Australian Dictionary of Biography

Jack Kingston ‘John’ Pearce (1925–1996), radio announcer and radio producer, was born on 3 January 1925 in Sydney, younger of two surviving children of English-born Leonard Alfred Wilson Pearce, accountant, and his Australian-born wife Louisa Eliza Jane, née Wright. An older brother had died of rheumatic fever before Jack was born. He grew up at Hurstville but first attended St John’s Grammar School, Darlinghurst, just before the age of seven. His subsequent education was at Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore), North Sydney, from 1933 until 1939. When his father was bankrupted, the family kept him enrolled.

As a child Pearce was fascinated by radio, and ‘couldn’t wait to be out of school and into broadcasting’ (Pearce n.d.), leaving school at fourteen. After stints as an office boy at the advertising agency Lintas Pty Ltd and as a salesperson at a record store, he spotted an advertisement for a junior radio announcer, submitted a voice recording, and gained a studio audition and a job. He moved to Kempsey and began work at commercial station 2KM, inheriting boarding house accommodation from the departing announcer, Leon Becker. There he hosted weekday breakfast sessions, wrote advertising copy, and accompanied children’s singing programs. Christened ‘Jack,’ a name he hated, he adopted ‘John Pearce’ on-air.

Pearce said he wanted to do two things in life: to work in radio and to fly planes. Shortly before turning eighteen, he joined Macquarie Network station 2CA in Canberra. On 8 May 1943 he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force. After training in Australia and Canada, he was commissioned as a pilot officer in October 1944. He returned to Australia in January 1945, was promoted to flying officer in April, and was posted to the Advanced Flying and Refresher Unit, Deniliquin, where he obtained evening announcer shifts at commercial station 2QN. Following his discharge in Sydney on 18 March 1946, he returned to 2QN, securing a small salary plus advertising commissions. There he recalled living in the local pub, playing cricket, learning photography, and ‘relaxing from the war’ (Pearce n.d.).

Relocating from 2QN to the larger Victorian Broadcasting Network station 3SH at Swan Hill, Pearce played golf between evening announcer shifts, managed the record library, and occasionally compered on weekends. He next applied to 2GB but was instead offered a job with Macquarie Network station 7HO in Hobart. As the station’s radio roundsman, he collected live news and interviews on a portable wire recorder. He roomed with the disc jockey Bob Rogers, before meeting and marrying Edith Rona Willis, known as ‘Jo,’ a nurse from Sydney, on 10 February 1951 at the Shore chapel. While honeymooning, he was promoted to chief announcer and studio manager at 7HO. His local profile grew as he hosted community ‘Carols by Candlelight,’ performed humorous ‘Electrolux Hour’ advertising sketches, and voiced Tasmanian Government Film Unit documentaries.

Pearce finally realised his childhood dream to work for Macquarie’s key station, 2GB in Sydney, after his 7HO boss secretly shared an on-air recording of him. After covering the Tasmanian leg of Queen Elizabeth II’s royal tour in 1954, he and his family took a flying boat to Sydney’s Rose Bay. Before joining 2GB he was known largely to Tasmanian audiences; now he worked alongside such personalities as Jack Davey and Eric Baume. He hosted afternoon sessions, voiced commercials, and introduced live audience features such as The Pied Piper children’s show with Keith Smith. After television began in Australia, he produced Macquarie’s roving newsreel program, Monitor, and left radio for a year ‘to try a few things that didn’t work very well’ (Pearce n.d.). When 2GB moved to a ‘talk’ format, he became the executive producer managing production and content in 1965. He continued as the ‘straight man’ for ‘Andrea’ (Dorothy Jenner) on her 9 a.m. show.

In Australia ‘talkback’ radio was illegal until April 1967. Pearce claimed that he trialled 2GB’s first dedicated talkback program, having heard the format many years earlier in the United States of America. Deemed a success, he was appointed host of a new prime-time ‘open line’ morning program, covering the political to the personal with a mainly female audience. Using techniques from his book How to Win Friends and Interview People (1968), he initially downplayed his personality. However, following a spike in listener calls and complaints when he was rude to callers, he adopted an opinionated, bombastic, and mischievous on-air persona, and a trademark closing statement affirming he ‘had the last word.’ Talkback radio proved an enduring career. He spent more than two decades at 2GB, leaving in 1979 for stints at 2CH and 2UE, before returning to 2GB. In later years, his 2GB program Ask the Oracle evinced his enquiring mind, general knowledge, and quick wit.

Pearce’s dark and neatly slicked hair, bristled moustache, and later large spectacles were trademark features. He retained a lifelong passion for flying and was a freeman of the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators. The protagonist of his 1969 fictional book, Look Mum I'm Flying, was an aviation enthusiast. In 1971 he was appointed OBE. He was a committed Christian, and a member of the North Sydney Rotary Club, the 729 Club at St Leonards (frequented by radio, television, and advertising personnel), and the Sydney Cricket Ground.

As a talkback radio host, Pearce viewed himself as a performer. In exchanges with callers, he shifted with ease between provocation, agitation, raillery, and restraint. Off-air he was said to be affable and fond of a joke. He broadcast weekend evenings at 2GB until his sudden death on 26 August 1996 at Bayview while shooting a television commercial for a retirement village. After half a century working in radio, he had showed no signs of slowing down, having concluded his unpublished memoir a few years earlier ‘still wondering what I’ll do for the rest of my career’ (Pearce n.d.). He was survived by his wife and their four sons, Gary, Graeme, Philip, and Richard; a daughter, Carolyn, had predeceased him in 1969. A memorial service was held at St Stephen’s Anglican Church, Willoughby, and he was cremated. Jack Carington Smith had painted a portrait of Pearce for the Archibald prize in 1953.