Derham Groves

That much maligned pop group The Monkees toured Australia in 1968. The cost of a ticket to see them at Festival Hall in Melbourne was only $2.10. Inflation is a truly frightening phenomenon.

The American-Chinese actress Anna May Wong performed at the Tivoli Theatre in Melbourne in 1939. Currently I’m doing research on the actress and her time in Australia. Few movie stars can surpass Anna May’s beauty and style.

‘Knowing how much the Chinese believe in lucky charms, I looked around the dressing room for some sign of this but as I could see no indication my curiosity prompted me to ask. Anna May picked up a quaint tiny shoe that had been fashioned into a pincushion, and told me it was her mascot, for it had actually enclosed one of her feet when she was a baby. When I pointed out that it resembled a boy’s shoe, she related the fact that, until the age of 10, she was brought up as a boy. It seems the first child in the family was a girl and then Anna May arrived. Her father was so annoyed because he had no heir to his name that he ordered Anna to be considered as such for nearly 10 years. It was her sister who kept Anna’s first shoes, and today she keeps the other one of the pair as a luck-bringer.’ Jonathan Swift, Sun, 13 June 1939.

The dreamy eyed Geoff Corke in his cardboard crown as King Corky and the very lovely Susan Gaye Anderson appearing on The Tarax Show. What a colourful set for black and white television! We never guessed.

While a little ‘beaten up’, this autograph album contains the signatures of some pioneers of Melbourne television: Abdul (World Championship Wrestling); “Happy” Hammond; Jeffery Lenner; Buster Fiddes; Danny Webb; Michael Williamson; Old Dad (Roy Lyons); John Darcy; Jocelyn Terry; Vikki Hammond; Vic Gordon; Sydney Heylen; Honest John (Gilbert); Jennie Ham; Joy Fountain; Philip Brady; Bob Moors; Kevin Colson; Patti McGrath; Susan Gaye Anderson; Randy Ross; Joff Ellen; Ron (Blaskett) & Gerry Gee; Prof. Ratbaggy (Ernie Carroll); and Sloppo the Clown.

Thumbnail sketches of (L-R) Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, and Shemp Howard—four absolute comic geniuses. Moe, Curly and Shemp were brothers. When Curly died, Shemp took his place. But not many people know there was another Howard brother, Johnny, who was extremely unfunny: