Cover (clockwise from bottom right): Peter Lochran (The Young Doctors), Marcia Hines, Mike Walsh, Susan Hannaford (The Sullivans), John Orcsik (Cop Shop), June Salter (The Restless Years)

Belinda buries her sexy past
Belinda Giblin doesn’t want to be known as “that sexy secretary from The Box.”  She’d much rather be known as an actress who won a Sammy award this year for Best Actress in a Single TV Performance, for her role in the telemovie Say You Want Me:  “That award was a compliment to my acting.  It wasn’t a popularity poll win but a win because of my acting skills.  It’s been the biggest buzz of my professional career.”  Now featuring in the Seven Network series Skyways in a seven-week guest role, Giblin has no regrets about doing The Box, though the “sex symbol” tag was quite amusing, she says. 

On wings of song…
A one-hour special to air this week on ABC, Christmas Round Australia, takes a look at the diversity of an Australian Christmas.  The special program features Santa arriving by helicopter at an RAAF base in Amberley, QLD.  At Falls Creek in the Victorian Alps he switches to a snow mobile, and in the remote town of Cook he arrives into town in a converted railcar.  The special also looks at the multicultural diversity in celebrating Christmas, with Greek children singing Ta Kalanda, an Italian children’s choir singing Tu Scendi-Della Stella, and Aboriginal children at the Ernabella Mission singing carols translated into native languages.  Christmas Round Australia is narrated by Margaret Throsby and produced by Ric Birch.

Death of Robert Moore
Robert Moore has died in Melbourne at the age of 46.  The former host of Monday Conference was in Melbourne where he was working on an interview with Professor Sir Gustav Nossal for the ABC series Faces Of The Eighties.  It was to be the final program in the series.  ABC general manager Talbot Duckmanton paid tribute to Moore:  “Bob Moore was held in widespread respect by all who encountered him.  His fairness and integrity were beyond question in his interpretation of politics and the art of government – fields so frequently wracked with controversy.  He was above all a professional, totally dedicated and absorbed in the job he had to do.  The ABC, and public life, can ill afford to lose a figure of the calibre of Bob Moore.  At 46, he had so much still to offer.”  Born in Adelaide in 1932, Moore first joined ABC in 1960 and later progressed to the current affairs program Four Corners as a reporter and later producer and anchorman.  In 1970 he made a ten-part series of interviews, Profiles Of Power, and the following year became the host and producer of Monday Conference, which ran for 290 editions.  Moore’s death came a year to the day after the end of Monday Conference.

Best wishes from Brian for a good news decade
GTV9 newsreader Brian Naylor wishes he could promise only good news in the 1980s.  “I’d be less than honest if I said I could expect the 1980s to be a happier, or more peaceful, decade than the one just past, but I can only hope that it will be.”  Naylor will be the compere of Carols By Candlelight which is being telecast on the Nine Network for the first time after several years on the 0-10 Network.  “I feel very strongly about how much and what kind of programs newsreaders should ally themselves with outside the news area, but this is one that I’m delighted to do.  It’s a happy family night and I feel honoured working on a show that will be screened in homes at Christmas time around the country,” he told TV Times.  Having just completed his first year as newsreader at GTV9, the switch from rival HSV7 has proved so successful that Naylor and GTV are now negotiating a new three-year deal after only one year of the previous three-year contract.

Are you being served down under?
John Inman will star as the flamboyant Mr Humphries in an Australian version of the comedy series Are You Being Served?  Lyle McCabe Productions is set to make the 13-episode series for the 0-10 Network, with production due to start in Melbourne early in the new year.  “The idea is that Mr Humphries has been sent out to Australia to help a cousin of young Mr Grace,” producer Lyle McCabe told TV Times.  “All the characters in the Australian series will be similar to the ones in the British comedy.  Department stores around the world seem to attract a similar kind of person.”  A full cast list for the new series is expected to be announced in a few weeks.

Briefly…
The Restless Years star Ivar Kants is leaving the series after nine months as Ken Garrett.  Kants, with his wife and two children, will be heading to England where he will reprise the role of footballer Geoff Hayward in David Williamson’s play The Club.

Bert Newton (pictured) is almost certain to make his movie debut in Fatty Finn, based on the famous Australian comic strip.  It will be Newton’s first acting role since he appeared as a TV reporter in the short-lived comedy series, The Bluestone Boys.

Gerard Kennedy, best known from Division 4 and more recently in Against The Wind, is returning to TV with an ongoing role in Skyways as airline executive Gary Doolan.

Former Melbourne and Adelaide tonight show host Bob Moors hasn’t been seen on TV for a while, but is set to appear in the upcoming 0-10 Network mini-series Water Under The Bridge. 

