Ray Martin was born in Richmond, near Sydney, in 1944. After an itinerant childhood, he finally settled as a teenager in Launceston, Tasmania. He won a scholarship to Sydney University and obtained an Arts degree. Ray began his career working for ABC radio in Sydney in 1965. He married Dianne in 1968 and they moved to New York where Ray worked as a correspondent for the ABC's North American bureau for ten years. In 1978 Ray moved back to Australia to launch 60 Minutes with George Negus and Ian Leslie. The show was a huge success. After his daughter, Jenna, was born in 1984, Ray hosted The Midday Show to be closer to home. There he won five Gold Logies, more than twenty Silver Logies and a handful of People's Choice awards. His son, Luke, was born in 1990. In 1994 Ray left The Midday Show for the first of two stints as host of A Current Affair before hosting The Ray Martin Show. Ray hosted Carols by Candlelight for twenty years and a number of network TV appeals. He became deeply involved in a variety of charities, especially those concerned with Aboriginal disadvantage and children's hospitals. He spent a decade as Chairman of the Fred Hollows Foundation and was appointed to the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. He also became Patron of the Humpty Dumpty Foundation, which raises medical equipment for children's hospitals across Australia.