[1] After leaving school, Davey worked in the haberdashery department of a large store, but left after a close friend and workmate died after falling down an open lift shaft.

Prior to stardom, Davey worked variously as a signwriter, used car salesman and assistant stage theatre manager.

An account by his lifetime friend, aide and biographer, Lew Wright records: They said: 'Oh, yes, you can sing for us, Mr Davey, at three guineas.'

[3] Davey soon had his own breakfast show, a daytime quiz, an evening variety programme and voiceover work for Fox Movietone newsreels.

Abandoning his singing career, he adopted his trademark greeting of "Hi Ho, Everybody" and became Australia's highest paid and most popular radio performer, as a writer, producer, and host.

His first quiz show, "That's What You Think", began on 2GB in 1934, and by 1935 Jack (also known then as "Crazy" Davey[4]) was taken off the breakfast shift, because he was more valuable to the station as a host of its prime-time evening programs.

He joined the American Red Cross, as a field entertainer with the rank of captain, taking shows to troops across Australia and the islands of the Pacific.

As the war ended, Davey returned to radio, rejoining the Colgate-Palmolive production unit, which moved its programs to rival Sydney station 2UE in 1946.

He continued his radio work, producing multiple weekly quiz shows, talent quests and other entertainment programs.

[6] Davey had had a love affair with cars for most of his life, and when the first Redex Reliability Trial (a round-Australia rally) was announced, he was one of the first to enter.

Doctors told him he had to ease his workload, but even while he was in hospital he continued to write his newspaper column and do radio shows.

In mid-1959, X-rays revealed a small cancer in his right lung, but Davey went on with his work, including a trip to the United States to look at advances in television.