Beloved New Zealand broadcaster Catherine Saunders has passed away at the age of 83. The journalist and television presenter is well known to Weekly readers as a panellist on the agony aunt show Beauty and the Beast, which ran from 1976 to 1985. With Selwyn Toogood as the host, she endeared herself to Kiwis with her warmth, delightful sense of humour – and her bold earrings. She later hosted her own shows, including Tonight with Cathy Saunders and 50 Forward. She also produced RNZ’s Top of the Morning for five years.
In a 2016 interview with Judy Bailey, the latter wrote, “Her warm, generous, outgoing personality endeared her to generations of viewers dating back to the earliest days of television in this country.”
Born in Dunedin, Catherine (nee Dowling) was the youngest of three children and studied with the nuns at St Philomena’s. She then trained as a teacher before ditching the classroom to pursue broadcasting, followed by a highly successful move into marketing and PR that including quadrupling the nation’s cheese consumption with her “Bigger Block of Cheese” campaign.
At a time when sexism was alive and well, she wanted change. Judy wrote, “This overt sexism would eventually drive the feisty Catherine to embark on a feminist crusade that would take her the length of the country. She teamed up with a number of high-profile articulate women, among them Dame Silvia Cartwright, Margaret Wilson and Donna Awatere Huata, to campaign for equal opportunities and equal pay.”
She told Judy she remained defiant of age, saying “The older I get, the more outrageous my earrings become.”
Catherine endured a series of tragedies and difficult times, including battling breast cancer and the loss of her husband Bill in May 1995, then her daughter-in-law Kate last year.
She is survived by her son Anthony, daughter Amy and five grandchildren.
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