audiences. So, he persuaded Channel 7 to purchase the Regent Theatre at 84-104 Johnston Street, Fitzroy, and convert it into a purpose-built ‘tele-theatre’. The reconstruction included removing most of the theatre’s seats, laying a concrete floor five feet thick for the stage, installing a grid to carry 216 lights, and building and equipping a modern control room.
HSV-7’s new tele-theatre had a stage with more than 7000 square feet of working area and could accommodate an audience of over 600 people. It opened on April 2, 1961, with a live variety spectacular directed by Spencer and hosted by the American bandleader, Bob Crosby (1913-1993), the brother of Bing Crosby (1903-
1977). The Bob Crosby Show featured Fiddess, Lisner, and Lowe; the British comedians, Jimmy Edwards (1920-1988), Mike Hope (1935-2019), and Albie Keen (1935-2020); the Trinidadian pianist Winifred Atwell (1914-1983); and the Australian singers, Lorraine Davey and Daryl Stewart.
Before the tele-theatre was sold in 1979, thousands of HSV-7’s programs were done there, including variety shows, musicals, game shows, and dramas.
Not everything Spencer did worked out, though. For example, he unsuccessfully tried to turn the American comedian Jonathon Daly into HSV-7’s answer to Graham Kennedy. Spencer directed and Daly compered Australia’s first late night talk show, Daly at Night (1962-63), which went to air at 10pm three times a week. Daly and a panel, including Horrie Dargie, Arthur Young, the actresses Betty Bobbitt (1939-2020) and Vikki Hammond, the comedian Kitty Bluett (1914-1994) and her husband, the acrobat Julian Jover (1926-2014), and the actor Frank Thring (1926-1994), would interview a variety of guests.
The show was ahead of its time and rated poorly because “the audience wasn’t sure what the heck was going on”, Daly said. After Daly at Night ended on March 29, 1963, Spencer directed The Delo & Daly Show (1963-64), a traditional-style variety show at 7.30 p.m. twice a week. It was hosted by Daly and his straight man, the American singer Ken Delo, who were a slick comedy duo reminiscent of Martin and Lewis (1946-56) and Rowan and Martin (1952-73). The Delo & Daly Show featured many former cast members of Daly at Night, as well as the actress Addie Black, the drummer from ‘The Horrie Dargie Quintet’ Joe Hudson, ‘The Joe Latona Dancers’, the vocal group ‘The Take Five’, and the HSV-7 Orchestra conducted
by Panda Lisner’s husband Jimmy Allan. It also had very imaginative sets designed by George Havrillay.
But no matter what Spencer did at Channel 7, he could not dent the juggernaut he had created at Channel 9—In Melbourne Tonight. Spencer resigned from HSV-7 in December 1968. ‘I disagreed on certain matters and felt I had to quit in a hurry,’ he said. He described his nine years at Channel 7 as ‘purgatory.’59 It was certainly
a very stingy place to work. For directing The Seekers at Home (1966), a TV special about the Australian pop group ‘The Seekers’, which was a ratings bonanza for HSV-7, Spencer received a measly bonus of $10,060 (his son Denis thought it was even less—a set of carving knives!).
In September 1969, Spencer was ‘appointed a full-time, paid organiser of the Moomba festival,’62 but he didn’t stay for long, returning to GTV-9 in November 1969 as its ‘executive producer of ‘live’ programs.’ By then Sir Frank Packer’s son, Clyde (1935-2001), was in charge of the Nine Network. Spencer resigned from Channel 9 for a second time in August 1971, establishing H. N. Productions with the TV writer Hugh Stuckey (1928-2019), who had written comedy for IMT and
Daly at Night, and the TV producer Neil Harrod.
Spencer was also the first CEO of the Bayside Shopping Centre in Frankston, which opened on October 3, 1972. In 1975, Norm Spencer, Joff Ellen, GTV-9’s daytime host Mike Walsh (b. 1938), and GTV-9’s musical director Brian Rangott, were granted the licence for 3MP, a new commercial radio station on the Mornington Peninsular, Victoria.
The consortium originally included Graham Kennedy, who was keen to do his own show on the new radio station, but he withdrew after getting into ‘hot water’ with the Australian Broadcasting Control Board for doing a crow call, “faaaaark,” which sounded like “fuck,” on The Graham Kennedy Show on Channel 9 on March 3, 1975. Spencer seldom swore himself and did not approve of Kennedy “crossing the line” like this, saying it was m”the difference between being a naughty boy and a dirty old man”.’71″. 3MP commenced transmission on July 22, 1976, from studios at the Bayside Shopping Centre, playing a blend of solid gold and
current top-40 music. It was Melbourne’s most popular radio station in 1979, although it had slipped to fifth position by 1981 when Spencer and the others sold it to Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd. for $10,000,000. “Norman is still smiling all the way to the bank,” Bill McLaughlin joked.
At the Victorian State Elections in 1979, Spencer ran for a seat on the Legislative Council in the South Eastern Metropolitan Region for the Australian Labor Party (ALP). In a four-way contest, he lost to the sitting Liberal Party member Alan Hunt (1927-2013), the Minister for Planning and Government, with 29,065 to 40,278 votes. During the late 1970s and early ’80s, Spencer was also a small businessman, operating a sports and giftware store on Main Street, Mornington. According
to his son, Denis, when he owned it, “he was the happiest I had seen him for some years”.’76 “. The store closed in 1981.
In 1984, Spencer was appointed the executive director of the Advance Australia Foundation, responsible for the licensing and marketing of ‘Advance Australia’ and ‘Australian Made’ logos. He worked tirelessly to encourage people to buy their kids a job by buying Australian-made products.
In 1992, there was no allocation of funds for the Foundation in the Federal Budget.
‘They thought they’d kill us off,’ he told Norman Abjorensen of The Canberra Times. ‘“But [Spencer] enlisted some heavyweight support, including Simon Crean [(b. 1949), the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy] and Neil O’Keefe [(b. 1947), the ALP Member for Burke]’ and pretty soon two years’ more funding emerged. “I love a fight,” he laughed.”’80″
In 1992, Norm Spencer was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his service to ‘the Advance Australia Foundation, the television industry, and the community.’ He died from heart disease caused by chronic high blood pressure on April 22, 1999, aged 76. Spencer’s funeral was held at St Marks Uniting Church, Mornington, and he was buried at the Mornington Cemetery.
Speaking at his funeral, Bert Newton said: “If you’re watching TV variety today, no matter what channel you’re watching it on, you’re watching something Norm set up.”