Obituary: Stingray death for zany Australian nature lover

By Sid Astbury Sep 4, 2006, 7:03 GMT

A file photograph dated 07 July 2002 showing Steve Irwin with wife Terri and daughter Bindi-Sue at the opening of their new film The Crocodile Hunter at George Street, Sydney. Irwin, aged 44, has died, Monday, 04 Septemeber 2006, in a marine accident while filming an underwater documentary off Port Douglas, his body has been flown to Cairns. EPA/JAMIE FAWCETT

Sydney - Zookeeper, film star and environmentalist extraordinaire Steve Irwin died as he had lived: getting as close to, and personal with, Australia's most dangerous creatures.

It was as if the zany 44-year-old showman had devised a way of death that both summed up his devil-may-care attitude and had an eye to how it would look on his tombstone: Speared through the heart by a stingray while diving on the Great Barrier Reef.

Irwin was a jumble of contradictions: an astute businessman who liked to pass himself off as a village idiot; a self-made man who actually inherited from his parents the money-spinning Australia Zoo on Queensland's Gold Coast; a nature lover who seemed obsessed with stalking and taunting wild animals.

Irwin was set up for a life of danger by his zookeeper parents. They gave him a python on his sixth birthday and by the age of nine had him catching deadly saltwater crocodiles with his bare hands.

Or, at least, that's the way Steve the charmer liked to tell it.

With the catch-cry 'Crickey' and togged out in khaki shorts and shirt, Irwin won worldwide attention as the Crocodile Hunter. The television series boasted an audience of 500,000 and spawned merchandise like Crocodile Hunter dolls and led to a feature film.

He was at once shocked and delighted by his instant and amazing success as a filmmaker.

'It's insane, mate,' he hollered at the Sydney premiere of the 2002 feature film Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course. 'I'm bigger than 10 bears. I reckon you'd be pretty right if you said I'm the best known Aussie in the world.'

When United States President George W Bush visited Canberra in 2004 Irwin was on the guest list for a barbecue at the prime minister's residence in Canberra. Characteristically, Irwin turned up in his trademark khakis to greet the most powerful man in the world.

The muscular bloke with the bleached hair and the ragged clothes had a penchant for exaggeration. Everything in his hyperactive world seemed larger than life.

He famously declared Prime Minister John Howard to be the 'greatest leader in the entire world' - injudicious remarks about a political leader that raised hackles.

A knack for self-promotion and a business-savvy American wife led some to see him as having grown too big for his desert boots.

Said Irwin's business manager John Stainton: 'It's what happens in Australia. You stick your head up and you've got 10,000 shotguns pointed at you.'

Worse was to come for Irwin. In 2003 he was left defending the indefensible after cameras caught him feeding chicken to a hungry 4-metre saltwater crocodile with one hand while holding month-old son Bob in the other.

Pictures of a stunt performed in front of a paying audience at Australia Zoo flashed around the world and had viewers wondering whether the madcap bushman was simply mad.

Australians, in letters to newspapers and in comments on talkback radio, were universal in their condemnation.

Stuart Hastings, writing to The Australian newspaper, noted the logical inconsistency in Irwin's declaration that little Bob's life was never at risk: 'If his baby was in any danger from the crocodiles, then Irwin was guilty of gross dereliction of his parental responsibility. If there was no danger from the crocodiles, then the whole of his crocodile feeding act is a fraud.'

Irwin took on a much lower profile in his homeland after the episode with baby Bob.

He leaves a wife, Terri, and two children. Bob is now 3. His sister, Bindi Sue, is 8.