John Mangos - Biography
Television anchorman
John Mangos has always been used to reporting the news, but now he’ll be making the headlines as a celebrity contestant on It Takes Two.
“I’ve never had aspirations to sing, I’m actually quite shy, but it was too exciting an opportunity to pass up. I am up for big challenges and since my son Kosta was born in December, every day is a celebration.” said John.
A familiar face on Australian television for almost 30 years, John is currently senior anchorman for Sky News Australia and is a regular on Seven’s Sunrise and Sydney talkback station 2UE.
John started his career as a state and federal political correspondent for National Nine News before moving to Los Angeles as the Nine Network’s US correspondent.
At the request of ‘The King’ Graham Kennedy, John returned to Australia to co-host the Coast-to-Coast news program. Back at Nine, he made documentaries, hosted the Sunday night program Our World and was a guest host of Today and Midday.
John briefly moved to Ten to present Eyewitness News, but returned to Nine a year later as Midday’s international roving reporter.
For two years he hosted At Home With John Mangos on the Seven Network and became the breakfast announcer on Sydney radio station 2KY.
He launched the cable station Greek Australian Television on OptusVision, where he hosted a twice-weekly current affairs program.
John is the Director of Media for corporate relations firm FD Third Person and is heavily involved in charity work. He is the patron of the Trish Cairns Breast Cancer Awareness Foundation and an ambassador for Day of Difference (Sophie Delezio).
He is heavily involved in sport as an official ambassador for the Sydney Swans Football Club and was last year honoured with life membership.
In his spare time, John loves to cook and has taught cooking classes at the Sydney Seafood School for the past 13 years.
John lives in Sydney with wife Tanny. The couple recently celebrated the birth of their first child, Kosta, last December.
Wendy Matthews - Biography
Australian singing legend
Wendy Matthews has a reputation as an artist par excellence with a sublime, expressive voice that never fails to move those who hear it.
This is exemplified by the reality that Wendy’s music is now in more than a million homes in Australia – all her albums to date have multi-platinum status. There are few artists in Australia that can cite Wendy’s credentials, seven ARIAS, 19 singles and 7 top selling albums.
Wendy has an immense talent to capture and define a diverse range of styles in her music. She takes songs from every genre and makes them her own, from jazz to blues, from rock to gospel, from soul to outright infectious pop and then, of course, there are the beautiful ballads.
Born in Montreal Canada, Wendy joined her first band and left home as a teenager, busking her way across the USA to Los Angeles where she met Glenn Shorrock who invited her to tour with him in Australia in 1982.
Wendy immediately became an in-demand session singer, appearing on many commercial jingles and backing vocals for the The Model's Out of Mind Out of Sight and became a semi-permanent member of the band. She also sang on albums by The Rockmelons, Jimmy Barnes, Tim Finn, Richard Clapton and Icehouse.
In 1987, Wendy collaborated with Kate Ceberano on the ABC-TV soundtrack for the series Stringer. You’ve Always Got the Blues was released the next year reaching the Top 5 national charts.
Her first number one hit in Australia was as lead singer of the group Absent Friends with the song I Don’t Want To Be With Nobody But You.
Wendy then went into the studio to record her solo debut, Émigré (Double Platinum) which earned her the Best Female Artist and Best Debut Single at 1990 ARIA Awards. This was followed by the Triple Platinum album Lily and in 1992 she picked up the ARIA for Best Female Artist and Best Single and again in 1993 Best Female Artist. The Day You Went Away was the highest selling single of 1993 and single of the year.
Wendy then followed up with another two studio albums The Witness Tree and Ghosts. In 2001 Wendy released Beautiful View featuring the hauntingly beautiful title track. 2004 saw the release of the chilled-out Café Naturale, an eclectic suite of songs which immediately evokes a feeling of familiarity.
Wendy is currently working on her ninth album, a wonderful collection of favourite songs that inspired her. As she puts it “an album of singers who made the singer – women who made the woman.”
