Cruel twist in death of anti-suicide campaigner

Annalise Braakensiek was an RUOK? Day ambassador.

How did the world see Annalise Braakensiek, the lambent pin-up, who died on Sunday?

Let’s start with the obvious: she was blonde, she was bubbly; she was buxom, bodacious … all those lovely B words, and look, the girl didn’t walk, she bounced.

She was a bikini model — the original, probably — from Bondi, a celebration of callipygian curves way before those cheap pretenders, those copycat Kardashians, started sticking their bums out on Instagram.

Such was Braakensiek’s appeal in the 1990s, they put her on the cover of Inside Sport not once but six times. There are so many like her now, but back in the day, wow.

And yet she was always more. There was always more to Braakensiek than her comely outer layer. Having been scouted for modelling work on Bondi Beach at the age of 16, she would go on to work as an actress in some of Australia’s highest-rating TV shows, including Heartbreak High and Home and Away.

In the 2000s, she was cast as a ditzy blonde Claudia Macpherson (that’s an Elle, Schiffer mash-up, for those old enough to remember the original supermodels) in the SBS comedy series Fat Pizza. Her role was parody, a piss-take, and she not only got it, she owned it. She helped write the dialogue. She was nominated for a Logie.

She was a fixture, in Sydney, on the Bondi-to-Bronte clifftop walk, powering along with a Farrah Fawcett smile of wattage sufficient to light the dark side of the moon.

Mostly, she’d be with her husband, Danny Goldberg. They had no children, but doted on a big-grin staffy.

Away from work, she was fluent in German and could speak Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Japanese. She was a striver, turning her hand to sunglass design, to lingerie for curvy girls, to eco-friendly under­pants, to delicate jewellery.

She was determined to put a good face on things, but close friends understood that she had for decades suffered from a potentially fatal illness: depression. When she split from Goldberg, the ex-Macquarie stockbroker, last April, she found herself in a bit of a spot.

Priced out of Bondi, she ended up couch-surfing, which confounded friends. She ended up buying what she could afford — a tiny, entry-level place, near Kings Cross — but felt unmoored.

She used to run a little business, where she’d go to the Bondi markets, forage for fresh produce to make a vegetarian lasagne, and sell it out of her kitchen, but then she was without a kitchen, without the herb garden she’d planted, without her dog.

You’d still see her on the Bondi-to-Bronte track but now she walked alone.

She was an ambassador for the mental health program RUOK? Day, and last month she wrote: “Not going to lie, these past few weeks have been nothing but headache, heartache and hassle, let downs and loss.”

RUOK? chief executive Brendan Maher led the mourners yesterday, saying: “We are still processing the news we have heard today. Annalise has been a huge voice for suicide prevention in Australia … she has stepped up time and time again to share our message, even when she was going through her own tough times.”

Last month, on Instagram, she wrote: “Hanging in there by the hair on my chinny chin chin …”

Still, life seemed to have taken a turn for a better: she was back in Bondi on Boxing Day; indeed, there’s a picture of her online, joyfully sticking her rear end out ­towards the camera, poking fun at herself, and her sister.

In the caption, she thanked those who had carried her through a difficult 12 months. “#bring­on2019,” she wrote, “#love #strength #support.” Also: “We got this” — ­except, of course, that life is not a hashtag. The illness overcame her; she would survive not two more weeks.

If you or someone you know needs help, contact BeyondBlue on 1300 224 636 or Lifeline on 13 11 14. RUOK? is a suicide prevention charity that aims to start life-changing conversations.