Have a Go News ambassador John Burgess continues his series of articles looking back on his career.
It took my move to Perth and constantly winning my slot on radio to launch a successful television career.
But it almost didn’t happen.
I’d been doing some pilot programs for a show called The Love Connection, which was a dating game that Kerry Packer spent a lot of money on, which never went ahead. It was an interesting concept, a little different to other dating shows in that they gave people the money before they went on a date.
People did some interesting things. One couple had themselves lowered onto a rock by a helicopter for a late afternoon nosh up and drink, which was very clever. Another couple hired the top of a building which had a spa they ended up in and it got a bit risqué for afternoon television.
They made five programs and people won trips away. Kerry spent probably $600,000-$700,000 on this program and then decided it was too late, he’d missed the boat and other dating programs had taken hold. So he dropped the idea altogether.
I was devastated, having gone through all the rigmarole and flying back and forth to do the pilot programs.
But about two days later the phone rang and I was told that Ernie Sigley was leaving Channel 7 to go back to Channel 9 to do a Tonight type program, which left the door open for Wheel of Fortune.
When Ernie was doing Wheel of Fortune, it was on at 3pm on Channel 7, Monday to Friday.
I was doing a lot of work for the channel, so they flew me over to Adelaide for an audition with Adriana Xenides, who was on the program already.
They decided to give me a go at it, and of course I did it for 12 years.
It was an interesting episode of my life, to go from the disappointment of not getting the dating program to suddenly being given the opportunity to do Wheel of Fortune and to turn it around into a very successful program in Australia.
It certainly helped to build my profile. I’d already been doing quite a bit; I’d hosted a lot of concerts and I’d been on the radio and was doing really well.
I came to Perth in 1978 and I had established myself here with the number one radio breakfast show in Perth. We won every survey for 10 years, 80 surveys, from about 1980 to 1992, so the television Wheel of Fortune was the icing on the cake.
The show also launched Lotto here and then Oz Lotto in Australia as well.
Everything happened to me in a big way when I came to Perth.
It was fantastic to see people win things on Wheel of Fortune. We didn’t offend anybody. It was a light-hearted interlude before the news which in most cases was delivering sad stories and the mayhem happening around the world.
Working with Adriana was fantastic and we got on like a house on fire.
We lost her in tragic circumstances when her small intestine burst, causing peritonitis. Her body filled with gut contents and left her in a coma.
She called me on my birthday in June when I was going to Sydney for a job. She had sent me a very long text which she was prone to do. She didn’t sleep all that well so she used to write these long texts to people during the night.
You’d get up in the morning and there’d be a short story about what she was doing and what she’d done and how she was feeling. She had wished me a happy birthday. I read it all in the car as we were driving to the airport.
I replied and said I’d stay an extra couple of days in Sydney, and my wife Jan and I would catch up with Adriana on the Monday. But on Monday morning, a relative of Adriana’s rang and said Adriana was in Liverpool Hospital in a coma. I couldn’t believe it. So we rushed there immediately.
My wife seems to think she opened her eyes and recognised me before slipping back into the coma. We stayed there for a couple of hours before we had to leave. We had been in the car for about half an hour after leaving the hospital, when they rang and said she’d passed away.
Somebody leaked the information to the media that Adriana had died and my phone went wild. When I woke up the following morning, I must have had 150 messages. Adriana would have been chuffed that people cared.
It was a sad time, but it made me thankful for what we have. And what I have seems to have worked. This is my 60th year in this caper so I must be doing something right.
Until next time, Burgo.
