Kennedy, Graham Cyril

▪ 2006

      Australian radio and television personality and actor (b. Feb. 15, 1934, St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia—d. May 25, 2005, Bowral, N.S.W., Australia), as one of Australia's most popular radio and television talk-show and game-show hosts, earned the nickname “King of Television.” Over a 40-year career, he won 14 Logies (Australia's annual TV awards), including Star of the Year in 1959, and in 1998 he was inducted into the Logie Hall of Fame. After dropping out of school at age 15, Kennedy joined (1951) the staff at Melbourne's Radio 3. He moved to television in 1957 when it first began broadcasting in Melbourne, and despite being only 23 and having no experience in the new medium, he was named the host of In Melbourne Tonight, where he remained until 1969. Kennedy applied his irreverent and sometimes bawdy humour on a series of other programs, including The Graham Kennedy Show (1972–75), from which he was sacked in April 1975 for allegedly having squawked a banned word during a live broadcast; the game show Blankety Blank (1977–78); and The Graham Kennedy News Hour (renamed Coast to Coast; 1988–89). Kennedy also acted in such films as Don's Party (1976), The Killing Fields (1984), and Travelling North (1987). He retired in 1991 and thereafter lived as a virtual recluse. The biography King: The Life and Comedy of Graham Kennedy was published in 2003.

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