Tony Barber is one of the best known Television personalities in Australia. Born in England, he came to Australia in 1947 and upon leaving school entered The Royal Australian Navy as an officer cadet. He graduated and was given further training in England.
In 1960 Tony left the Navy and returned to Western Australia. For the next two years he worked as a DJ for 6GE Geraldtown before joining 6PM Perth in it's then highly rated teen-time program. At the same time Tony was also regularly appearing on the cabaret circuit as a singer
After a few years in Perth, Tony travelled to Sydney and worked as an account executive for a leading Sydney advertising agency. He also made use of the opportunity to continue his club appearances.
His career in television began quite by chance in 1969 when he was making a demonstration film for a new commercial. Tony stood in for the 'star' and the people who saw the clip liked it so much that he was used for the actual commercial - and suddenly found himself as the Cambridge whistler.
The TV game show Temptation plucked Tony out of commercials. In 1971 it became The Great Temptation, and until 1974 was the most successful quiz show of its time.
During this time, Tony was awarded a Gold Logie for his success with Great Temptation and released three record albums, all of which went gold. He also received the first of many Penguin Awards from the Television Society of Australia.
In 1976 Great Temptation finished production and Tony went on to host Family Feud and then in 1980 Sale of the Century. When the program started, the producers agreed that Tony was the only man with the experience, ability and appeal to host this exciting new show.
Since then, Sale of the Century has become the most popular and successful quiz show in Australian television history, recording its 2000th episode in 1989.
Tony retired from the program in 1991 and has since then put his multitude of talents into a variety of pursuits. Two main areas include professional public speaking and (often combining this with) his successful club cabaret act.
Tony's own show 'Who am I', is a one man musical biography which he's played in over three hundred venues to over a quarter of a million patrons.His recently published autobiography (Random House) of the same name,made the best seller lists nationally in May 2000, and has been critically acclaimed.
