Australian Dictionary of Biography

Charles Buttrose, 1974

Courtesy of Charles Buttrose.

Charles Oswald George Buttrose (1909–1999), journalist and broadcasting executive, was born on 13 June 1909 at Unley, Adelaide, eldest of seven children of John Oswald (Ossie) Buttrose, traveller and later theatre company manager, and his wife Agnes Lillian née Kelly, both South Australian born. As the family moved about to accommodate Ossie’s theatrical and film endeavours, Charles attended the Dominican Convent, Glenelg, from 1914, and later Christian Brothers’ colleges at East St Kilda, Victoria, and Perth, Western Australia. In Perth during the 1920s he was billed as the ‘boy with the angel’s voice’ (West Australian 1923, 2) and sang in picture theatres and cafes, accompanied by his mother on the piano. He won several competitions, and on leaving school worked for the printing firm Van Herk and Thomas. By 1927 the family had moved to Adelaide where, in 1929, he studied singing at the Elder Conservatorium in a non-graduating course, and in 1930 won a tenor scholarship funded by Mrs Reginald Quesnel who was impressed by his ‘musical temperament’ (News 1930, 6). Though he did not go on to pursue a career in music, it remained an important lifelong interest.

In 1927 Buttrose had begun working as a proof-reader for the News (Adelaide) where in 1933 he also became the music critic, considering free tickets to the concerts he reviewed to be sufficient payment for this extra role. He was subsequently appointed as a journalist, and in 1936 was seconded to work in Melbourne for six months at the Herald. He gained a position on the Sun News-Pictorial (1937–41) and moved permanently to Melbourne where he met an accomplished pianist, Mary Clare Catherine Rodgers, known as Clare. After a brief courtship, on 11 December 1937 they married at the Roman Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception, Hawthorn. From 1939 he reported on politics before moving to Sydney in May 1941 where he continued to work as a political journalist at the Sydney Morning Herald. During World War II he was accredited as a war correspondent (June 1942) and reported from the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) and Papua until 1944.

At the invitation of the minister for information, Arthur Calwell, in early 1944 Buttrose became press officer for the Australian News and Information Bureau in New York. In April-June 1945 he managed press relations for the Australian mission to the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco. He remained in San Francisco as press attaché at the Australian Consulate-General, and from 1946 was a foreign correspondent for the Daily Mirror group in New York.

Concerned about his children’s further education, in 1949 Buttrose and his family returned to Sydney where he became an editor (later news editor) for the Daily Mirror (1951–54) and chief leader writer for the Daily Telegraph (1954–57). Notwithstanding his broad journalistic experience, music and theatre remained his favoured fields. This drew him to the Australian Broadcasting Commission, where he was appointed federal supervisor of publicity in 1957. In 1960 he was appointed director of publicity and concerts, in light of general manager (Sir) Charles Moses’s view that ABC concerts were not being promoted with sufficient ‘nous or vigour’ (Sametz 1992, 206). Buttrose’s ‘flamboyant and unconventional approach to management blew gusts of fresh air down the fusty corridors of ABC power’ (Semmler 1999, 14) as he sought to present concerts as ‘spectacular and newsworthy elements in the life of the capital cities’ (Sametz 1992, 209). The conductor Patrick Thomas recalled that Buttrose’s ‘journalistic nous and managerial astuteness’ kept him alert to the ‘wiles and foibles’ of the performing artists, whom he dealt with using ‘style and savoir faire’ (2006, 212).

Buttrose and Moses enjoyed mutual professional trust and personal friendship, sharing a love of music, urbane manners, and worldly experience that enabled them to mix as equals with the celebrity artists touring Australia under ABC auspices. Among Buttrose’s achievements were tours by the Czech Philharmonic (1959), the Boston Symphony (1960), and the London Philharmonic (1962) orchestras, and enticing such figures as Sir Malcolm Sargent and Eugene Ormandy to conduct Australian orchestras. In February 1965 he organised the first overseas tour by an ABC orchestra when the Victorian Symphony Orchestra attended the Pan Pacific Arts Festival in Christchurch, New Zealand.

In early 1962 Buttrose’s career with the ABC was jeopardised when Clare initiated divorce proceedings on the grounds of infidelity. He became fodder for the tabloid press, and for a while it seemed that he might be dismissed or forced to resign. On 1 September 1962, in the Registrar General’s Office, Sydney, he married Margot Abbey Wiesener, the secretary named in the divorce proceedings. When (Sir) Talbot Duckmanton became general manager of the ABC in 1965, Buttrose was appointed the ABC’s North American representative, based in New York. He enjoyed the cosmopolitan cultural scene in the United States, but came to see the move as a ‘glamorous form of punishment’ (Sametz 1992, 246) for the scandal of his divorce.

Despite such misgivings, the New York posting enabled Buttrose to make excellent use of his news-gathering experience and rapport with musical celebrities. He made significant changes such as amalgamating the news and public affairs functions, while negotiating Australian tours by celebrated artists including the pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy (1969), and the violinist Itzhak Perlman. In 1971 he returned to Sydney as the ABC’s assistant general manager (general). His duties ranged from managing the high profile but often ‘strife-dogged’ (Rolfe 1971, 20) television current affairs programs This Day Tonight and Four Corners, to planning for the eventual transfer of orchestral concerts from the Sydney Town Hall to the Sydney Opera House. One of his final tasks was to accompany the Sydney Symphony Orchestra on a tour of the Republic of the Philippines and Hong Kong in early 1974. After retiring from the ABC on 12 June 1974, he worked for six years as a consultant and in executive positions with the Australia Council. He went on to publish a ‘gossipy and journalistic’ (Semmler 1983, 108) history of the nation’s orchestras, Playing for Australia (1982), and his memoir, Words and Music (1984).

Buttrose was of medium build with brown hair and blue eyes, and stood five feet ten inches (178 cm) tall. His hair silvered with age, but he remained ‘a demon for physical fitness’ (Semmler 1999, 14) who played squash regularly. An acerbic wit helped make him an entertaining raconteur who enjoyed relaying anecdotes and gossip about politicians and musical celebrities. As his health declined, his daughter Ita, a future chair of the ABC, became his main carer as he suffered increasingly from hearing loss, macular degeneration, and vascular dementia. On 2 June 1999 he died of pancreatitis at Wahroonga and was cremated. He was survived by Margot and ‘the four people … whose company I have enjoyed most’ (Buttrose 1984, 199), his children Julian, Ita, William, and Charles, all from his first marriage.