DON Lane was a Jewish American from the Bronx, but when he was buried yesterday a part of Australia was buried with him; a more innocent age when a sense of wonder was easier to find.
When he first hit the screen in 1965 he was an unimaginably glamorous and exotic specimen - a nightclub crooner with an eye for the ladies soon to become Australia's richest and top-rating TV star. But his tiny funeral at a suburban cemetery yesterday could not have been further away from that world - and towards the end of his life neither could he.
It is Jewish custom that memorial services are brief and that the dead are interred as quickly as possible, and so when around 50 mourners gathered inside the Camellia Chapel at Macquarie Park Cemetery there were no cameras, no razzle-dazzle, no fuss.
Rather it was a sombre and dignified service in which his son PJ spoke movingly about his father's love of his craft. He said that when the two of them sat down together to watch television he would find himself instead watching his father as he stared at the screen - engrossed and engrossing at the same time.
There were readings from the Torah - the Jewish bible comprising the first five books of the Old Testament - in Hebrew as part of a simple and "beautiful" service.
Afterwards Newton - now the last one standing from that golden age - joked that he thought the Jews had stolen the lines from the Catholics, before paying his own tribute.
He praised Lane's generosity and his honesty: "He was very warm. His personality shone through the camera. The camera is a microscope and it can pick a phony and Don was anything but that."
Indeed, the Tonight Show host had a reputation for being straight and loyal to people in an industry often typified by fakery and self-service.
Then there were the legendary stories of his temper. After the service Barry Crocker recalled his famous half-time speech to an ailing South Sydney squad in the 1970s in which he smashed his $5,000 gold watch on the floor.
The Rabbitohs went on to win the match.
Likewise if anyone accidentally told him the result of a Gridiron match before his specially videotaped games would arrive from the US he would go ballistic and was known to clear his desk.
Later in his career he began to feel bitter and neglected by the industry he had once been the shining light of.
Friends told The Daily Telegraph that by the end of the 1980s, as he tried to rebuild his career with Late Night Australia on Channel 10, he felt that those whose careers he had helped were not returning the favour.
Then a few years ago he started forgetting people himself - thanks to the dreaded Alzheimer's disease. By 2007 his family moved him into a home and barred all but his closest kin from him in the hope that he would be remembered for his extraordinary talents and not his tragic decline.
Yesterday that is exactly what happened.