Clyde Packer was the eldest son of Sir Frank Packer (q.v.) and his first wife, Gretel, and heir to the family media empire. He was educated at Cranbrook, in New South Wales, and Geelong Grammar, Victoria. He did not go to university as he wanted, but complied with his father's wishes and joined the family company Australian Consolidated Press (ACP). He worked as a journalist before becoming joint managing director of Channel 9 and a number of radio stations. In 1958, when the company launched the Observer, a fortnightly magazine of ideas and opinion, Clyde Packer was closely involved. Under Donald Horne's (q.v.) editorship the Observer was remarkably progressive, supporting abolition of censorship, reform of divorce laws and a new deal for women, Aborigines and homosexuals.When the Literature Board of Review in Queensland tried to ban Weekend, a magazine also edited by Horne, Clyde Packer joined Horne in launching an attack on the censors, took the battle to the High Court of Australia and won.
From 1964 to 1976 Packer was a Liberal member of the New South Wales Legislative Council. He resigned from the Packer media companies in 1972 after his father wanted a television interview with the leader of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), Bob Hawke, pulled. Packer became briefly involved with the counterculture, backing the stage musicals Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar and the sex magazine, Forum. In 1976 he moved permanently to California, having sold his 25% share of the family business to his younger brother, Kerry Packer (q.v.), for four million dollars. He ran a successful publishing company, Western Empire Publications, invested in films and pursued an interest in surf culture through his surf company, Gotcha. Western Empire Publications was sold in 1997. Packer was a political conservative who was liberal in every other way, a strong opponent of censorship and a supporter of civil liberties.
(Source: Robert Milliken, 'Obituary : Clyde Packer', The Independent (London) (12 April 2001).)
