AFTER 50 years as a journalist, Baden Pratt reckons it was his toughest assignment; capturing the riotous life of broadcaster George Grljusich.
Pratt had been asked by the late Cockburn legend’s twin daughters to put together a quick biography.
• Baden Pratt has sought to encapsulate the complexities of the late George Grljusich in one book.
“I thought I was doing an A4 page—dot-point where born, where went to school, etc—but suddenly George took over and hey presto, he took me on a roller-coaster ride over almost five years—almost as long as his longest marriage,” Pratt told the Herald.
“I now know him as a most complex character, on the one hand a broadcasting genius…on the other a shell of a man hiding in his market garden from creditors, lawyers, and others.”
The result of the research is Pratt’s latest book George! The Life and Riotous Times of George Grljusich which he’s launching at the South Fremantle footy club on Thursday November 27.
Grljusich, born on the edge of the Great Victoria Desert during the Depression, decided early on he wanted to be a broadcaster. The family had started a market garden in Spearwood and he would run bets for punters at the Newmarket Hotel, at the time the epicentre of local horse racing.
He was enthralled by the pub instantly transforming from a heaving cauldron to a hushed silence the moment the race caller came on the radio.
Grljusich became a legend behind the microphone, calling innumerable football games and racing championships, as well as six Olympic Games and 10 Commonwealth Games.
He was passionate about the South Fremantle Football Club—he played 12 games for it—and was in his element perched in the media box calling games at Fremantle Oval.
That led to the now famous “sex-on-the-desk” scoop for the Herald. Checking a tip that Grljusich had chucked a wobbly when impertinent callers from community station 100FM had set up in his usual seat, Herald journo Brian Mitchell (later the paper’s editor), called the broadcaster.
“It starts quite reasonably, but then he starts going off and saying things like ‘who are these chookfuckers, who do they think they are’,” Mitchell recalled this week. “He kept rolling out all these unwitting double entendres. It was the easiest interview I’ve ever done—he just kept talking and I kept taking notes. It was gold.”
At the end of the rant, Grljusich laid claim to the desk by dint of having had sex on it: “I think her name was Julie,” he’d told Mitchell.
The published yarn was picked up by ABC satirists Roy and HG, who took great delight in skewering Grljusich on national TV.
Behind the scenes, Grljusich’s family life was troubled. The “Grljusich family feud” as it became known, led to no fewer than 13 court battles between Grljusich and his brothers and sisters, and led to an inquiry into Cockburn council—which his estranged brother John at one point led as mayor.
by STEVE GRANT