Tommy Hanlon Jr.

Born to vaudeville performers, Tommy Hanlon Jr. was taken into his mother and father's act at age 4 and kept performing for the rest of his life. After two years with the Orson Welles Mercury Theatre in Los Angeles in the 1940s, and appearing on stage alongside W.C. Fields, he came to Australia in the early days of television in the late 1950s and first appeared as a comedian with the popular In Melbourne Tonight. As the program became The Graham Kennedy Show, Hanlon devised his trademark, comic Letter From Mom segment. So popular did Hanlon become that the Nine Network signed him to host the network's first national daytime show, It Could Be You, which launched in 1960 and became a ratings hit with its surprise reunions of long-separated relatives and friends. It Could be You was the highest rating daytime TV show ever in Australia, so it came as a shock to many when Hanlon quit TV in 1978 to concentrate on his other great love, the circus. He toured Australia until 2001 with Silvers Circus. He was married twice. His first marriage ended in divorce; the couple's son, Tommy, went on to invent a vertical take-off aircraft and became vice-president of Bell Helicopters. He met his second wife Muriel - whom he always called "Murphy" - while entertaining US troops in Korea. She died in 1990. He is survived by his daughter April, son Tommy, four grandsons and a great grand-daughter.