AMANDA KELLER ‘I WAS STUNNED TO BE NOMINATED!’
The Living Room host is still pinching herself...
She was up for the big gong last year, but to say TV host and radio broadcaster Amanda Keller was surprised to be nominated again for a Gold Logie at this year’s TV WEEK Logie awards would be an understatement.
“I was stunned to be on the list, to be honest,” The Living Room and Dancing With The Stars host admits. “It never occurred to me I’d be the type of person who would be [up for that kind of award] – probably because I worked with Ray Martin for a number of years. I think he’s the sort of person who gets nominated for a Gold Logie... not me!”
What might come as a shock to Amanda, 57, is something the rest of us take as a given – and after four decades working in the Australian TV industry, on shows like Simon Townsend’s Wonder World!, Midday, Mondo Thingo and Denton, her nomination for Gold feels like a long time coming.
Last year she lost out on the gong to her DWTS co-host Grant Denyer, but Amanda says she was thrilled just to have been competing alongside him.
“It made complete sense to me that Grant won last year,” she says.
“I was just so excited to be nominated, as I am again this year. Grant and I held
hands together as the two little Channel Ten buddies through all of that,” she continues. “So we became quite close – it was great that we then got to [co-host] Dancing With the Stars together. That’s where it all began, our little friendship, as we held hands together on the red carpet!”
Glamorous as that sounds, when the cameras stop rolling, Amanda lives a decidedly low-key life, at home in Sydney with her husband Harley Oliver and sons Liam, 18, and Jack, 16.
So how do her boys feel about their mum’s exciting double life?
“You know what, and this is probably the healthiest way, they are proud
of me, but it’s no big deal,” she says. “They would love me to win, and they are proud of me, but really, when I’m home, I’m just Mum, in all my embarrassment.”
Amanda says she’s fought hard to prove to her kids that her television career is secondary to her life at home with them.
“I’ve always said that the true mark of who you are is what happens when you close the door at home,” she explains.
“And for us, even though I’m busy, I’m home for dinner most of the time, every night. We have dinner at the table, the kids go and do their homework and I watch a bit of TV and then I go to bed – it’s a very normal life.
“I get up and I work hard and
I come home, and I think real life is at home.”
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