In a rarely acknowledged achievement, Willesee effectively laid the template for Rupert Murdoch’s early current affairs programs on the nascent Fox network in the US in the late 80s. Murdoch even started a program called A Current Affair on a Fox station in New York in 1987, featuring the legendary former Sydney Daily Mirror police reporter Steve Dunleavy, and replicated Willesee’s winning editorial mix.
Born in 1942, Michael Willesee was the son of WA Labor Senator, and later Foreign Minister in the Whitlam Government, Don Willesee.
After working at the Perth afternoon paper, The Daily News, and The Age in Melbourne, he joined the ABC’s This Day Tonight program, and soon made his mark.
He later hosted the ABC’s Four Corners before moving across to Channel Nine and launching A Current Affair as his own, personally developed program. Frank Packer, who was still head of the family magazine and television business, objected to Willesee’s political interviews and even his family pedigree, causing an intra-family feud that contributed to the voluntary corporate exile to California of Kerry’s Packer’s older brother, Clyde Packer.
But Willesee continued on Nine, and A Current Affair became a runaway success. “The word legend is somewhat too readily conferred in modern times, but it describes Mike to a tee,” Nine boss Hugh Marks said on Friday.
Willesee pretty much dominated commercial TV current affairs for more than four decades, either through his own programs, spin-offs – often hosted by blood relatives – or just his pervasive presence, even when formally absent from the screen.
Colleagues remember a man who played and lived hard, led a complicated personal life, but had a dazzling smile, loved a joke and was warm at heart.
Mr Marks said that at Channels Nine and Seven Willesee “moulded” the current affairs medium on television “into an art form”.
“His particular skills as an interviewer are unarguably the stuff of legend. Most famously the ‘Willesee pause’ where Mike deliberately allowed many seconds of silence to pass before his next question. He knew the power of silence, or a slight quizzical tilt of the head, would usually cause a hapless interviewee to fall into the mistake of speaking to fill the dead air.
“This ‘gotcha’ technique came to represent Michael Willesee at his brilliant best,” Mr Marks said.
“When others spoke too much, he said only what was necessary – the short, sharp question which everyone was thinking, but no-one dared ask. He had a mind as sharp as a steel trap and a sense of humour as cheeky as his smile.”
According to David Leckie, Michael Willesee “wasn’t just a television journalist he was a very successful businessman in packaging television programs,” noting that Willesee owned and ran the business that produced A Current Affair.
In a statement, an ABC spokeswoman said the broadcaster was saddened to hear of the loss and extended deepest condolences to Willesee’s family. “Mike was a great of Australian journalism, and is an important part of the ABC’s history,” the ABC said.
“He has many friends and former colleagues here, and many more admirers who have been inspired by the talent, integrity and bravery that distinguished his career and life.”
Since news of Willesee’s passing spread on Friday, former colleagues have taken to social media to pay tribute.
from Just News Viral https://ift.tt/2NC9y2D
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