David Ramsay McNicoll CBE (1914-2000) was editor-in-chief of Sir Frank Packer's Australian Consolidated Press from 1953 to 1972, and wrote an immensely popular column for the Bulletin magazine from 1972 to 1999. In 1947, after a five-month stint as a war correspondent accompanying General Patton's Third Army and covering the liberation of Paris, McNicoll took on the controversial 'Town Talk' column for Sydney's Daily Telegraph. It was the first regular front-page column to appear in an Australian newspaper and from 1947 to 1953 McNicoll become an indispensable man about town, a 'prince of Sydney'. Known as 'Dapper Dave', he later interviewed Juan Peron, Margaret Thatcher and Nelson Mandela.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2001
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