Maggie Tabberer AO (1936-2024), designer, writer, editor, publicist and television presenter, is one of Australia's best-known personalities. Having married at seventeen and given birth to two daughters, she was 'discovered' by photographer Helmut Newton in Melbourne when she was 23 and by 1960 she was Australia's Model of the Year. She moved to Sydney, but became tired of the twin demands of modelling (including maintaining her weight) and family. In 1963 she began writing a fashion column for the Daily Mirror that she continued for sixteen years. She became a television panellist on Beauty and the Beast in 1964, and by the end of the decade had her own daily chat show, Maggie. In 1967, she married again; gave birth to a son, whom she lost to cot death at ten days old; and started a public relations company, Maggie Tabberer and Associates, which she maintained for twenty years. She won Gold Logies in both 1970 and 1971. In 1981 she became fashion editor of the Australian Women's Weekly, remaining at the magazine until 1996. Also in 1981, she launched her own clothing label, Maggie T, which closed stand-alone stores in 2018 but continued in modified form within Millers. From 1990 to 1995 she presented a lifestyle series on ABC television with her third life partner Richard Zachariah. From 2005 she hosted Maggie … At Home With on the pay television channel Bio, its eight series including interviews with Dawn Fraser, Ian Thorpe and David Campbell. Her best-selling autobiography, Maggie, appeared in 1998 and has since been updated.
