Fifteen Minutes of Fame

Fifteen Minutes of Fame Part 4

Red Faces, Melodrama, Plucka!

My clock was ticking and in the myth of it all my fifteen minutes of fame was just about up. Several cameras had caught my reaction to more funny moments throughout the remainder of the show including me being in the band, miming and jiving with the musicians through one of their sets. My cousin Peter from New South Wales, who I had not been in contact with for some years, happened to turn on his television just at that point. He saw me tickling the keys of a Yamaha organ with Wilbur playing the sax over my right shoulder and the conductor waving his hands over my left. He promptly phoned my brother in Victoria and questioned him on when it was I had joined the cast of Hey Hey it's Saturday!

My brother was a little confused, as far as he knew I worked in a bank! Peter suggested my brother turn his television on to Channel Nine and so there I was now on TV in front of my brother and his family!

David Helfgott, the life story of whom was told in the Hollywood film Shine and played in two parts by brilliant Australian actors Noah Taylor and Geoffrey Rush, (Rush won the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Helfgott), appeared next on the show. He played the Khachaturian Sabre Dance to perfection in a puffy white silk shirt and black pants reminiscent of the 'pirate shirt' worn in the Seinfeld show. A master pianist, he was also promoting his latest CD Brave New World. The audience applauded and we headed for yet another commercial break.

Retiring marathon swimmer Shelley Taylor-Smith, Formula One racing car driver Mark Webber and jeans designer and former Sale of the Century co-host Jo Bailey were all later guests on the show. Two and a half years Jo Bailey said she had been on Sale of the Century when asked.

'She was on Sale for two and a half years', cried Red Symons, 'no one told me!'

Red Symons was the man everyone loved to hate. He had built a reputation for being one of the nastiest judges on his own signature segment, Red Faces. I'm not sure which was first, the American Gong Show or Australia's Red Faces, but the format of the two was similar. Red Faces didn't go for 30 minutes however. In tonight's segment we would see a comedy singing Elvis Presley impersonator, a long red-haired stand-up comic and a shot at sight comedy with an act titled the Red Fairy. He was a six foot hairy-legged man wearing a bright red tutu and pink singlet with dainty wings and a sparkling tiara.

If I had watched this segment from my own home, like the majority of Australians, I would never have realised Daryl's real dislike of Elvis impersonators. I wasn't at home however; I was sitting next to him. This part of my experience on the set really tickled me. Red Faces was synonymous with the show and here I was watching it from the side of the studio with Daryl Somers to my right and Red with the big brass gong behind him, watching the acts more seriously than I thought he would; he was sitting to my left a mere few feet away!

The first act started and indeed this performance was sad. Yet another of the hundreds of Elvis acts that had filled the same spot in the segments long and colourful history and as John Blackman had mentioned at the end, 'there's fifty thousand Elvis impersonators out there!

Before long, Daryl called for Red to gong Act One. Red didn't hear him and I say that allegedly! The Elvis guy continued in destroying the song 'the Wonder of You' as the host again called for the gong! No one at home could hear this. I looked at Red and he remained seated but with a wicked smile now emerging from his inaction. Red was obviously enjoying this, if not the act, at least the torment it was causing his employer. Daryl looked at me and quietly yet meaningfully said, 'I hate Elvis impersonators'.

The act was gonged a few seconds before it died its own natural death. Daryl hadn't waited for either, he had started to kill the act by walking out to say thanks for coming, inevitably forcing the hand of Red to gong. No act ever finished without being gonged, well not usually. It was so amusing to be at the net in this game of tennis between Red and Daryl, yet there I was! The results; The Red Fairy won by one point over the stand-up comic on seventeen out of a possible thirty. Elvis Presley, the impersonated version, suffered last with a score of eleven.