Radio legend John Laws has died at the age of 90.
Nicknamed “Golden Tonsils”, the talkback host passed away in Sydney. He spent two weeks in hospital last month and was then cared for at his home at Woolloomooloo, where he died peacefully, on Saturday.
Before his death, the veteran broadcaster made some key property moves.
Sales transactions reveal Law quietly sold a slew of savvy property investments over recent years.
The radio icon earlier last year decided to offload one of two formerly adjoined waterfront apartments in Sydney’s Finger Wharf.
The unit was in the same complex where he lives.
Paperwork registered in September revealed the price was about $12.5m and the property exchanged off market.
The buyers were understood to be billionaire steel tsar Sanjeev Gupta and wife Nicola.
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Radio legend John Laws has died at the age of 90. Picture: Richard Dobson
The unit was one of just nine at the Harbour end of the 400m long wharf in Woolloomooloo – also home to actor Russell Crowe.
The Oscar-winning actor described Laws as a neighbour, mentor, “mischievous mate and a very good friend”.
“I am deeply saddened by his passing, however, I am buoyed in the sure and certain knowledge that he led a magnificent life of achievement and adventure and he lived every moment,” Crowe said.
“He worked hard, played harder and loved completely. A legend, in the very best, most Australian, sense of the word.
“I loved him and I’ll never forget him.”
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John Laws and Russell Crowe. Picture: Ryan Osland
The finger wharf apartments were completed in early 2000 by the Hunters Hill property developer Lang Walker after the wharf was saved from demolition in the early 1990s.
Laws and late wife Caroline purchased the bottom-floor wharf apartment in 2001, a year after the development opened, for $3m, according to sales records.
In 2005 they added the apartment above, for which the Laws reportedly paid $15m. This gave the couple five bedrooms, five bathrooms and parking for six cars.
The couple’s record price at the time exceeded the $14.35 million paid in 2003 by Crowe for a nearby apartment.
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Laws sold a property on Woolloomooloo’s Finger Wharf.
Prior to that, Laws had long resided in a luxury home in Woollahra designed by Espie Dods before selling it in 2004 for $7.7m to make the move to the Finger Wharf.
His Finger Wharf sale this year came four years after he sold a rental property in Woollahra that he had owned since the 1980s but reportedly never lived in.
The cottage changed hands for $3.42m. Laws had paid about $295,000 for the 250 sqm property in 1988.
The radio host also quietly sold off another property he owned on the Finger Wharf in 2018, pocketing $2.9m for the apartment he bought off the plan for $660,000 in 1997.
Laws has featured on a range of stations over the years but is most famous for his long stint on Sydney’s 2UE dating back to 1957.
He retired from radio in 2007 but, after a few years off, signed with 2SM in 2011.
Laws is survived by his three children Sam, Sarah and Joshua.
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