Bernie Elsey

After quitting the plumbing trade, he embarked on a new career by gambling on his salesmanship and offering himself to a Brisbane food wholesaler (Sanitarium) without pay for a month's trial.

Quick to recognise the potential of the Broadwater, he successfully sold to Ansett Airlines the idea of a Sandringham flying boat service to Southport.

When he found that The Beatles, whom he had engaged to appear at his Coolangatta Beachcomber, expected free food as well as pay, he cancelled the arrangement and substituted an unknown Brisbane group, the Gibb Brothers, later known as the Bee Gees.

After an acrimonious struggle with rivals, he became chairman of the Surfers Paradise Chamber of Commerce and proceeded to promote the region with considerable emphasis on sex.

That he married four times and fathered a son Bernie Jnr at 75, may indicate his persistence, his energy or his inability to form close permanent relationships or all of those, but without doubt, he moved and shook Surfers Paradise vigorously.

Before taking an overdose[8] of sleeping pills, he wrote a love letter to his young Filipino bride Angelina, encouraging her to be strong and to look after their 5-year-old son.

He also packed a box full of his most treasured worldly possessions addressed to his son saying simply, "Dear Jr, Carry on the good work.