Radio giant John Laws admitted he was lost once the woman he loved for more than seven decades – who listeners knew as his ‘princess’ – had died.
Laws was once the unassailable king of Sydney’s airwaves and bowed to no one, but the people who admired him most knew there was someone else more important behind ‘the golden microphone’.
On an overcast Tuesday morning at a small stone church in Sydney’s eastern suburbs in February 2020 the bereft broadcaster found comfort in the warm embrace of those who understood his loss.
Laws looked frail and inconsolable as he said a final goodbye to the partner whose support helped him become the best-known and highest-paid broadcaster in Australia.
The man known as ‘Golden Tonsils’ had been receiving end-of-life care for months when he died almost one year to the day since he walked out of a studio for last time.
Friends of Laws had found it hard to imagine how he could live without Caroline and his appearance at her funeral seemed to confirm exactly what they thought.
On that day, Russell Crowe had hugged his old friend as Laws stepped slowly out of a silver Rolls Royce at St Mark’s Anglican Church in Darling Point.
The acting great then spoke of his relationship with John and Caroline and the love they shared.
Russell Crowe adjusted radio legend John Laws’ tie as he arrived at the funeral for his wife Caroline, who died after a four-year battle with ovarian cancer. Crowe delivered a eulogy in which he described the couple’s enduring love
A devastated John Laws at the funeral of his wife Caroline, whom he affectionately called ‘The Princess’. Mrs Laws died aged 82 at the couple’s Woolloomooloo home on February 24
Pallbearers carried the coffin into St Mark’s Anglican Church at Darling Point, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs
Joining Laws as he farewelled his Princess were former prime minister Paul Keating, radio rival Alan Jones, retired newsreader Brian Henderson, television personality Kerri-Anne Kennerley and singer John Williamson.
Crowe told mourners he and his neighbour at Woolloomooloo disagreed about many things but one subject was never up for argument.
‘We always agreed on Caroline,’ he said.
Caroline, who died aged 82 after battling cancer, met her future second husband 74 years ago when they were teenagers.
The couple was introduced at a dance at a mutual friend’s home in Lindfield on Sydney’s North Shore in 1951. She was a student at Wahroonga’s Abbotsleigh school for girls and he was at Knox Grammar in the same suburb.
Laws wrote of their early feelings towards each other in the funeral’s order of service.
‘I remember on one occasion when we were in my Uncle George’s beautiful garden. Caroline was just 14 and I was 15,’ he recalled.
‘We were holding hands. And she just stopped walking… and said to me ‘I think we love each other’… just like that.
‘And we did… and did… ‘.
Mrs Laws, affectionately known as ‘The Princess’, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2016. She met her husband 69 years ago when they were both teenagers
Laws as he stepped out of a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce at St Mark’s Church in Darling Point, Sydney
Crowe said when he and then wife Danielle moved into Woolloomooloo’s Finger Wharf in 2003, Caroline was one of the first neighbours to make them feel welcome.
Danielle was pregnant with the couple’s first child Charlie and Caroline was thrilled about his impending birth.
‘She was bubbling with excitement there would soon be a baby in the building,’ Crowe told mourners.
It was Caroline who helped organise Charlie’s first birthday party, a function attended by billionaire Kerry Packer.
When Crowe told her he and Danielle were naming their second child Tennyson and read her one of the poet’s love sonnets she said, ‘That’s how I feel about John’.
‘She was always warm and affectionate, interested in what I was doing,’ Crowe said.
‘She told me more than once that she was very proud of me and the work I did.
‘… Some days you really need to hear something like that.’
Among the who’s who of Sydney’s media personalities paying their respects were radio king Alan Jones, his 2GB colleague Ben Fordham (left), and Studio 10 host Kerri-Anne Kennerley (right), who was seen being comforted by Jones (middle)
Laws told The Australian Women’s Weekly in 2016 that he loved his third wife at first sight.
After first meeting the pair didn’t see each other for 20 years as Caroline travelled to London to pursue ballet dancing and married another man.
Upon her return, Laws was a twice-divorced fully-fledged radio star and began to woo her. When the pair was finally reunited it was appropriately at Luna Park’s Tunnel of Love.
‘As soon as she came back into my life that was it, she was the woman and we’ve been together ever since,’ Laws has said.
Laws always called Caroline ‘The Princess’ on-air, after introducing her to his audience through his popular talkback radio show on 2UE.
They married in 1976 and between them had nine children from their three earlier marriages.
Caroline had four daughters: Gabrielle, Georgina, Nichola and Susie.
Crowe said Laws and his wife became much more than neighbours to him. ‘John and Caroline are family,’ he said.
Retired Channel Nine newsreader Brian Henderson, 88, was among old friends of John and Caroline Laws at the service
Ben Fordham hugged another mourner as hundreds arrived at the historic church to pay their respects to Caroline Laws
Mourners gathered outside the historic church on an overcast Tuesday morning before filing inside to farewell Mrs Laws
The order of service at Mrs Laws’ funeral service gave the bare details of a long life lived well
When Caroline blamed him if he and Laws had too much to drink Crowe always accepted responsibility.
The service heard Caroline was a great beauty who could pass for the Hollywood star Grace Kelly. She was stylish, with a radiant smile.
She enjoyed dark humour, had a sense of the ridiculous and laughed loudly.
A keen horticulturalist, Latin names for plants came easily and she wrote a book titled Laws of Gardening.
The service heard the couple enjoyed collecting art and international vacations. They were travellers rather than tourists and rarely apart.
‘We are just as much in love as we ever were,’ Caroline declared in 1986. ‘It happened in the beginning like a clap of thunder.
‘Slow was the last thing it was. That’s my way – very much my way.’
Crowe recalled how the couple did slow down as they got old together but still walked hand in hand along the Woolloomooloo wharf.
Former prime minister Paul Keating paid his respects to Mrs Laws and her family at the funeral service
Media personalities Ben Fordham and Kerri-Anne Kennerley arrived at St Mark’s church in Darling Point
‘I think we love each other’: A tribute by Laws to his wife was printed on the back of the order of service
‘The stroll got slower but the love only ever got deeper,’ he said.
‘They were and they remain a beautiful, inspiring love story.’
Once, after returning from overseas, he had witnessed Laws and his wife take a fall near their favourite restaurant Otto and had gone to their aid.
As he helped Caroline to her feet she had said, ‘Oh Russell, you’re home! How wonderful to see you. We’ve missed you.’
‘As if it was the most normal thing in the world for me to be picking her up off the ground,’ Crowe said.
Caroline was hospitalised with bronchial conditions in Rome on the pair’s annual European holiday at the start of 2016.
About the same time Caroline was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer during a routine check-up.
Laws said after his wife’s death: ‘I am lost’.
A procession from the church ahead of Mrs Laws’ coffin being carried out at the end of the funeral service
Mourners heard how Laws described it as ‘love at first sight’ when he was introduced to Mrs Laws 69 years ago
Radio 2SM, where Laws hosted the morning show until his retirement, announced Caroline had died at the couple’s home on February 24, 2020.
The show’s Twitter page posted: ‘It is with a heavy heart, we announce this morning the sad passing of Caroline Laws – beloved wife of legendary Australian broadcaster John Laws. Vale Caroline Laws – you will be forever loved by all.’
Laws retired in 2007 but returned to radio in February 2011 as the host of the morning show on 2SM within the Super Radio Network owned by reclusive multi-millionaire Bill Caralis.
He retired from that role on November 8, 2024. Caralis died in July last year aged 81.