Anh's Brush with Fame

Two of my great passions are people and painting.

In this series, I get to enjoy both.

I meet extraordinary Australians, explore their stories...

I'm putting my hand up and saying I want to do something.

I want to be part of the solution.

See, I'm now crying now talking about crying.

What's happened to me?

..and paint their portraits.

It's theirs to keep, so I hope they like it.

Oh! (LAUGHS)

Wow!

Oh, my God! Holy mackerel!

That looks me! It's beautiful.

Mate, that's incredible.

That is gorgeous. That is absolutely amazing.

Welcome to Anh's Brush With Fame.

Terri Irwin is a world-famous conservationist.

She moved halfway around the world

when she fell in love with Steve Irwin.

Together, they created the extraordinarily successful

Crocodile Hunter documentaries...

Gee, that didn't come easy.

..and ran their Queensland zoo.

In 2006, she lost the love of her life

in tragic circumstances.

What does it take to raise kids through public grief

and continue her late husband's legacy?

This is the first time I've actually kind of sat for a portrait.

It's like the unknown.

What's he going to capture and how is he going to portray me,

and it's just kind of exciting.

Terri is such a professional.

In 20 years in the spotlight,

she's always seemed so comfortable in her own skin.

She has amazing warmth and composure.

I want to capture that warmth as well as her dignity and her drive.

Terri. It's so good to meet you.

Oh, welcome to the show. Thank you so much.

So great to have you. Take a seat. Very honoured to be here.

Thank you.

Oh, wow. We've got, um... We've got a lot to talk about.

We do. With the older I get, the more there is to talk about.

Let's go right back to the start. Yes.

You grew up in a small town in Oregon

and your father had lots of jobs.

Yes. Yes. Well, I was born at a young age.

Actually at Sacred Heart Hospital in Eugene, Oregon,

which is the same hospital my dad was born in in 1921.

My mother was a stay-at-home mum

and my dad was just an interesting, larger-than-life character.

He was in World War II as a radio operator,

and in the 1950s was a motorcycle cop.

When he started his own business, it was the funeral escort business

and then also driving pilot car.

So pilot cars are those vehicles that go in front of a big truck.

And then I came along in 1964.

And by that time, he was driving some of those trucks.

I learned a lot from him with his outlook on life.

He was always a very loving and forgiving person

and I really was close to my dad and wanted to emulate that.

He was always that kind of business entrepreneur

but very ethical and honest person.

So I was really lucky with great parents.

Driving across country,

Terri's dad would often find injured animals and bring them home

to nurse back to health,

instilling his daughter's love of wildlife from an early age.

How did you end up with a cougar?

I was in my early 20s and by then, running the family business.

I saw an ad in the paper one day

where somebody was selling a cougar, a mountain lion.

And it was really sad.

This man was selling everything from bears to monkeys

and all these exotic animals

and this cougar was in a little pet pack

and she had worn all the fur off her forehead trying to get out

and was really in a bad way.

So I called the United States Department of Agriculture.

The man I talked to said, "I can get there in about six months."

And I said, "In six months, this cougar's going to be dead."

So I went back and I took all my savings -

it was like $1,300 -

and I bought this cougar.

And I thought, "This is the best decision I've ever made."

She was sweet and loving and would curl up in my lap.

Her favourite game was to sneak up behind me and pounce on me.

And as she got bigger, this pouncing had to stop.

So I had to start working with her,

teaching her to play with her toys and not me.

So that really began my journey.

I started an organisation called Cougar Country

where I worked with predatory mammals.

Over the next couple of years,

Terri grew her animal sanctuary and became a vet nurse

after volunteering at an emergency veterinary hospital.

But a trip to the Great Barrier Reef would change her life forever.

And then you find yourself on holidays in Australia.

Yes.

And you see this guy.

Oh, it was really special.

So, I think when I came to Australia,

I came with friends when I was 27 years old

and they were mad keen scuba divers

and I, to this day, I'm terrified to scuba dive.

So we drove past this little tiny park

and my friends said to me, "Do you wanna go in?"

And I go, "You know, it looks kind of crummy.

"They'll probably be just a couple of snakes in jars

"and I'll be depressed."

And then I went, "No, I'll go in. Let's go in.

"Let's just go see it while we're here."

And it was small, but everything was immaculately clean.

And a lot of it was free ranging,

like the kangaroos are just hopping around,

and it was beautiful.

They were doing a crocodile show

and this guy was in with these crocodiles

and he was talking about them

in ways that I never really thought of crocodiles.

And he said, "They're also very passionate lovers."

And I thought,

"Now, there's something I wouldn't attribute to a crocodile."

But he said the male is very attentive to the female,

sometimes for hours before mating takes place.

And I thought, "Well, that's interesting.

"Crocodiles have figured out foreplay. Good for them."

And then he's feeding the crocodiles,

but it wasn't about him.

He only wanted to show how beautiful and amazing these animals were.

The fact that he was so humble and so loving towards these animals

was really attractive to me.

And he'd looked, like... rockin' those shorts too,

so I may have noticed that.

After the croc show,

I said something fabulously clever like, "Hi."

And we got to talking and I forgot all about my friends.

And all afternoon, we just talked.

I was trying to figure out how to say, "Do you have a girlfriend?"

And all of a sudden, like he read my mind,

he said, "Would you like to meet my girlfriend?"

And I felt myself sinking into the earth

as I said, "Yes, I'd love to."

And so he called out and he said, "Hey, Su! Come here!"

and here comes his little dog, Sui.

And he goes, "This is me girlfriend, Sui."

And I thought, "OK, you're perfect." (LAUGHS)

Three weeks after returning to Oregon,

Steve rang Terri and said he was coming to America.

They spent Thanksgiving together with her family

and when he returned to Australia, she followed him back.

He immediately took me to the Burdekin River,

which is about the southernmost population

of crocodiles in Queensland.

We went to the shallow area of the river,

but he kept putting himself between me and the river.

And I was like, "What are you doing?"

And he said, "Well, I'm sure this area is safe,

"but there's crocs in this river.

"So I want to be between you and the crocodiles."

I'm like, "Great. OK. Well, that suits me."

Then we went out that night to spot crocodiles and it was magical.

And the further we got up the river, the bigger the crocs got.

And Steve could tell the size of the croc

by the distance between its eyes,

but he said this one probably someone took a pot shot at,

It only has one eye, it's probably really big.

And the boat motor gets all tangled in this weed,

and all of a sudden the motor stops and the boat stops

and Steve goes, "Oh, darn it."

He went over the back of the boat

and starts cleaning the weed out of the propeller

right where this giant croc is.

It's the middle of the night in the middle of this river.

All of a sudden I thought,

"This guy is going to get grabbed by a crocodile.

"I don't even know where I am or how to get out of here

"or anything!

"I'm gonna be alone!"

And sure enough, everything was fine.

It was wildlife experience on steroids.

It was incredible. Oh, man. Yeah.

So beautiful.

Eight months later, you guys got married.

Yeah, well, it was a funny thing because we went back to the zoo.

We were falling a tree.

There was a tree that had been hit by lightning

and it had killed the tree.

We take it down in increments and then stack it all up.

And I'd been doing this all day, so by the end of the day I'm sweaty

and dirty and covered with leaves and bark and whatever.

And I was sitting there having a cool drink

and Steve turned to me and said, "So, what do you reckon?

"You want to get married?"

And I thought of one million reasons why I couldn't get married,

and a little voice somewhere said, "Yes! I'd love to!"

It was just absolutely and utterly comfortable.

It just felt like...

..we'd always been together.

It was amazing.

They married in June of 1992,