The life and times of an Australian radio legend

YES, MISS GIBSON offers a nostalgic journey back to the 1950s when radio drama dominated Australia’s age of innocence. What emerges is a rare social and media history, and an engaging look into the bustling radio industry of a lost era.

Grace Gibson’s life could well have come from the script of one of her own serials. Born in El Paso, her father was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, her mother Mexican. Arriving in Sydney from Hollywood in the 1930s, she soon became the highest-paid woman in local radio. She produced some of Australia’s most-loved radio shows: Dr Paul, Portia Faces Life, Night Beat, and Dossier on Dumetrius.

The book documents their impact on postwar audiences; the many bizarre actors who peopled her world; her relations with the rich and famous of Sydney society; her friendship with Sir Frank Packer; how her company survived the advent of television and became the world’s biggest producer of radio drama second only to the BBC; and finally her lonely death, and how she wrote the guest list for her own funeral.

Even today, her shows continue to be broadcast in Australia and around the world.

About the Authors

Reg James worked for Grace all his life, rising from despatch boy to sales manager, and possesses an encyclopaedic knowledge of the industry.

James Aitchison is the author of more than 140 books. They include the Cutting Edge Advertising series published by Pearson Education Singapore. His children’s books (written under the pseudonym James Lee) are bestsellers in Asia, with almost three million copies in print. They have been translated into eight languages. His experience with radio drama included writing shows for Grace Gibson in the 1970s. In 2013, he won the Literature Prize at the Commonwealth Government’s inaugural Australian Arts in Asia Awards.