Kerri-Anne Kennerley

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Kerri-Anne Kennerley
File:Kerri-AnneKennerleySept2011.jpg
Kennerley in September 2011
Born Kerri-Anne Wright
(1953-09-22) 22 September 1953 (age 71)
Brisbane, Qld, Australia
Residence Woollahra, Sydney, Australia
Occupation Television presenter
Singer
Known for TV variety show
Spouse(s) John Kennerley (1984–present)

Kerri-Anne Kennerley (née Wright; born 22 September 1953) is an Australian television personality and singer. She is one of Australia's most seasoned light entertainment hosts. She is noted for her very professional and personable hosting style, and her ability to handle awkward guests and situations with gentle humour and composure.

Career

Kennerley, known by her initials as KAK, has rarely been out of the public eye since her first television appearance in 1967 at the age of 13 on the children's shows The Channel Niners and Everybody's In on Brisbane's QTQ 9. Her audience stayed with her when she crossed to The Saturday Show on Network Ten, and when she tackled the New York cabaret circuit as a 19-year-old singer.

Upon her return to Australia in 1981 after a five-year stint in the US, Kennerley met her future husband. In that year she landed her first adult role on Australian TV, as the dowdy Melinda Burgess in TV series The Restless Years, a teen-oriented soap opera. She hosted the breakfast TV program Good Morning Australia on Network Ten a role she held for 11 years. During the 1980s Kennerley also performed as a singer, and released a self-titled album (Kerri-Anne) as well as a Christmas album in 1985.[1] Her cabaret singing style was parodied by singer and comedian Gina Riley on the TV comedy show Fast Forward. She also appeared on the television show and later record album Andrew Denton's Musical Challenge with a rendition of the AC/DC song Dirty Deeds.

From 1996 until 1998, she was the compere of the daytime-variety TV show Midday. Her hosting duties on the show earnt her three Gold Logie nominations. Once Midday finished in late 1998, she joined the What's Cooking program in 1999. This role, however, (and the program itself) only lasted a few months. Both Midday and Whats Cooking aired on the Nine Network.

In 2001, she shifted to Channel Ten to host Greed and Moment of Truth. Both shows flopped and lasted only a handful of episodes.

In 2002 Kennerley returned to the Nine Network where she hosted Kerri-Anne (formerly titled 'Mornings with Kerri-Anne') for nine years, before it was cancelled and replaced with Mornings She has garnered considerable media attention from the program's dance instruction segments featuring prominent Australian politicians – Peter Costello and the macarena, Cheryl Kernot and the Cha-cha-cha and Kevin Rudd and the rumba. Her more memorable interviewees included the normally reticent Priscilla Presley who discussed her ex-husband Elvis and daughter Lisa Marie.[2] American TV actor John Stamos who appeared on her show in June 2007 was arguably her most challenging interview. Two years later Stamos conceded that he was drunk, which confirmed media speculation raised at the time.[3] Kennerley also persuaded Russell Crowe to hurl himself against a wall on her show. Kennerley caused controversy in 2010 while discussing sexual assault allegations involving two Collingwood Football Club players on her show by referring to women who socialize with footballers as "strays" and for suggesting that "responsibility cuts both ways".[4]

Kennerley moved to the Seven Network in 2012, and appeared as a contestant on the network's program Dancing with the Stars. She will also host a new as yet unnamed prime-time program for the network which has been put on hold due to Kennerley's cancer battle,[5] as well as appearing regularly on other shows as a guest reporter on Sunday Night and fill in presenter for Kylie Gillies on The Morning Show

In September 2013, Kennerley joined Foxtel to present the true crime series Behind Mansion Walls for the Crime & Investigation Network. The initial order is for 13 one-hour episodes.[6] Kennerley has also been a guest panelist on Network Ten's The Project.[7]

Kennerley is an advisor on the fourth season of The Celebrity Apprentice Australia.[8]

Personal life

Kennerley was born Kerri-Anne Wright in Brisbane, Queensland, the daughter of a builder/hobby farmer. Along with her three siblings, she was raised in Brisbane's bayside suburb of Sandgate.[9] In 1984 she married divorcee John Kennerley at the Sydney Opera House, the first such event to be held there. "Meeting John was the biggest turning point in my life" she says. Kennerley has two step children, plus a pet dog 'Harvey', which she named after former band leader Geoff Harvey. In 2016, they had a golden retriever named "Digger". In a 2006 interview in The Australian Women's Weekly, she revealed that they had tried to have children for many years, that she had a miscarriage 15 years ago, and will always regret not having children.[10] Kennerley has received several nominations for the Australian Skeptics' annual Bent Spoon Awards due to her uncritical acceptance of psychics and psychic phenomena.[citation needed]

In June 2012 Kennerley revealed in an interview in New Idea magazine that she has breast cancer.[11]

Kennerley is a keen golfer with a handicap of 17. In 2013 she was elected to the board of Golf Australia.[12]

In March 2016 her husband was paralysed after injuring his neck in a fall at Coffs Harbour.[13]

Awards

Kennerley has been nominated on numerous occasions for a Logie. She was nominated for the Gold Logie in 1997, 1998 and 1999 for her role as host of Midday. She has also been nominated for many other awards.

Kennerley was awarded a star on the Caloundra Walk of Stars in 1988. She is between Leo Sayer and Lucky Grills.

TV and radio work

References

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External links

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