In 2003, the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, invited him to attend a gala barbecue at his official residence in Canberra in honour of George Bush. As such, he was in constant demand for photo opportunities, and to promote Australia abroad. Irwin once observed: "You're far safer dealing with crocodiles and western diamondback rattlesnakes than the executives and the producers and all those sharks in the big MGM building." With his thick drawl, his trademark cry of "Crikey!" and his perennial get-up of khaki shorts and shirt, long socks and heavy boots, Irwin fulfilled every cliché of the Australian Outback bloke. In 2002 he released a feature-length film, The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, set in the Outback, in which he tried to prevent CIA agents from catching a crocodile that had swallowed a tracking device. But his most memorable encounter, he said, took place at Howletts Wild Animal Park near Canterbury in Kent, where he went "one-on-one with the gorillas and was accepted as one of their own". He starred in more than 200 documentaries, including The Croc Files and The Crocodile Hunter Diaries. Irwin travelled the world, filming in locations that included the Himalayas, Borneo and South Africa's Kruger National Park. His show was first broadcast in Australia in 1992, before being picked up by the American Discovery network and shown worldwide, acquiring an audience of tens of millions. It was all about "perceived danger" he said, claiming that: "In front of that crocodile I was in complete control, absolute and complete control."Īs a true-life embodiment of Paul Hogan's character in the 1986 hit film Crocodile Dundee, Irwin was one of Australia's most successful exports. He simply could not understand what the fuss was about when he dangled his one-month-old baby, Bob, above a large, snapping crocodile while feeding it in a pen. He was a showman, irrepressibly ebullient, and he thrived on his death-defying encounters with wildlife. But Irwin was only doing what had come naturally since he was given a 12ft scrub python for his birthday at the age of six. Yesterday one commentator blamed his death on the demands of an increasingly voyeuristic brand of television.
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