Derryn Hinch

One of four children, the opinionated, sometimes controversial journalist, newspaper editor, writer, radio announcer, current-affairs TV host, Derryn Nigel Hinch, grew up in New Plymouth on the North Island of New Zealand. He has always dreamed of one day becoming a journalist. And so it was that, at the age of 15, he landed his first job with the local Teranaki Herald. The teenager loathed school and couldn't wait to be grown up. In 1963, Hinch sold his first car, a pink 1948 Morris Series E to finance his trip across the Tasman to Australia. The youngster joined the Sydney Morning Herald and became a foreign correspondent of the Fairfax Group in 1968. He was later promoted to the post of New York bureau chief. Upon his return to Australia, Hinch signed on as morning announcer at Radio 3AW in Melbourne in 1979. Almost immediately he set the industry alight by sky-rocketing to the top of the morning ratings, becoming the undisputed King of Melbourne radio. Married three times, one of h