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Art Linkletter, Linkletter Down Under (1968)

Art Linkletter was a major American radio and television personality, best known for ‘Kids Say the Darndest Things’, a segment on his radio show that spawned a long-running TV series of the 1950s and 60s. A registered Republican, he became close friends of both Ronald and Nancy Reagan, and was known for his large-scale promotions including the Hula Hoop, the Game of Life, and anti-drug campaigns. As described in Linkletter Down Under, he also became an unlikely large-scale investor in Australian agriculture.

In 1954 Linkletter was at a dinner party in a wealthy Bel Air home when he met with then Menzies Government Minister Harold Holt ‘an immensely warm and gregarious man… brimming over with confidence in the future of his country. He spoke of it as a man speaks about the woman—or the horse—he loves: with enthusiasm, with pride, and with tender affection. It was, he said, the very last of the great frontiers.’

Over the course of the evening, Holt managed to convince Linkletter and other Hollywood guests including movie star Robert Cummings and Charles Correll of ‘Amos n Andy’, to invest in a major farming property in Australia, which he told them had boundless opportunities and could even help to solve world hunger. It speaks to the rudimentary nature of attracting international investments in the era that Holt would have the impulse and the gall to approach American celebrities, but somehow the bold ploy paid off. Linkletter later described how ‘Holt’s magnetic Pied Piper pitch infused me with enthusiasm; so too were the others caught up with the idea of doing something worthwhile and exciting in Australia.’

They would eventually purchase 500,000 acres for a rice-growing experiment in the Northern Territory and 600,000 hectares of sand plains slated to be converted into farmland near Esperance WA. Almost inevitably, these grand plans failed and the investment group broke up, but Linkletter never lost his Australian dream and kept investing in Esperance, where he became something of a local benefactor, helping to found schools and other necessary amenities.

Linkletter also became one of the earliest American advocates for Australia, popularising a romanticised view of the country and helping to make us a major tourism destination. Indeed, his book even closes with a pitch to get Americans to permanently migrate to ‘The New Eldorado’, though the rest of the work contains numerous witty insights into the Australian people and culture which are not always favourable, even if they are predominantly so. For example, Linkletter describes Australian speech as:

‘the game of speaking Strine, so when you hear someone say, “Aorta build another arber bridge,” you know it means “We ought to build another harbor bridge.” “Baked necks” is the Strine way of ordering bacon and eggs. And Australians seem to live on a diet of “stike an’ aigs.”’

He also took note of Australia’s egalitarianism and even tall poppy syndrome, explaining:

‘Because the Australian is a great equalizer, he neither praises nor creates heroes. No matter what your talent, unless you are a great athlete, you will awe no one. I know. One of the first comments about my television status came from a casual acquaintance. In a friendly tone he said, “Nobody here knows you from a ton of coal.” Although I appear frequently on Australian television, I might as well have been a shoe clerk to the hotel barber’

Linkletter dedicated his book to the recently deceased Holt, and:

‘To indomitable Australia— where the dynamics of change and choice cause individualism to be the force for doing and freedom an urgent state of mind’