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Saturday, July 4, 2009

Vale Frank Devine


Frank Devine was a great friend of Connor Court. Always offering his support, always willing to do a review of our titles and always offering his advice. He will be missed. To the very end he was offering his help with Fr James Murray's book The Judas Tree. We posted his copy of The Judas Tree only a few weeks ago with a big thank you. For all the team at Connor Court, thank you for the witness of your life and for your steadfast religious beliefs - solid to the very end. May you rest in peace.

The following is taken from the Australian.


July 03, 2009
Article from: The Australian


VETERAN newspaper columnist and editor Frank Devine has died after a long illness. He was 77 years old.
Frank Devine

Frank Devine: A conviction journalist whose religious faith was central to his life.

Today he was described as the “laughing cavalier of Australian journalism,” by friend and former NSW opposition leader Peter Coleman on the website of The Australian newspaper, where Mr Devine was a former columnist and editor.

He had also been editor of the Chicago Sun-Times and the New York Post, a senior editor at the American edition of Reader's Digest and editor-in-chief of the Australian Reader's Digest.

He worked as a foreign correspondent in New York, London and Tokyo.

“His laughter, often noisy, was always infectious,” Mr Coleman said.

“He was a sports fanatic (he had a bookcase full of dog-eared Wisdens), a film buff (his favourite film was The Godfather), and a stylish writer with a love for words.”

Mr Devine was born in Blenheim, New Zealand on December 17, 1931.

He began his career as a journalist at the age of 17 on the New Zealand publication The Marlborough Express.

In 1953 he started work at The West Australian, where he met his wife Jacqueline. They married in 1959.

Mr Devine is survived by his wife and his three daughters Miranda, Alexandra and Rosalind.