The King is dead at 83. For as long as there was TV in Australia, there was always Bert Newton.

My first memory of Bert, like any kid growing up in the 90s, was the smooth talking funny guy on Good Morning Australia. Together with his cast of misfits, somehow Bert made us all feel like we could fit in too.

In high school my mates and I would always refer to his funny antics. Gabriel Gaté, :now here’s Moira”, and of course Belvedere.

Bert’s talent was much bigger than Australia. The man who Bob Hope labelled funnier than him, and without the team of writers. The icon, the legend, the moonface.

Of course his career went back a lot further than the 90s. Older Australian generations went to bed watching his antics with Graham Kennedy on IMT – In Melbourne Tonight. Bert never minded playing second fiddle – the straight man, the funny man, whatever.

He was an ultimate professional. We know about all of the things that were going on behind the scenes, as no one’s life is perfect. But on camera, his delivery was perfect.

And just as he appeared on the box and never let us see the dramas going on (the near bankruptcy, his renegade son), we all tuned in as viewers to escape our own realities too. It was the perfect arrangement.

He taught generations of performers the old school rules of entertainment. The self-deprecation, the timing, the polished performance. You might remember his face, but I remember his voice, and the way he could time everything perfectly.

The day I met him was at the 25th anniversary of the Herald Sun newspaper celebration. I couldn’t stop smiling that for a moment my moonface almost matched his.

SAVING THE LOGIES

Bert could appear at the Logies and save the night from boring oblivion. As television became more corporate, more staged, more edited and more vanilla, Bert crashed through. Sometimes too far, and while the new age Twitter crusaders would call for his scalp, he crashed though the latest fad of cancel culture.

This was a man who had dealt with old school TV proprietors. A self-appointed angry mob wasn’t going to stop him.

His quick wit, his ability to “go there” made him the king of the double entendre.

His banter with the crew of GMA brought down the fourth wall.

I remember when he shifted from Ten to Nine to host Family Feud and the way he electrified Studio 9 at the old Nine building in Bendigo Street, Richmond.

Somehow he feels much older than 83 because he was always there. To generations he starred in their childhood, entertained their adulthood and kept them entertained on the TV in the nursing home.

There was only one Bert, and his passing reminds us of how much the world has changed, yet he was the happy consistent through all that change.

Vale Moonface.