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Ian Turpie

Australian actor and Game show host (1943-2012)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ5983120
Source-derived summary

Ian Bruce Turpie (6 November 1943 – 11 March 2012), sometimes referred to as Turps, was an Australian performer, actor (theatre, television, film), pop singer and presenter (television, radio). He was the host of the teen pop music TV show, The Go!! Show (1965–66) and various TV game shows, The Price Is Right (1981–1985, 1989), and Supermarket Sweep (1992–1994). As a TV actor he portrayed Keith Warne on Swift and Shift Couriers (2008, 2011) and Wazza and Narrator in Housos (2011). He was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in 2011 and died the following year, aged 68.

Early life

Ian Bruce Turpie was born on 6 November 1943 at Ferntree Gully's Bush Nursing Hospital to Don Turpie (1911–1990), a shipping clerk and Joyce (née Olson, 1917–1999) and grew up with six siblings. He attended nearby Boronia State School, where he performed gymnastics and school plays. His first starring role, in a school play, was as the titular character in Toad of Toad Hall, at the local Progress Hall, in August 1954. He began his entertainment career at the age of 10, when he was accepted at the Hector Crawford Drama School. For secondary education he attended a technical high school.

Editorial summary

“Ian Turpie” enters the record as australian actor and Game show host (1943-2012). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Turpie, Australian and actor can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1943, 2012, 1965, 1981—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1943-11-06. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Turpie, Australian and actor.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Ian Turpie” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Turpie, Australian and actor provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5983120. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943, 2012, 1965 and 1981.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ian Turpie”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ian Turpie primary sources, Ian Turpie archive and Turpie research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ian Turpie”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Ian Turpie” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.