Television producer Ron Way has left Seven’s This Is Your Life after 166 episodes to move to his latest venture, a telemovie based on the life of Johnny O’Keefe for the Reg Grundy Organisation.  Way had produced O’Keefe’s early-‘60s variety show Sing Sing Sing for the Seven Network.

Viewpoint: Letters to the Editor:
”I want to express my great disappointment at everyone’s best actress, Lorraine Bayly, not winning anything at all at the Sammy awards.  Every week we read of The Sullivans being Australia’s best show, yet it hardly rated a mention throughout the Sammys.”  V. Hannaford, WA.

“I am downright annoyed at all the TV networks for using late timeslots for shows worth watching.  Programs with a three-star rating are starting at 9.00pm to 10.30pm.  This is ridiculous when a movie buff like myself has to get up for work the next day.  What happened to the good old time of 8.30pm?” M. Mather, VIC.

“Is it any wonder that overseas celebrities often baulk at interviews by our TV reporters?  Sydney TEN10’s effort with Sammy Davis Jnr is a typical example.  Katrina Lee introduced him, then he was shown talking to her but we were not allowed to hear him at first before Katrina was too busy telling us what he was going to say.  Then we were allowed to hear Sammy say exactly what Katrina had already said.  Now by this I take it that the stations either think we are too stupid to understand such people or that these celebrities are so inarticulate that they won’t be understood.”  B. Rose, NSW.

What’s On (December 22-28):
Saturday and Sunday features the closing stages of the New South Wales Open tennis tournament, live on HSV7.  From Monday (Christmas Eve), attention moves to Melbourne’s Kooyong courts for the Australian Open.  With a break on Christmas Day, the Open resumes on Boxing Day.

GTV9 presents England versus the West Indies in World Series Cup cricket on Sunday, live from Brisbane.  Cricket resumes on Wednesday (Boxing Day) when Australia and England play in Sydney.

On Monday night (Christmas Eve), GTV9 presents live coverage of Carols By Candelight from Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl.  Hosted by Brian Naylor (pictured) and including performances by Rolf Harris, John Farnham and Linda George.

Christmas Eve also includes overseas Christmas specials from Are You Being Served? (ABC), Carry On Christmas (HSV7), Bing Crosby: The Christmas Years (GTV9) and the Morecambe And Wise Christmas Show (ATV0).  ATV0 also presents Sing We Noel, from the Mormon Symphony Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall, London, and a repeat of last week’s Sydney Festival Of Carols before Midnight Mass.

HSV7 starts earlier than usual on Christmas Day with movies from 8.00am through to 1.30pm.  Various Christmas and variety specials continue through the rest of the afternoon.  ABC starts its day at 11.00am with Divine Service, from the Anglican Church of St Clement in Kingston, Tasmania.  GTV9 has cartoons through the early morning before a Christian Television Association special at 8.30am.  Humphrey B. Bear presents his own Christmas message at 9.00am before GTV9 presents a replay of Carols By Candlelight at 10.00am.  Movies continue through the afternoon.

ATV0 doesn’t start on Christmas Day until 2.00pm with a special, The Magic Of Christmas, followed by the 1973 movie Miracle On 34th Street.

On Christmas night, ABC presents the Queen’s annual Christmas Message at 7.15pm followed by Christmas Round Australia at 7.30pm, showing the variety of ways in which children celebrate Christmas across Australia.  Followed at 8.30pm by a Christmas episode of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em.

HSV7’s Christmas night includes The Flintstones Christmas, The Stanley Baxter Christmas Show and the Father Knows Best Christmas Reunion.  GTV9 has Christmas episodes of The Odd Couple, Laverne And Shirley and Happy Days, followed by the 1978 telemovie Gift Of Love, starring Marie Osmond, Timothy Bottoms, June Lockhart, Bethel Leslie and Donald Moffatt.  At 10.30pm, GTV9 presents the Queen’s Christmas message followed by the movie Godspell.

ATV0 starts Christmas night with a Young Talent Time Christmas special at 6.30pm, followed at 7.30pm by the 1954 movie White Christmas, starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye.

Boxing Day features the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race, preview and official start, on ABC from 11.00am with Australian Open tennis and World Series Cup cricket on HSV7 and GTV9 respectively.  In the evening, HSV7 crosses to Ascot racecourse in Perth for the annual Australian Derby.

Sunday night movies: A Christmas To Remember (HSV7), Kotch (GTV9), Christmas: The Coal Mine Miracle (ATV0). 

Source: TV Times (Melbourne edition), 22 December 1979.  ABC/ACP