Rove McManus
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| Rove McManus | |
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| Born | John McManus II January 21, 1974 Perth, W.A., Australia |
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| Occupation | Television presenter Comedian Radio host Producer |
| Height | 173cm (5.68 ft) |
| Religious beliefs | Catholic[citation needed] |
| Spouse | Belinda Emmett (Deceased) (2005–2006) |
| Website www.rovedaily.com.au |
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John "Rove" McManus (born January 21, 1974) is a multi Gold Logie Award winning Australian variety show host, and owner of the production company Roving Enterprises.
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Personal life
Born John McManus II in Perth, Western Australia to John and Coralie McManus, McManus grew up in the suburb of Riverton and attended Orana Catholic Primary School and Corpus Christi College, Bateman. He moved to Melbourne to pursue a career as a stand up comedian in the early 1990's. In July 2004 he announced his engagement to his girlfriend of five years, Australian actress Belinda Emmett. They married on 29 January 2005 at the Mary Immaculate Church in Waverley, a suburb in the east of Sydney. Emmett died of cancer on 11 November 2006 at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, New South Wales.[1][2]
As of October 2007, McManus is dating former Blue Heelers actress Tasma Walton.[3]
Career
Television
McManus worked as a scanner/digital painter on the animated television series Lil' Elvis and the Truckstoppers (1996).[4] He hosted The Loft Live on community television station Channel 31 and subsequently landed ten late night episodes of his own tonight show, Rove, on GTV9 in 1999. Channel Nine cancelled the series at the end of its run. The Ten Network offered McManus another ten episodes of his show in late 2000. The resulting Rove Live became a weekly talk show on Network Ten, and is broadcast on TV3 in New Zealand. The show involves celebrity guests, comedy acts, variety segments, local and international comedians and live bands.
McManus started his own production company, Roving Enterprises in 2000 and has co-produced Rove Live since its inception. The company has produced a number of other programs including the sketch comedy program Skithouse, comedy show Real Stories and AFL football program, Before The Game. Roving Enterprises has also produced the ARIA Music Awards since 2002, hosted by McManus until 2004. McManus undertook a live solo stand-up comedy show in 2005, touring Australian capital cities as well as Wellington and Auckland in New Zealand. During the tour, he was still returning to Melbourne each Tuesday to film Rove Live. In 2004, he had a fatwa placed on him by John Safran in an episode of John Safran vs God, for dropping Safran's scheduled appearance on Rove Live. It was later removed. He also unsuccessfully campaigned to have Australian Prime Minister John Howard appear on his program during the 2004 and 2007 federal elections, but he did get the opposition leaders Mark Latham (2004) and Kevin Rudd (2007) to appear.
On the 25 October 2005 episode, Rove Live had a segment that Rove himself deemed "controversial" when it aired a live TV vasectomy. For the season finale, he offered six cars as prizes on his show. After falling viewing figures, the show was revamped for 2006, with the first episode of the new show airing on 14 February. In 2005, his long time supporting presenter, Corinne Grant, left the show. In her place, comedian Meshel Laurie joined the key presenters team.
In November 2006 Rove's career was put on hold indefinitely. His weekly show Rove Live did not screen its last two planned episodes of the year, due to the death of his wife Belinda Emmett. At the time there were rumours circulating in the media and industry that he might quit TV for good. After 173 episodes the show appeared to be over. However, it was announced in the media on 8 March 2007 that Rove would return with a new show on the Ten Network. The host returned to television in the competitive 8.30pm Sunday timeslot, which commenced 1 April 2007 with a major format overhaul on the old Rove Live, including renaming the show to simply Rove.[5] Rove returned to TV on 1 April 2007 prominently, as he scored his highest ever audience of 1.69 million viewers.[6] In September 2007, McManus made his début as a game show host in the Australian version of the US game show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?.[7]
Radio
In 1999 he was a regular host on Triple J radio. He had a segment on the breakfast show (starring Wil Anderson and Adam Spencer) on Friday mornings, Know Your Millennium, a quiz show that looked into the past. In 2002 the Austereo radio network commissioned Roving Enterprises to create a weekly radio program. Starring McManus alongside regular TV colleagues Peter Helliar and Corinne Grant, the show was originally called Saturday Morning Rove. Broadcast from Fox FM every Saturday from 10AM to Midday, it was actually pre-recorded the day before to allow the performers to have a full weekend of media commitments. In 2004 the program moved to Friday mornings allowing live phone callers, and was re-titled Rove Live Radio and had a style similar to Rove Live. It was discontinued at the end of 2004. In 2006, Rove and Pete filled in for Merrick and Rosso while they were holidays, in the first week of their three week stint Meshel Laurie of Nova 106.9 co-hosted the show as well.
