I make a real point of not getting attached to the misfortunes of celebrities because I always feel there is something insincere about developing deep emotions towards someone you’ve never met or really know at all.
When I saw the smiling picture of Jane McGrath on the Age website with the news that she had died, I was very moved. I felt like someone I really liked was gone. I felt like I had had a significant loss.
I felt so strongly because I had seen her interviewed on the Australian ABC show Enough Rope, by the extraordinary Andrew Denton.
Like Peter Brock and Steve Irwin before her, Jane had opened up her heart to the Australian nation on Denton’s program and then gone on to die tragically.
These three deaths are a horrible coincidence and it’s an issue that should not be sensationalised.
To understand how affecting these deaths were for your average Australian though, particularly i think Jane McGrath’s, you need to understand the nature of the program “Enough Rope”.
For the last three years or so they were the highlight of my viewing week, whether watched live in Australia or on pod cast overseas. It was something that nearly everyone you spoke to had seen. Even right wing politicians and National Broadcast loathers appeared on and discussed it.
Andrew is a comedian, and a very funny and successful one. He used that wit along with his undoubted intelligence and compassion, to inspire his guests to share their very intimate stories with him on camera. Often these people were very famous but then often they were quite ordinary. Their stories never were though. Guests regularly cried or were similarly affected. Of course they laughed a lot too.
Looking back to the moment that Jane McGrath disclosed she had secondary tumours is one of the starkest examples.
I feel that this form of television, the humorous and therapeutic show he presented during that period, brought us a little closer to caring for each other.
It’s very sad that I realise this now, through the death of Jane McGrath.
I never met you Jane, but I thought you were amazing.
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