Frank Devine judging Miss World in the 60s
Australian journalism lost a true giant yesterday when the ebullient, talented and enormously generous Frank Devine – editor, reporter, columnist, bon vivant and intellectual giant – passed away after a dignified dance with cancer that lasted a year.
He was 77, but don’t let the number fool you. Frank was as vital in his last few days as he was when he was editing The Australian, The New York Post, The Chicago Sun-Times (at the invitation of Rupert Murdoch) and the Australian, New Zealand and American editions of Readers Digest.
That cruel and inhumane disease could attempt its worst, but it could not dent the elegant humour and erudition that he displayed each week in his incredibly popular columns in The Australian (which he had edited for 15 months in 1988 and 1989).
When I saw him a week ago, he was more jolly and voluminous than a man with terminal cancer should be. An eternal optimist, he looked forward to knocking back a dozen oysters that were being delivered the next day, and the cricket tragic in him was anticipating the coming Ashes series. He had an insatiable appetite for news, politics and gossip, but most of all, he wanted to know about family, and friendships – how things were really going.
Frank and his beloved wife Jacqueline, who he married in 1959
You see, Frank really cared about people. Really cared. He could read nuance and gain insight with a few gently delivered questions. He was interested, never judgmental.
For Frank Devine was an exceptionally decent and generous man. He radiated light and life and he did what few modern media giants do: he mentored young reporters and offered morsels of wisdom that would, ordinarily, take years to learn. And he did it in the most good-humoured manner, never imperious, never looking down his nose.
He was a forward-looking man and loved the promise shown by those who chose to follow in his journalistic footsteps; he loved that they loved what he loved – the power of the written word, the smell of newsprint and the fact they were delivering the first draft of history.
He was a superb wordsmith, yet never boastful of his talent; and was wonderfully generous to his friends and colleagues. Frank encouraged; he helped; he offered praise when he thought a story had been written well and if it was really, really good, you thought you’d gone to heaven on earth. He was never critical or cynical.
Frank was a man who lived by the glass-half-full principle: he lived large and long and knew that every moment was meant to be enjoyed and cherished. He had the memory of a steel trap but miraculously, he could not hold a grudge, or remember a slight, or recall a pain that was dealt him. Life was too sweet for that.
Instead, he saw the good in people and ignored the bad. He sang hymns in a wonderful baritone at Christmas, urging – no, forcing – the rest of us to do the same. One year, he gave my Amazing Grace a standing ovation and then plied me with wine for an encore. You couldn’t refuse Frank.
In the media, he was widely loved by those who had worked with him over six decades.
Frank’s professional history went like this: he was a cub reporter from New Zealand who landed in the big smoke – Perth – in 1953 and took Australian journalism by its throat. For his efforts, he was sent to New York as a foreign correspondent (a prime gig) in 1960 and spent the next decade in the US, London and Tokyo, covering the biggest events of the times.
And he was blessed with a gregariousness that made people want to tell him things and get him involved in their stories. Being a canny young Kiwi, he made the most of the opportunities. He was boxer Lionel Rose’s corner man in a title fight in Japan in 1968; he sat next to Martin Luther King on a plane en route to the Birmingham riots in Alabama and scored an exclusive; and he was a judge at the Miss World competition in Asia. All of which he wrote about with a rare finesse and felicity that makes most reporters weep. From his dispatches, you knew that Frank Devine loved life.
His career was marked by achievement and influence. But that undersells his greater success. His journalistic summits are overshadowed by what he always said was his greatest achievement – marrying the beautiful, dignified and graceful Jacqueline Magee of Perth in April 1959, and the family they subsequently built together. He fell in love with Jacqueline the moment he saw her – wearing an emerald green cheongsam she made herself. He told his daughters that “she was a movie star” and meeting her changed him forever. Theirs was a unique and enduring love story, and in April they celebrated 50 years as husband and wife – toasting each other with Champagne during a hospital visit.
Anyone who came within the Devine family orbit instantly got a crash course in the meaning of love, loyalty, devotion, and respect. Oh, and did I mention fun?
Frank Devine was a gentleman’s gentleman. It was a privilege to know him, an honour to love him, and a delight to be allowed in his company.
Journalism has lost a legend; the rest of us have lost a decent, dignified man and a dear, dear friend.
My condolences to his family who will miss Frank most:- his wife Jacqueline and his daughters, Miranda, Rosalind and Alexandra, granddaughter Emily; and the grandsons, Tom, Conrad, Casey, Frank (his namesake) and Robbie.
