This was published 1 year ago
‘Some people find Ita intimidating, but…’ Di Morrissey on her bestie of 60 years
They’re two of Australia’s most famous women – Ita Buttrose, 80, the chair of the ABC, and Di Morrissey, 79, bestselling novelist – but they were just making the tea when they became friends almost 60 years ago.
Ita Buttrose, left, and Di Morrissey: “Because Di and I first met when we weren’t high-profile, we know what we’re like.”Credit: Janie Barrett
Di: We met at The Australian Women’s Weekly as copygirls in the 1960s, making tea and running messages. We just bonded. We’d both left school at 15, but Ita was living in Sydney’s eastern suburbs with a well-known father, and I’d lost mine when I was 10 and was living in a fibro cottage in Mona Vale with my mother, who was struggling. It was only after I went to Ita’s engagement party at her house that I realised she was living in a very different world.
Because of living overseas or one thing and another, we’ve had years when we haven’t spoken, but then we just pick up where we left off. When I came back to Australia after my divorce [from former US diplomat Peter Morrissey], Ita was the first person I rang, after my mother.
Some people find Ita intimidating but, when you have friends you’ve known forever, they don’t scare you. She’s not afraid to speak her mind. She once asked me to write a piece for Ita magazine in the 1990s, so I did. Then she made me rewrite it. I ended up having to rewrite it three times, which kind of teed me off, but she pushes you to do your best.
“She’s so warm and loving but the persona, and the position she holds, might frighten men off.”
Like me, she had a very brief second marriage – we don’t talk about those! – but she’s not in a long-term relationship. She’s so warm and loving but the persona, and the position she holds, might frighten men off, I suppose, or attract men who want to use their successful wives. It’s hard to trust in her position. You become very self-sufficient, even about the small things. I said to her some time back, “Oh, my daughter’s a single working mum now and she can’t find anyone reasonably priced to mow her grass,” and Ita said, “Why doesn’t she bloody mow it herself? I did.”
She has a fabulous, if acerbic, sense of humour and she’s very wise. If you’re uncertain, a conversation with Ita clarifies your world view. She has taught me that if an opportunity comes along, don’t waste it. She was shocked when she was offered the chair at the ABC, but you step up. And of course, she’s perfect for it.
If she has doubts about something, she tries not to show it. It’s another strong woman thing; you battle on in public. She would never show tears. Even I haven’t seen them, although I know she has a very soft side.
In a way, now is the happiest she’s ever been: she’s doing a job that’s a challenge and that she enjoys; she’s got her life organised. It’s a very comfortable stage of her life, without sitting back on the front verandah.
We don’t talk about death or dying, although the other week it grabbed me that we are both getting the stiff knees and so on, and she had been in agony from a back operation that affected her feet and made walking difficult, and she’s a huge walker. Mostly we’re too busy doing things to think about how long we have, although I did say to her recently, about something or other, “Oh well, put it on the back burner,” and she said, “There’s not a lot that can wait on the back burner. We’ll have to put it on the front.”
Ita: We shared a lot of laughs at The Weekly. Di was fun and so pretty. Every bloke in the world seemed to be in love with her, including my brother Jules, who’d find any reason to visit the office and swoon over her.
I never thought about the difference in our backgrounds. My father was still alive, unlike hers, and I had three brothers, so we were quite a large family. I think it was the family life that attracted her. She was about 10 when she lost her father [he and her 18-month-old brother drowned in an accident] and, for a long time, she was looking for a father figure. [Actor] Chips Rafferty, who lived nearby in Pittwater, became a sort of godfather to her.
She’s good at anything she turns her hand to. When she came back to Australia after her marriage to Peter broke down, she was anxious to find a job, so I suggested TV. She became the entertainment reporter on Good Morning Australia, then on Ten. When she was getting close to 40, she still had this thing about writing books: “Life is passing me by, I’ve got to start.” She quit her job and headed to Byron Bay. She just had this passion. She was up there for the first 10 years in “the shack”, as she called it, and wrote 10 books. She’s prolific. [Her 29th novel, The Night Tide, was published this year.]
It really pisses her off, to use an unladylike term, that [popular] fiction writers aren’t recognised enough in Australia. I remember her complaining that she’s never invited to literary festivals to speak. I mean, she’s sold millions of books! There’s nobody to touch her in Australia.
“Neither of us are slowing down. Why would we? We’ve never discussed what happens if one of us carks it.”
She had that early trauma, of course, but I don’t remember ever seeing her unhappy. I think she’d probably hide it. I’m sure there have been disappointments, and nobody likes their marriages not to work. The third one, with Boris [Janjic], is a success. He fell in love with her when he was a teenager and just bided his time. A very patient man.
I admire that she’s still doing new things. It was gutsy of her to start a newspaper [The Manning Community News, based in mid-north NSW]. Neither of us are slowing down. Why would we? We’ve never discussed what happens if one of us carks it. I think we’re both too superstitious to. One of us might say, “I’ve got a bit of a twinge,” or “I’m getting over back surgery,” but we don’t talk about those things much. I’m doing four sessions of gym a week now, but I don’t think she does any. You know, she’s busy! Running a newspaper!
Hazel Hawke once told me that, as she grew older, she began to really appreciate her female friendships. Because Di and I first met when we weren’t high-profile, we know what we’re like. We don’t have to pretend to be anything but who we are with each other, whereas when you’re on show, you have to be more careful. We can just say, “Oh, my god, you’ve no idea what I’ve been going through!” and “Do tell!” I trust her absolutely.
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