Young Talent Time legend Johnny Young dies aged 79

August 14, 2026 — 11:31amFormer Young Talent Time host Johnny Young has died aged 79, his family announced on Friday morning.Young’s family said he had died following a “brief battle with pancreatic cancer”.Musician Johnny Young at his home in Perth, Western Australia in 2018.Tony McDonoughAlthough he was best known for his work on the children’s talent show Young Talent Time, which spawned the careers of stars such as Dannii Minogue, Tina Arena and Debra Byrne, Young was also a singer-songwriter in his own right, penning hits such as The Real Thing for Russell Morris and Smiley for Ronnie Burns.Born Johnny de Jong, the youngest of four children in The Netherlands in 1945, Young migrated with his family to Australia following the war and settled in Perth, where he grew up in the suburb of Kalamunda.After working as a trainee disc jockey in his late teens, Young scored a job as the host of Channel 7 Perth’s pop music show Club Seventeen, where he met various pop stars and began writing and performing himself.After a brief period in London, Young returned to Australia and launched Young Talent Time in 1971. The show would become appointment viewing for families across the country and ran until 1988.Young with Dannii Minogue (left) and Lorena Novoa in 1987. The show featured a core group of performers doing well-known pop songs, as well as hopeful youngsters competing in a talent show, and making household names of Minogue (long before Kylie came to fame) and Arena, among others.Earlier this month, Arena paid tribute to Young’s guidance in comments to this masthead.“He’s very much like a father figure; he wanted me to be as protected as I possibly could,” she said.“There were times when he said, “Be careful, I don’t like that person” – and he was right. He taught me about discernment as a very little girl. I wasn’t able to intellectualise the term back then, but it became much clearer down the track.”Young is survived by his wife Marisha, sister Cornelia, daughters Anna and Fleur, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. A son, Craig, died in 2014. The family’s statement said details of his memorial would be announced “soon”.More to come.Chris Hook is Culture News Editor Sydney for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.From our partners