Annual Salary $750k
Age: 63
DOB: 3 June 1960
Birthplace: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Tracy Grimshaw is a household name in Australia thanks to her 30 year career with the Nine Network. Starting as a general reporter in 1981 at the Melbourne newsroom, she was given the gig of presenting the national news on Nine just four years later.
During a notable career, she has covered some of the country’s most notable historical events including the Ash Wednesday bushfires, Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of the Herald and Weekly Times and the Russell Street bombing trial. Overall, Grimshaw worked on the summer edition of A Current Affair for many years, firstly as a reporter, where she covered a range of stories from the demise of Queensland’s premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen to the audacious bid New Zealand launched to win the America’s Cup, before becoming the presenter. Between 1987-89 she fronted Nine’s 30-minute national news bulletin at 11.30am.
In 1995, she was also given the gig of co-hosting Midday with co-host David Reyne. After leaving the show the following year she then hosted Today on Saturday. Around the same time she spent a couple of years writing and producing a documentary titled Zoo Doctor, which was rated among the top 24 programs of the year in terms of people who watched it.
Later that year, Tracy was given the gig of presenting Animal Hospital, a new reality TV show. A few months later, in November 1996, she became co-host of TODAY with Steve Liebmann – a role she held for nine years.
Arguably her biggest fillip up to this point in her career was when she hosted the channel’s coverage of the incredible rescue in Thredbo of Stuart Diver to critical acclaim. She spent six continuous hours on the day he was rescued fronting the camera, until he was brought up to the surface.
Just a month later, she hosted the channel’s coverage of Princess Diana’s tragic death of Princess Diana, again to widespread praise.
Shortly after, she began to expand her commitments on TV with the Today Show by coveraging the show jumping, dressage and cross country events of the Holden Equestriad Series in 1998 for the Wide World of Sports. The following year she also hosted a 26-part docu-series called ‘Our Country’. This show highlighted various aspects of Australia’s spectacular landscape and distinctive lifestyle.
In 2005, Grimshaw achieved what she claims is the highlight of her career by scoring a role as the voice of one of the characters of Shark Tale, the blockbuster Dreamworks’ Animated movie. She played the role of a Katie Current, a fish journalist. Her co-voices in the movie included Hollywood A-Listers like Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Renee Zellweger, Angelina Jolie, Jack Black and Martin Scorsese.
All up, during her time on Today, Tracy interviewed around 14,000 people. This included various world leaders and prime ministers, sports and movie stars and ordinary people who had made the news. She found herself presenting in various destinations including Canada, Ireland, Gallipoli, London and Hong Kong.
On 30th January 2006, Grimshaw started to present A Current Affair, replacing Ray Martin who was the previous host. Later that year, she covered the remarkable story of the Beaconsfield rescue of two miners, Todd Russell and Brant Webb. She fronted an interview with them called ‘The Great Escape’ which was watched by a TV audience of millions, making it one of the year’s most popular shows.
In 2009, she conducted a series of hard-hitting, exclusive interviews that made headlines all over the country and set the agenda for the nation’s talk radio stations in the days that followed. Some of the most notable interviews included her groundbreaking conversations with swimmer Simon Cowley and Nick D’Arcy, the swimmer who had assaulted him.
Later that same year, Grimshaw chaired a highly compelling television interview with Matthew Johns, the former Cronulla Sharks player, and his wife, regarding allegations of group sex involving other players and a woman from New Zealand. This interview gave her the momentum to win the 2009 Walkley Award for Broadcast and Online interviewing, her first Walkley award.
Tracy Grimshaw’s career as a television journalist has been outstanding, and she has consistently been one of Australia’s most respected, talented, and versatile journalists. In 2010, she hosted five episodes devoted to the Hey Dad scandal, which featured interviews with the show’s cast and crew, including Sarah Monahan, Simone Buchanan, Ben Oxenbould and Gary Reilly.
She was also nominated for a Walkley Award for Television Current Affairs Reporting in the same year for her interview with Shelly Walsh, a Cowra based policewoman who made the gruesome discovery of that her mother and two children had been murdered by her father with an axe. Throughout her tenure as host of A CURRENT AFFAIR, Grimshaw has conducted headline-generating interviews with various high-profile figures, including Michael Parkinson, Lindy Chamberlain, Bert & Patti Newton, Laura Andrassy, Reg Grundy, Susan Falls and Paul Hogan.
In recent years, Tracy has received further acclaim for her insightful sit-down interviews with famous people like Bob Hawke, the controversial Pauline Hanson and Don Burke. In 2018, her illustrious career was recognised by a Gold Logie nomination.
After taking a break from TV, she is due to return to Channel 9 in 2024, on an as yet unnamed show.