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Claire Harvey tells us why Tracy Grimshaw is the poster girl for the changing face of Australian television
TRACY Grimshaw never expected a long-term television career, but at 50, she is winning industry awards, taming the notorious "tabloid terror" -- and even helping to herald a new golden age for TV women in Australia.
Grimshaw turned 50 on June 3 and says one of the good things about it is that male television executives have stopped sexually harassing her.
Rising through the Nine Network in the 1980s and '90s, Grimshaw became accustomed to leery post-lunch advances and, like most of the ambitious women of TV, she simply ignored them.
"I'm sure I've been, technically, sexually harassed over the years, but I used to be a barmaid. You just go: `Oh for God's sake, get off it'," Grimshaw says.
"I'm quite sure I've had things said to me over the years that another woman would be horrified by, offended by -- and quite rightly. And I've just gone: `Oh well'." She sighs.
"And the bloke goes: `Oh, I was just havin' a crack'."
Grimshaw, famously self-deprecating about her looks and who dislikes posing for photographs, says the rate of sexual harassment has tailed off as she's aged.
"Not quite so much these days, unfortunately," she laughs.
"But it depends on your perception and how you choose to handle it."
After 30 years in journalism and...