The first thing to notice about veteran broadcaster and journalist John Ovenden’s home are the famous faces hanging on the walls.
Signed photographs, posters, letters and old anecdotes line the insides of his Adelaide Hills home, each representing a treasured memory of meeting some of the biggest stars in the world.
Over his 60-year career, the ABC newsreader and BBC World Service presenter racked up a long list of impressive encounters with Hollywood’s finest, including three James Bonds: Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan, as well as Jane Fonda, Michael Caine, Peter O’Toole, Anthony Perkins and Peter Finch, to name a few.
Now living on a property in the Hills, John is retired from his illustrious career and has endless memories of rubbing shoulders with movie stars, royalty and sporting heroes from around the world.
One of his best journalistic traits was his nose for a story or an interview opportunity – something he would never say no to if presented with a chance to get the scoop.
“The publicist would say, ‘oh, Frankie Vaughan the singer is coming out to Australia to sing in the clubs in Sydney. Could you do an interview with him and they’ll play it before he arrives to publicise his performances?’,” John recalls.
“Of course, my answer to everything is ‘yes, let’s go’.
“So out I went to his palatial mansion to do the interview and we got on really well.
“At the end he said ‘I really enjoyed that, will you stay for supper? Two other guests are coming and they’ve written a book. I’ll see if they talk to you as well and you’ll have another interview’.
“It was Morecambe and Wise, the very famous comedy double act.”
John’s career began in the 1960s at ABC Radio Adelaide.
He joined the world of radio after he got talking to the station’s then-producer, Ian Marshall, while riding the bus to the city one day.
John had freshly arrived from London and that chance encounter with Ian – who offered him a job – set his future on course.
He began doing a couple of interviews a week for the Adelaide station.
“The first one (interview) was with classical pianist Alfred Brendel, a very nice man,” John says.
“I had my list of prepared questions and he had band-aids on the end of his fingers and I wondered what they were.
“I said ‘Mr Brendel, I can’t help but notice you’ve got band-aids on the end of your fingers. Why is this?
“And he started really laughing and said, ‘because I only play the piano when I’m plastered!’.”
John went on to spend 26 years at the ABC working in radio and then TV before returning to London to read the news for the BBC World Service.
For the major bulletins he was often talking to an audience of three billion people.
Many times, one celebrity interview led to the next, as was the case with his encounter with cinematic legend Michael Caine at London’s Covent Garden for the film Educating Rita.
“We sat down and I had my prepared list of questions and after the third one he (Michael) reached forward, grabbed my notes and threw them over the room,” John says.
“He said, ‘that will teach you to listen to what I’m saying’.
“I said, ‘well, I’ve only just arrived from Australia and I haven’t had time’. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, ‘listen to what I’m saying’.
“Anyway, he thought that was very funny.”
After that, another interview followed the next day – Roger Moore at the iconic Pinewood Studios.
“So the next morning I sat down and asked him (Roger), ‘Do you do your own stunts in the Bond film? ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I also do my own lying’.”
Other fond exchanges over the years included British actor and novelist David Niven, American actor Ernest Borgnine and Psycho star Anthony Perkins, as well as American actress Jane Fonda who John says only agreed to an interview if she was first taken shopping at department store Harrods.
Another was Marvin Hamlisch, the composer of the Barbara Streisand hit The Way We Were.
Stories on sporting stars have included Muhammed Ali and his boxing rival Henry Cooper, tennis champion John McEnroe and English cricketers the Surrey spin twins Jim Laker and Tony Lock.
John says the thrill of securing a prized interview with a cinematic, music or sporting legend is heightened when the conversation flows well and the star offers a glimpse into their otherwise private life.
“After an interview like that, when they’ve really opened up, you’re walking out into the street three feet above the ground,” he says.
“You’re in another world, you really are.”
Many of John’s star encounters came about through a combination of good fortune and, above all, his dogged determination to always get the scoop.
“The nice people talk to you and those who don’t want to, don’t,” he says.
“The big six never talk to the press – Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Laurence Olivier – you’re wasting your time chasing them.
“Unless it’s teed up for you by a publicist, I was meeting these people by chance and sometimes I’d have one minute to sell myself and for them to think, ‘why should I talk to this bloke?’.
“Sometimes they needed something.
“Some of the stories, the deal was: ‘you do this for me and I’ll give you an interview’.”
John eventually stepped away from full-time broadcasting but remained active in the arts scene, becoming a theatre reviewer and writing short plays.
These days he is occupied by public speaking commitments, radio voiceovers and a regular appearance on award-winning Adelaide journalist Jeremy Cordeaux’s podcast, The Court of Public Opinion.
Although the famous encounters and remarkable interviews are behind him, one thing remains constant – his love for telling stories.
