“We’ve Known Each Other for Over 70 Years”: Denise Drysdale Reveals the Quiet Truth About Her Enduring Bond With Patti Newton
For almost seven decades, Denise Drysdale and Patti Newton have shared more than just the spotlight.
Their friendship stretches back to the earliest days of Australian television, through childhood dance classes, television studios, overseas tours and some of the biggest moments in Australian entertainment history.
Now, as Australia marks 70 years of television, Drysdale has offered a rare glimpse into the enduring friendship that has quietly remained part of her life for more than seven decades.
It all began before television had even found its feet
Drysdale was just 10 and a half when she joined Channel Nine in 1956 — the same year television was introduced to Australia.
She began as a junior ballet dancer on The Tarax Show, one of the early children’s programs on Australian television.
A year later, Patti Newton — then known as Patti McGrath — joined the same program at just 12.
But their connection actually began even earlier.
The pair attended the May Downs School of Dancing, where Drysdale started dancing at around three and a half.
“I’d say we’ve known each other for over 70 years,” Drysdale recalled, explaining that they eventually worked out just how long their friendship had lasted.
It is a remarkable figure — essentially the entire history of Australian television.
A friendship that survived decades of change
Despite their extraordinary shared history, Drysdale says the pair do not necessarily see each other as often as they once did.
But the friendship has never disappeared.
“We don’t see each other a lot, but we do talk a lot,” she said.
That quiet description perhaps says more about their relationship than any grand declaration could.
Both women grew up in an industry that was changing almost as quickly as they were. They went from being young performers to household names, watching Australian television evolve from its infancy into the enormous industry it is today.
And through it all, they remained connected.
The chapter that took them far from home
One of the most extraordinary experiences they shared came in 1967, when Drysdale and Patti travelled to Vietnam as part of a government-sponsored concert party entertaining Australian troops.
Australian War Memorial records confirm that Patti McGrath and Denise Drysdale were among the performers who toured Australian bases in Vietnam that year.
Drysdale has recalled the experience as one that stayed with her.
The young performers spent weeks away from home, appearing before Australian service personnel in an environment very different from the television studios where their careers had begun.
For two young women who had first met through dancing, it was another extraordinary chapter in a friendship that had already lasted more than a decade.
“I knew Patti longer than she knew Bert”
Perhaps one of Drysdale’s most touching memories concerns the man who would eventually become one of the most important people in Patti’s life: Bert Newton.
Drysdale remembers knowing Patti before she met the legendary television presenter — and before their romance became one of Australian showbusiness’s best-known love stories.
“I knew Patti longer than she knew Bert,” Drysdale reminisced.
The pair had even worked out that Patti was already in love with Bert when she was just 14.
For Drysdale, that meant witnessing the story from a remarkably early point — long before Patti and Bert became one of Australia’s most recognisable television couples.
Patti would later describe Bert as the “love of my life” in Nine’s 70 Years of Television special.
Patti also helped create “Ding Dong”
Their friendship would also play an unexpected role in another defining chapter of Drysdale’s career.
It was through Patti that Denise was introduced to Ernie Sigley, who was hosting The Ernie Sigley Show in the 1970s.
Drysdale was asked to perform sketches on the program and soon became Sigley’s famous “barrel girl”.
The partnership proved to be a perfect fit.
Sigley eventually gave Drysdale the nickname that would follow her for the rest of her career: “Ding Dong.”
Drysdale has said she was lucky that Sigley chose that name because, as she joked, he could have called her anything and it probably would have stuck.
Their television partnership became one of the memorable comedy pairings of the era.
“They just saw two bloody idiots”
Looking back on those years, Drysdale believes part of the appeal was that neither she nor Sigley tried to make their television personas something they weren’t.
“When I started with Ernie in ’74, I was his barrel girl,” she recalled.
“It was a match made in heaven, we were just up there for a laugh.”
She believes audiences responded because what they saw was genuine.
“What you see is what you got,” she said. “That’s what I think the audience loved.”
The humour was deliberately uncomplicated — two performers having fun, without worrying too much about appearances.
And it helped turn Drysdale into one of Australia’s most recognisable television personalities.
A career that became part of television history
Drysdale went on to win the TV WEEK Gold Logie in both 1975 and 1976, cementing her place among Australia’s most popular television personalities. Her official biography describes her as an entertainment icon who has spent more than five decades entertaining Australian audiences.
Her career would encompass television, comedy, music, theatre and hosting, while the nickname “Ding Dong” became almost inseparable from her public identity.
Even decades after her early television appearances, Drysdale continues to look back on the journey with gratitude.
Sitting beside her two Gold Logies, she reflected on the extraordinary path her career had taken.
“I’ve been the luckiest person in the world.”
Two women who grew up with Australian television
For Denise Drysdale and Patti Newton, 70 years of Australian television is more than an anniversary.
It is almost a record of their own lives.
They were there when television was still new. They were young dancers before becoming household names. They travelled overseas together, shared friends and colleagues, witnessed extraordinary careers unfold and watched the industry transform around them.
And although their lives have taken different paths, the friendship that began in childhood has quietly endured.
Seven decades later, perhaps the most remarkable part of their story is not how long they have been on Australian screens — but how much of Australian television history they have lived through together.