Australian media trailblazer Clive Robertson has died at the age of 78.
The veteran broadcaster, known for his work on both the ABC and Seven, passed away from cancer last week.
He was best known to Australian viewers for his appearances on Newsworld and Beauty and the Beast.
He had been battling cancer in the last two years, according to entertainment reporter Peter Ford.
Fellow ABC presenter and broadcaster Margaret Throsby paid tribute to her former on-air partner via social media on Thursday.
‘Very very sad to learn of the death of my old partner in crime Clive Robertson,’ Throsby wrote on X.
Australian media trailblazer Clive Robertson has died at the age of 78. Pictured
‘Eccentric, one-off, brilliant broadcaster, tease, unreconstructed, his Breakfast show on 702 Sydney was essential listening. RIP.’
With a career spanning four decades, Robertson began working at a number of stations in the southwest of Western Australia in the late 1960s.
He joined the ABC in 1972, beginning at Sydney’s breakfast radio station 2BL alongside Throsby, before moving to Canberra, where he worked on 2CY and 2CN.
Robertson briefly worked at 2DAYFM in 1980 but returned to the ABC shortly after.
The broadcast veteran has a massive radio career spanning both FM and AM bands, having presented radio programs on ABC Classic FM, 2GB, 2SM, 2UE, 6IX, 6TZ and 6VA.
In the 1980s, Robertson moved to Channel Seven where he hosted talk show Beauty and the Beast.
He later hosted the news program 11AM before later becoming the host of Newsworld in 1985.
In 1989, Robertson infamously interviewed the late former prime minister Bob Hawke, where Hawke made the bombshell on-air admission of cheating on his then-wife of 33 years, Hazel.
Robertson had been battling cancer in the last two years
With a career spanning four decades, Robertson began working at a number of stations in the southwest of Western Australia in the late 1960s
During the teary interview, Roberston asked about rumours of Hawke being a ‘womaniser’ and what the accusations meant.
‘They mean that I wasn’t faithful to my wife,’ Hawke replied.
Hawke added that the statement was true, before describing Hazel as an incredible woman.
6PR’s Peter Ford also remembered the late broadcaster during his radio show on Thursday.
‘He was very good, and of course, probably doing late night news where he’d go off script and make funny and acerbic remarks about the people, and that had never been done before,’ Ford said.
‘I mean, Graham Kennedy did it later on Nine, but even today, we don’t really have people doing that, and that gave him like this incredible cult following.’
Robertson was married to A Country Practice star Penny Cook, who died in 2018 at the age of 61.
