Over the years, the late Bert Newton became the unofficial face of the Logies, as he hosted the ceremony a massive 19 times.
He won the Gold Logie multiple times himself, taking out the top gong on four separate occasions, but after Newton’s death in 2021, it emerged he had actually given away one of his Gold Logies to a dying AIDS patient.
Showbiz reporter Peter Ford revealed that in the ’90s, he had a friend who was dying of AIDS in a Melbourne hospital, and only had a few weeks left to live. Ford sent letters to various celebrities on his friend’s behalf, asking them to sign a card and send it back.
“Five days later, I went to the hospital and there was a buzz in the air. The person on the desk said, ‘You’re not going to believe it – Bert Newton was just here. He’s gone around to every single person on the AIDS ward, sat at their bedside, told them stories and made them laugh’.”
Newton even left behind one of his Logies as a gift.
