Noel Ferrier

Noel Ferrier AM (20 December 1930 – 16 October 1997) was an Australian television personality, comedian, stage and film actor, raconteur and theatrical producer. He had an extensive theatre career which spanned over fifty years.

Noel Ferrier was born in Melbourne in 1930. A member of the first Australian professional repertory company, the Union Theatre Repertory Company (now the Melbourne Theatre Company), he created the role of 'Roo' in the original production of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll at the Union Theatre of the University of Melbourne. He appeared in numerous films and television productions. A contemporary of Barry Humphries, in 1956 he was the "interviewer" of the first onstage appearance of a certain Mrs. Norm Everage, later known universally as Dame Edna Everage.

He was the original host of the late-1950s HSV-7 series The Late Show, before being replaced with Bert Newton. To ease the workload on Graham Kennedy, he was invited by GTV9 to host a Friday night version of In Melbourne Tonight from 1963 to 1965. This was stylistically different from that of Kennedy's IMT – "dyed-in-the-wool IMT viewers switched off in their droves" – Noel Ferrier's In Melbourne Tonight (as it was known) attracted a separate and loyal audience, resulting in a Logie for Most Popular Program in Victoria in 1964. Following this success, the network decided to relay the show in Sydney on TCN9, but in the early hours of the following morning after live telecasts of World Championship Wrestling.

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