Getty/Instagram/larryemdur
The Morning Show star Larry Emdur has shared painful details about his father’s death in a new interview, revealing how his reaction to a grave diagnosis ultimately spawned a “great legacy”.
Opening up in an episode of the Straight Talk with Mark Bouris podcast, the popular Channel Seven star – who’s beloved for his happy-go-lucky demeanour on TV – spoke about the habit that finally claimed the life of his dad, Dave, and the important message he left behind.
“He was a very very heavy smoker. No getting around it,” Larry, 60, revealed on the podcast, before sharing a rare insight into his father’s cause of death two decades ago.
“You want to sugarcoat, don’t you? But he was a very, very heavy smoker all of his life, and in the end it was sort of emphysema and a whole bunch of related issues,” he explained.
The star revealed how the man who’d always been a “great storyteller” used his gift as his life neared its end.
Dave lived in Bondi in his 60s and, despite his diagnosis, he was determined to live life to the fullest.
“He had all these great stories about how he’d go out on his little buggy and do wheelies and chase pretty girls up and down the beach,” Larry explained.
“He’d put his oxygen thing on, he’d go out with his buggy and go and get fish and chips and he still wanted to live the beach life,” he recalled.
“I said, ‘Dad, right, you should write these stories. They’re great stories’, because I was the journalist.”
It ended up being advice his father followed.
Dave teamed up with a magazine called Lung Net, which went out to those suffering from breathing problems and emphysema, and started writing a column called The Lighter Side.
“They’d print them and they got such a huge response to them – because you’re only reading that magazine for the latest research on, you know, lung conditions and deals on breathing equipment stuff,” Larry said. “So all of a sudden, now there’s this column about funny stuff that happens to you.”
The star said he thought it was a “great legacy” for his father to leave behind.
“That was a great legacy from him to me to go, even when you’re feeling like that and you are dying, to be able to lighten people’s day, to be able to tell nice stories and make people smile,” he said.
“I thought that was a really really important message.”
It’s not the first time that Larry has addressed his father’s passing. In 2020, the Gold Logie winner penned an emotional open letter to his dad as part of the Letters To My Mentor campaign by the Raise Foundation, which helps to find mentors for vulnerable young people.
Larry told 7NEWS.com.au he’d found the process “confronting” as it included things that he’d never got to say before his father died.
“I had to leave and go and have a cry and come back and try it again,” he told the outlet.
“But it’s about finding someone and the strength that they gave you at various points in your life.
“To me, I realise my dad was the guy that set me on the right path and was who I could lean on.
“People have all different sorts of mentoring experiences – but for me, that was Dad.”
