On 16 September 2025, the eve of his 45th wedding anniversary, veteran newsreader Roger Climpson OAM passed away.
Born 18 October 1932, he was also just a month shy of his 93rd birthday. Originally from Peterborough in England, the son of a butcher dreamed of being a pilot in the Royal Air Force. However, a rugby accident led him to give up that dream and shift to acting and performing. He emigrated to Australia and soon became a frequent face on screens, particularly around Sydney.
He joined 7NEWS in the 1960s; before that, he worked for the Nine Network. For Seven, he hosted shows, including This is Your Life and Australia’s Most Wanted. He later co-anchored Seven’s Nightly News in Sydney alongside Ann Sanders.
Due to his extensive contributions to Australian media, he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2004.
The Weekly profiled Roger back in 1980 to celebrate his and his wife’s 25th wedding anniversary, on September 17, 1980. Today would have been their 45th.
Read on for that feature.
Roger Climpson, this is your life
In 1949, as a 17-year-old, you came to Australia with your family. You fell in love with the country, its people, its cities and its outback, but you decided to return to Britain. But, you were stage-struck and wanted to
audition for the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and make acting your career. You auditioned and won a scholarship. Sheila Hancock, Shani Wallis and Zena Walker were in your year. Joan Collins was in the year ahead. You graduated and went into the London West End shows in Shaw’s Man and Superman. Then you felt Australia was the place to be for a young man with theatrical ambition, so you immigrated here in 1952.
You worked in radio serials, narrated 875 episodes of Tarzan, produced many of those, and then played the role of Stephen Hamilton in Can Be Beautiful. You made your mark quickly.
Then, that Christmas, your parents were invited to another family’s get-together. You had met them before, but you hadn’t met their daughter, Claire. Claire had arrangements for that Christmas
night, but had been told to stay and meet Roger Climpson, the son of the family’s good friends.
You became friends, and before you left that night, you invited her to your party at your home on New Year’s Eve. Kevin Brennan, June SalQueenie Ashton and other show business friends of yours were there.
Claire came, and you began seeing another almost every night.
You worked a 60-hour week with news, radio programme This is Your Life, but you remained Roger Climpson, family man.
She used to rush home to listen to you on the radio doing the soap operas. Finally, you decided commuting between the Sydney suburbs of Lindfield, where you lived, and Claire’s at Mosman was too much.
“I’ve had this,” you told her. (day after a date and a long hike. “I think we ought to get married.”
You had both attended Augustine’s Church at Neutral Bay, where you often read the lesson. This is where you decided to get married.
You set the date – September 1, 1955. It was a big wedding with show business and other old friends in the Starlight Room at the Austral Hotel.
You honeymooned briefly in Canberra, where you were booked for a week but stayed only four days – you couldn’t wait to get to the new house at Caringbah in Sydney and set up your home.
The years in Caringbah were special, and your close friends were made then. Your son Stephen was born in October 1956. He was named Stephen after the character you made famous in Life Can Be Beautiful. The next baby was Sally, and when she was six months old, you moved to Lane Cover to a house that took all your money…it cost 9000 pounds… and everyone told you you were mad to spend all that money.
“Paying for a view,” they said. “It may seem great now, but you’ll tire of it in six months.”
Now, 20 years later, you still love the view, and the house is a very real home. After Sally came Amanda (Mandy), and your career blossomed on television, the new media. You produced documentaries, read news for Channel 9 and took parts in plays put on the Old Tote and various other theatre companies, and you never regretted your decision to make Australia home.
Then, you became Channel Seven’s chief newsreader in 1967, launched 11 A.M., the current affairs morning show, and in 1978 took on This Is Your Life. You worked a 60-hour week with news, a radio programme, and This Is Your Life, as well as working hard at family business, other commitments and investments. But, you still managed, despite it all, to remain Roger Climpson, family man.
The children all grew up as individuals. Stephen wanted to be a lawyer. He is now married and a qualified solicitor, and you are very proud of him.
Sally, in her teens, wanted to either teach kindergarten, be with children or care for the disabled people at a sheltered workshop in Sydney. She, too, you are immensely proud of. Mandy, the youngest, was the only child with a show business bent. She wanted to be in musical comedy, and when she was not much more than 11, you and Claire proudly watched her in an amateur production of South Pacific. This month, after many bit parts in series, she gets her first talking role on-camera in the Grundy Organisation’s new cop series, Bellamy. She is no 16 and you know she has what it takes to succeed.
Television has become your life, and although one day you hanker after returning to acting, television and news reading are your love. You enjoy it, and you have built up a reputation as one of Australia’s most respected newsreaders.
For 25 years, you have been a television personality. But more important to you is that for 25 years you have been married to Claire — the woman you love, and love more deeply with each year.
Roger and Claire Climpson, on your 25th wedding anniversary, September 17, 1980, let us wish you all the happiness in this world. Roger Climpson…this is your life.
This article originally appeared in the 17 September 1980 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly, authored by Jenny Cullen. You can read back issues of The Weekly on Trove.
7NEWS Special: Remembering Roger Climpson, Thursday at 7.00pm on Seven in Sydney and nationally on 7plus.
