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For many, he is remembered as the host’s sidekick on The Don Lane Show, as the host of New Faces, or more recently Bert’s Family Feud and the retrospective programs 20 to 1 and What a Year. He is also remembered for making his mark on the TV Week Logie Awards, either as host of the event, or recipient of one of its coveted statues. There are too many of both to count.

As changing times or fate itself slowly claimed his peers, who either passed away or faded into retirement, Newton’s star somehow shone ever brighter. He slowly became ubiquitous, a sort of one-man-show whose career lurched from television to the stage, with gigs in The Wizard of Oz, Beauty and the Beast, The Producers and The Sound of Music.

But the zenith of Newton’s career will probably be remembered as host of Good Morning Australia.

He was there for almost 14 years, creating around him a pantheon of personalities that are memorable to this day: infomercial host Moira McLean, astrologer Karen Moregold, crafting guru Tonia Todman, the show’s floor manager, Robert Mascara, who was affectionately nicknamed Belvedere, and Bert’s wife Patti, who (of course) featured regularly.

“Somehow, imperceptibly, Newton has shifted from sidekick to deity. From Moonface to guru,” The Sydney Morning Herald’s Sacha Molitorisz wrote back in 2002 attempting to decipher Bert’s transformation.

It is true, too, that we will never see his like again.

Not because of a lack of talent - Newton would tell you the medium is still as vibrant and flooded with potential as it ever was - but simply because television, in its evolved form, is too slick, too corporate, and too perfect in its digital age delivery to create someone so eccentrically, imperfectly brilliant as Bert.

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