Daly at Night. and The Delo and Daly show. Norman Spencer had an astute eye for talent and engaged the services of two young Americans for appearances on In Melbourne Tonight, when the singing and comedy duo arrived in Melbourne in the late fifties/beginning sixties. When Spencer made the switch to HSV7 he also made a concerted effort to sign the pair for a new variety program he had in mind. Ken Delo, the singing part of the act, had commitments back in the States, but Jonathan Daly stayed and became the compere of Daly At Night, which followed Sunny Side Up. as a late-night, laid-back, talk, interview, low-key-music offering, produced by D.Y.T. (Dargie/Young/Tilbrook) around 1962. The program featured a chat group that interacted with Daly, and some of the panel names were Julian Jover, Kitty Bluett, Frank Thring and a young lass billed as Betty Bobbitt from Big Bear, whom Jonathan had enticed out to Australia, and was to go on to play the part of Judy Bryant in Prisoner in the late 70s and early 80s. Music was supplied by the Horrie Dargie quartet and sometimes quintet, with Reg Cantwell on piano, and Julie McKenna providing vocals. I worked on some of the shows, being paid to look after camera cables on Sunny and then as a boom pusher on Daly. One night Jon interviewed Henry Fonda, out here to publicize How The West Was Won, the Cinerama block-buster movie with the remarkable sound track and a cast rivalling that of The Longest Day. I was bowled over, being in that darkened corner, in the cavern of a studio that The Teletheatre was, where all the lighting was focused on the interview set to watch Jon Daly chatting to Fonda... Henry Jaynes Fonda...Yep, Jaynes. 1905-1982. I was eighteen years old and eighteen paces away from the star who had played the part of Tom Joad in the 1940 Steinbeck inspired movie The Grapes of Wrath, followed by classics such as The Ox-Bow Incident,12 Angry Men, Once Upon A Time In The West, and his Best Actor award for On Golden pond. Even I said, naive as I was, that Daly At Night was before its time. The other thing I recall was that I didnt have a car and relied on a bus to get me home. Daly at Night usually finished at eleven, though sometimes ran over. I had to walk up to Rathedown Street and catch the bus to West Heidelberg. Dark, wet winters nights I walked wide of lanes and alleys, always ready to drop my wallet (Empty) and run. Once or twice I walked home, after missing the last bus. When The Delo and Daly Show began, 1963, I was full-time staging. Ken Delo had returned to Melbourne and by then, both Ken and Jon had their wives with them. The two guys were cool, sophisticated and looked great on screen. I rarely saw their wives, but when I did, they looked well suited to their dapper, well-mannered husbands. Ken and Jon kept themselves somewhat separated from the general crew, but ready to banter with Neddy Paine, the floor-manager and of course Norm, who would speed down from the Control Room, to correct and curse us. Crumb-bums, all of you! And then go on to give his production advice to his two stars. What I really liked about the show was its clean, brand-new sets, all designed by George Havrillay, whose son Garry recalled how he loved coming into the studios at Seven and the Teletheater as a youngster. His Father had a great reputation as a set designer, but it is only recently that I had the chance to look at the prodigious output of evocative artwork that George created during his life. One of the sets George designed for Delo and Daly was a huge snow-bound forest. We were knee-deep in styrene foam pods. Betty Bobbitt only had one line in the sketch, which was Here he comes...Now! repeated as a running gag, because no one actually appeared. We video-taped the segment, but I dont think it ever went to air, which was a great pity. I wonder if any of those videos survived, but sadly doubt it. The opening of each show began with the two boys coming forward from the rear of the studio and walking up the brilliantly designed, black and white patterned floor. Each of the segments was painted on Masonite and the ones at the rear were small enough to pick up in one hand, whereas the foreground ones were bigger than I was and took some hefting. It was a very clever use of perspective. Amongst the regular acts was the extremely talented trio, trained and choreographed by Joe Latona and billed as The Joe Latona Dancers. One of the guys was named Chris, and the girl was Julie Dawtry, whom cameraman Lyle Hughes pursued with much enthusiasm. This tiny troupe, drilled and coached to perfection by Latona, performed with a class above other jazz dancers of the time. But of course it was the two main men, their banter and crooning: Delo reminding us of Gordon MacRae or Dean Martin, and Daly, with his buck-toothed buffoonery and sallies into song, of Jerry Lewis. These two buddies, from their army time in the last days of The Second World War, made a genuine partnership for this show, though behind the scenes, they were also hard and clever businessmen. Daly, although on screen the court jester, in reality was the driver who forged a bargain with Norm Spencer, whilst his partner was overseas. That bargain led to one of the slickest, professionally produced series on Melbourne television to that date, and certainly rivaled, and indeed bested, In Melbourne Tonight. In my twenty-seven years working in T.V. The Delo and Daly Show was a highlight because of all the above. The two men, fresh, clean-cut, bright, crazy, sentimental: I tell you every streets a boulevard in old New York, every streets a highway of your dreams, Jon, harmonizing to Ken, and clowning as well. Just remember theres the East Side, yeah! And The West Side, yeah! And the Uptown and Down. Thats why were proud to be a part of New York town. When it was all over, when each show was finished and the audience had gone home, and the Teletheater was silenced, except for the occasional ping of contracting metal after intense lighting heat, the two stars, together with their wives went off to dine somewhere in the Melbourne of that time. We, the crew, were left behind... Except we werent forgotten. In the year or so that the program was produced, we were always remembered. Back then, it was still the era of six oclock Closing. We finished taping before an audience sometimes ten, eleven at night. And the two stars provided all the crew with a beer: possibly, maybe, Norm Spencer had a hand in that as well. In any event, upstairs on the right-hand staircase of the old dress circle, the crew, from top to lowliest, would lift a can of V.B. in a salute to a job well done. There was always a pecking order: From the rear of the circle of the Teletheater, on the highest step up, perched Norm Spencer and his secretary/switcher. Peter Bramley, the Technical Directer, and Ken Hancock, Lighting Director, next step down. After came the audio guys and then the floor manager and camera crew, followed by other techos, then the props people and finally, staging. Me? I was at about the end of the line that stretched from the rear of the circle all along the way past the dressing rooms and round the corner to the other stairs up to the circle on the left-hand side. But I was right there, taking it all in. I still have the cuff-links that Jon Daly and Ken Delo gave all of us when the show ended. They are chrome, with D.D.imprinted in black. These cuff-links represent a time in television of new-found vision, of exploration and discovery, of what could and would be to come. They are also a reminder of a pair of very talented men, and of their time in the Australian scene when even the most menial were proud to wear the token of two class Yanks.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 06:51:15 +0000
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