The 2015 Gold Logie winner Carrie Bickmore has used her victory speech to get Australia talking about brain cancer.
The Project host, who earlier in the night was also named most popular presenter on TV, urged Australians to wear a beanie on Monday, take a picture hashtagged #beaniesforbraincancer and talk about the disease that killed her husband, Greg Lange, in 2010.
“I know that people watch TV and they think that we are just faces who, you know, get to spend hours in hair and makeup and have these really awesome jobs but we also have our own stories and our own challenges,” Bickmore told the audience.
“Work has been an incredible escape and an incredible outlet for me over many, many, many years and I want to dedicate this award tonight to anyone that is going through a really shit time right now, anyone that is supporting someone through a really tough time right now.
“Please believe that there will be a brighter day for you.”
Six weeks ago Bickmore gave birth to her daughter Evie with her partner, Chris Walker. “To Chris, thank you for supporting me along the way and showing me that there can be sunshine at the end of a long road,” she said after her first Logie win of the night, wearing an ice-blue Paolo Sebastian gown. “So thank you and what a cute little human we’ve created together – she’s gorgeous.”
The most popular new talent Logie winner, Love Child’s Miranda Tapsell, used her triumph to call on casting bosses to put more Indigenous people on Australian television.
Tapsell plays Martha Tenant on Love Child, which is set at a Kings Cross hospital in the late 1960s. She said it was special to reach Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women who have had experiences similar to those endured by the characters on Love Child.
“These women can look at Martha and think, ‘That was me.’ So if viewers clearly love seeing this, why deprive them of that?
“Put more beautiful people of colour on TV and connect viewers in ways which transcend race and unite us – that’s the real ‘Team Australia’.”
The stuffup of the night went to Julia Morris, who stars in House Husbands and co-hosts I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.
She announced The Voice Australia as the most outstanding entertainment program – forgetting to run through the nominees first. “It’s live, don’t tell anyone; we can cut it out later,” she quipped.
Offspring’s Asher Keddie picked up her fifth consecutive silver Logie for most popular actress. “Oh, even I, myself, thought it should be someone’s else’s turn this year – but I’ll take it, thank you,” she said, wearing a black Alex Perry gown.
Dave Hughes didn’t win a Logie but generated plenty of laughs as he roasted the Nine network boss, David Gyngell.
The Logies were held at Crown Melbourne, which is owned by the media mogul James Packer. Hughes referred to the punch-up between Gyngell and Packer outside the latter’s Bondi home.
“The fight of the century wasn’t today, it wasn’t Mayweather versus Pacquiao in Los Vegas, the fight of the century was exactly 12 months ago and it was James Packer versus David Gyngell in Bondi,” he said.
“We had the richest man in Australia and the boss of Channel Nine going toe-to-toe in their tracky dacks.”
Hughes said Gyngell had told him he didn’t mind if he joked about the fight, just as long as he didn’t show photos.
“And I said why not, and he said because I look like a hobo. I said mate, you didn’t look like a hobo, Packer looked like a hobo, you looked like a crackhead.”