Awards
In 2002, he was nominated for the Gold Logie Award and Rove Live won the Logie for Most Popular Light Entertainment Program. In 2003, McManus won three Logies: Most Popular TV Presenter, Most Popular Light Entertainment/Comedy Program and the Gold Logie Award for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television. In 2004 and 2005 he repeated his 2003 award haul, and in 2006 he won Most Popular TV Presenter. In 2007 McManus won Most Popular TV Presenter and Most Popular Light Entertainment Program for Rove Live.
Trivia
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- When Bert Newton fell ill in early June 2005, Rove was one of many presenters who hosted his show Good Morning Australia in his place.
- With Newton, Rove co-hosted a Roving Enterprises television special Ten Seriously 40, a look back at the history of the Ten Network.
- McManus voiced a crab in Pixar's 2003 animated film, Finding Nemo.
- Rove has been a guest co-host on the Triple M radio program Get This.
- Rove also appeared as himself on New Zealand cartoon bro'Town.
- Appeared as a guest on US television - NBC's Tonight Show with Jay Leno on May 2, and July 25, 2007.
- Appeared as the presenter of a secondary school discussion with Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama at Rod Laver Arena on June 8, 2007.[8]
- He is a fan of the AFL Fremantle Dockers for which his first cousin Shaun McManus plays. He was named as the #1 Ticket Holder of the club in 2002.
- McManus' interests include professional wrestling and stood in the corner of Australian Wrestler Nathan Jones during a WWA show in Australia, and took a guitar shot from Jeff Jarrett.
- McManus has a large collection of PEZ dispensers which has been mentioned on Rove Live on numerous occasions.
- He was a runner in the Queen's Baton Relay (which carried a baton around Australia before the 2006 Commonwealth Games). He used the baton in a segment on Rove Live to find out what privileges it would get him eg: getting a free beer from a pub, closing a 7-Eleven store and other examples.
- Rove has been noted as a contender to replace Conan O'Brien as host of Late Night with Conan O'Brien when O'Brien takes over as host of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in 2009, though reports indicate he is not the top choice for the role, as Saturday Night Live comedian Jimmy Fallon is tipped as the most likely person from the shortlist.[9]
References
- ^ Belinda Emmett dead at 32. news.com.au (2006-11-11). Retrieved on 2007-09-07.
- ^ Rove 'holding up well' as thousands mourn Belinda. ninemsn (2006-11-13). Retrieved on 2007-09-07.
- ^ Rove McManus finds new love with Tasma Walton - The Daily Telegraph, 25 Oct 2007
- ^ Facts. Rove Online. Retrieved on 2008-02-18.
- ^ Darren Devlyn and Marcus Casey (2007-03-08). Rove back in harness. Herald Sun. Retrieved on 2007-09-07.
- ^ Kate Ritchie wins gold at Logies. ninemsn (2007-05-07). Retrieved on 2007-09-07.
- ^ Second half TV line-ups revealed. ninemsn (2007-06-26). Retrieved on 2007-09-07.
- ^ Rove in Leno's hot seat. The Daily Telegraph (2007-04-28). Retrieved on 2007-09-07.
- ^ Rove's US Hopes Take a Dive. Sydney Morning Herald (2007-07-31). Retrieved on 2007-10-08.
