John Laws, the towering and often divisive figure of Australian talk radio known as the “Golden Tonsils”, has died, aged 90.
His death was confirmed on Sunday by his family, who said in a statement: “Today marks a very difficult day for our family, with the news that our beloved father/grandfather/uncle John Laws has died peacefully at home.”
“While fame and prominence had become a mainstay of his life, for us he was always the person who meant so much, away from the microphone, the cameras, and the headlines. It is comforting to know that John’s was a life lived well – he had remained in good health and even better spirits right up until the last few weeks.”
Laws spent two weeks in hospital in October and died at his home in the Sydney suburb of Woolloomooloo, reported ABC News.
Laws’ gravelly and indisputably familiar voice dominated Australian airwaves for more than seven decades, making him one of the country’s most influential broadcasters and a transformational presence in commercial radio.
Born Richard John Sinclair Laws in Wau in what was then the Territory of New Guinea in August 1935, Laws survived polio twice in his life. He began his career at station 3BO in 1953 and moved into Sydney’s major radio circuit before eventually becoming dominant in morning talkback.
Laws was one of the highest-paid radio performers of his era and syndicated across scores of stations. In his peak years, his morning show drew an audience estimated at around two million listeners.
His reach went well beyond his radio show, as commercial brands paid for his voice and senior politicians used his programme as a place to make announcements.
In the 1980s, he fronted a Valvoline motor oil campaign 1980s and supplied voiceover for a 1968 Holden advert.
At the same time, political figures treated his morning programme as a platform, and by the early 1980s, politicians were routinely booking time on his show to reach voters directly.
The 1983 federal election was widely described at the time as the “John Laws election” because of the number of major campaign announcements made on his programme, and former prime minister Paul Keating later said, according…
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