Mo Awards radio category

This year, for the first time, the ‘MO’ Awards will include a category for live radio performers.

The new award is a reminder that Roy Rene’s alter ego, Mo McCackie, became a star through the medium of radio in the 1940s and 50s. Writing in the Mo Awards booklet, Trish Allen chronicled Mo’s life:

“Born Harry van der Sluice in Adelaide in 1892, Roy showed an early interest in the stage and at 16 he began his career in vaudeville as a singer. It was during a tour of New Zealand that Roy changed his name to Roy Rene and created a new image for himself as ‘Mo McCackie’, a somewhat irreverent yet endearing clown with a white face and black painted beard…

“Roy successfully continued in vaudeville but in the early forties, but moved to radio since vaudeville was dying. Roy’s first radio show ‘Calling The Stars’ went to air in 1947 and was sponsored by Colgate Palmolive. The show went for an hour at 8pm every Tuesday night and was enormously popular. He introduced a new 8-minute segment to the end of the show called ‘McCackie Mansions’ a domestic comedy situation featuring ‘young’ Harry Griffiths, which ended up running for over six years…

“McCackie Mansions finished in 1953. In 1954, at the age of 62, Roy Rene died and with his passing went one of Australia’s greatest and best loved comedians. Today his name still lives on through the MO Awards, awarding excellence in live performance for 27 years – named in honor of Roy Rene’s character Mo McCackie.”