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Topic: Australian TV Legend: Don Lane dies aged 75.
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John Wilson
Film God
Posts: 5438
From: Sydney, Australia.
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 10-22-2009 12:18 AM
TV legend Don Lane dies, age 75
By staff writers and AAP
news.com.au
October 22, 2009 02:24pm
DON Lane, the expatriate American who became a giant of Aussie TV, has died at age 75.
Channel 9, the station that hosted Don Lane's long-running show has reported the death this afternoon.
The multiple-Logie winner died from a dementia-related illness this morning, his manager Jayne Ambrose said.
"His son is devastated and Australia has suffered a great loss today," Ambrose said.
Ambrose said the funeral for the 75-year-old would be held on Friday with a public memorial to be announced.
"He passed away late this morning. It was a dementia-related illness," she said.
"It's a very sad day for the family."
Lane had been living in a care facility since 2008, when reports surfaced that he was suffering from dementia.
The American-born Lane was best known for his work on the hugely successful Don Lane Show, which ran on the Nine Network from the 1970s until 1983.
It was on the show that he formed a close friendship with fellow entertainer Bert Newton.
Lane won more than 15 Logies during his career and in 2003 he was inducted in the Australian Logies Hall of Fame.
He made a guest appearance on the ABC's Late Show in 1993 and hosted American NFL broadcasts for the ABC in the 1990s.
He helped my career: Farnham
John Farnham has told news.com.au that Lane's passing is a huge blow to the entertainment industry.
"What a sad loss, as a young singer I worked on the Don Lane Show often and we became good friends as he helped me over my nerves at being on live TV," Farnham said.
"He always had something positive to say and always gave me much needed advice, which I still rely heavily on today."
Farnham, who appeared on the final episode of the Don Lane Show on November 13, 1983, said Lane helped foster many artists.
"He was a great entertainer and a real supporter of Australian performers of all kinds myb thoughts are with his family and friends."
'Funny until the end'
Lane was charismatic and funny until the very end, his close friend and biographer Janise Beaumont says.
"He didn't want this to happen, but he was still Don," Ms Beaumont told Macquarie Radio.
"And pretty much up to the end he was very tactile ... he loved hugs, he still could make eye contact, still be funny, still be charismatic - but this bastard of Alzheimer's...
"We've got to find a cure.
"I'll go on any committee, I'll dress up in a chicken suit to raise money to help find a cure because it robs people of so much."
Ms Beaumont said she noticed Lane was "starting to be a bit fragile" when she began working on his biography more than three years ago.
"A lot of people did drop off like flies in Don's life, and I know that above all else Don would want me to say to people `if you know anybody with Alzheimer's, there's still a person in there, and don't walk away from them'," she said.
She said she had been friends with the American-born television personality for almost 40 years.
"I know him incredibly well and I love him very much," she said.
"I preferred the world with him in it."
Ms Beaumont said she was proud of Lane for completing the book because it had been hard for him at times.
"But he had such a story to tell, such a story about adventures, talent and dreams, and a lot of women," she said.
"He was so charismatic and I am one of the women who fell under his spell for a short time many years ago ... but that was nothing compared to the friendship."
Early career
Lane was born in New York City and raised in The Bronx.
Although he was lured to the showbiz industry early in his life, Lane was drafted into the US Army in the 50s and commissioned as an officer. After he left, he returned to tour as an entertainer for the US troops for several years.
He rubbed shoulders with some of the industries most famous names, learning his craft alongside greats such as Sammy Davis Jr, Wayne Newton and Johnny Carson.
It was Newton that first saw Lane’s potential however, and after Irish comedian Dave Allen was sacked from a Sydney talkshow, Newton told Nine producers that Lane was the man for the job.
Given six weeks to prove himself, Lane based his Tonight Show on Carson’s version of the same name in the US.
He was hired permanently within a month and his run extended to 40 shows, but by the end of the Sixties, he had returned to work in the US.
In 1975, he returned to Australia with The Don Lane Show to huge acclaim, becoming at the time the highest-paid performer on Australian TV. The show was a rating smash hit, running through to 1983 and still remains the highest rating variety show in Australian television history.
Throughout the 80s and 90s, Lane made several guest appearances on Australian TV and became a popular regular in the States as a guest broadcaster on NFL Superbowl days.
He publicly announced he was battling Alzheimer’s Disease in 2008.
Controversy
Lane’s career was not without controversy, however. He was once sent to prison for importing marijuana into Australia, but was found not guilty after claiming the drugs were planted on him by a vengeful associate.
He was also a supporter of celebrity psychic Uri Geller and one of his most famous television moment came when sceptic James Randi appeared on Lane’s show to debunk Geller’s work.
Lane grew increasingly heated during the interview and ended it by standing up, sweeping props from the table and telling Randi to “piss off”.
He later made a televised apology to Randi.
In the early 80s, Lane was ejected from the Logie Awards ceremony after attempting to punch TV identity Ernie Sigley, with whom he had developed a long-running feud.
In 2003, he was inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards Hall of Fame.
Paul Hogan's Don Lane Tribute
Sammy Davis Jr. pays tribute to Don Lane
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