Of all the celebrity deaths that have happened so far this year, none has touched me more than the death of Sam Neill — because I knew him.
Which is strange because I never actually met him.
Neill had one of those rare, magnetic qualities of appearing to be immensely approachable.
So approachable that I often thought if I ever met him, I would just have a long relaxed chat with him over a slow wine in a bar somewhere.
He would tell me all about his yoga routines with his celebrity-named animals on his New Zealand farm, about his rooster called Michael Fassbender and his cows Helena Bonham Carter and Laura Dern and about why he can’t eat them because: “When you have a cow that’s a national treasure you can’t turn her into sausages.”
I would listen and sip his home-grown wine and tell him all about life on my verandah with Desmond the barrow doggie who is still waiting for singer Molly to turn up with her band.
Because that’s the sort of bloke Neill was, ordinary, funny and likeable.
Except, of course, he wasn’t ordinary.
He was a global star, an immensely talented actor and a very rich man.
He just wore his fame and wealth very lightly like a threadbare scarf you didn’t notice.
Of course, like a lot of actors he could put on whatever character he wanted, so how do I know his charm and his wit and his relaxed manner wasn’t all an act?
Perhaps underneath it all he was a mean-spirited, insecure egomaniac.
But I have it on the trustworthy authority of no less a reliable source than the Chief Gardener herself that Neill was actually all that he seemed to be off or on camera — truly a good person.
In another life, before she met the introverted scribbling dreamer with whom she would spend the next 35 years, the Chief Gardener was an aspiring actor who scored a walk-on part in the 1988 Australian movie Evil Angels starring Meryl Streep and Neill.
The Chief Gardener confirmed to me that whether he was in the chair talking to his make-up lady or on the film set talking to fellow actors, Neill was the same witty, kind, and gentle man that his public persona conveys.
So I never met Neill and I never knew him, but I felt as though I did.
In that way, he had a Paul McCartney quality to him — a local, knockabout easy-going quality.
And just as McCartney’s charm disguises a steely drive to succeed, so Neill had a fierce intelligence that underpinned his talent as an actor.
He seemed to just understand ordinary people and their faults as well as their gifts.
To the people of Earnscleugh Valley in New Zealand where he grew grapes for his wine Two Paddocks and named his menagerie of animals, he was known as Sam who lived in a converted tractor shed on his vineyard.
When he wasn’t filming in Hollywood, he wandered around the local towns visiting cafes and small restaurants and supporting local cinemas.
Neill seemed to remember something that many of us have forgotten — that the good of the world depends not on status and power, but upon the uncelebrated, unseen decency of everyday people.
I’ll leave the final words to ABC journalist Laura Tingle who was Neill’s partner for a few years: “Sweet dreams darling Sam.”
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