Bindi Irwin to Continue "Career" in Television

[HWBL]

http://www.hollywood.com/news/detail/id/3567703

Bindi Irwin to Continue Career in Television

By WENN| Monday, October 16, 2006

HOLLYWOOD - Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin's eight-year-old
daughter Bindi will continue her father's legacy by taking over
where his career left off. The animal lover is currently shooting
Bindi, The Jungle Girl, a 26-part wildlife documentary show, that
is set to debut in January 2007.

Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray barb off the coast of
Queensland, Australia, in September while filming a segment
for his daughter's new show.

Bindi gave her first interview since her father's death to Australia's
ABC network saying, "I'm trying to get across the message that
don't be afraid of animals; they're just put on this earth to help the environment and everything like that."

Her late father will appear with her in scenes filmed before his death.

Steve's manager John Stainton explains, "We'll never refer to the
fact that Steve is no longer with us. The way it works is that
Steve plays co-star to Bindi.

"It's just the little reactions that she gives to her dad, who's,
you know, doing sort of silly stuff."

Responding to critics who say Bindi is too young to be in the
spotlight so soon after her father's death, Stainton says, "I think
they don't understand that this little girl is very much enjoying what
she's doing.

"She is in control."

Article Copyright Entertainment News Network All Rights Reserved.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...8-1702,00.html

This story is from our news.com.au network Source: AAP

Bob Irwin backs Bindi's rise
By Roberta Mancuso
October 16, 2006

BINDI Irwin's grandfather Bob has backed her controversial foray
into showbusiness, predicting the eight-year-old will have a "really,
really big career".

Amid criticisms too much pressure is being placed on the youngster
to follow her father Steve Irwin's footsteps, Bob Irwin said Bindi was
a “real professional” who enjoyed the spotlight.

He also backed his son's long-time friend and manager John Stainton,
who has come under fire for saying Bindi would be more famous than
her Crocodile Hunter father.

“John Stainton isn't only a friend of mine, he's the person that I would
like to guide Bindi through the rest of her career,” Mr Irwin told ABC
TV's Australian Story.

“And I think she's going to have a really, really big career.

“John will work closely with (Bindi's mother) Terri and I think with the
two of them, it will be a perfect match.”

Mr Irwin also revealed how he and Bindi still speak to the Crocodile
Hunter, who was killed after being struck in the chest by a stingray's
barb off the far north Queensland coast on September 4.

“... I've actually been with her and we've both spoken to Steve and
she actually speaks to him like he's there helping her,” he said.

Australian Story filmed on location this week as Bindi, accompanied by
her mother Terri, resumed work on the Bindi the Jungle Girl program for
the American Discovery Channel.

The program, titled What Lies Beyond, goes behind the scenes of the
six weeks since Irwin's death, and includes behind the scenes footage
captured during the Crocodile Hunter's memorial service at Australia Zoo.

Speaking for the first time since delivering a speech at the service,
Bindi urged people not to be afraid of animals because they were “put
on this Earth to help the environment”.

“Some people think that I would be afraid of them, but I'm never ever
afraid of an animal,” she said.

“I just get excited and some that are dangerous I just think oooh!
What's going to happen and things like that.”

Mr Stainton defended criticisms Bindi was being pushed into
showbusiness against her will.

“I think they (the critics) don't understand that this little girl is very
much enjoying what she's doing. She is in control,” he said.

“And I think the sort of psychologist or psychiatrists or child
counsellors or whatever that jumped on the bandwagon and said
that it was harmful to her, don't understand the situation whatsoever.”

Mr Stainton said Bindi would never be exposed to animals that could
hurt her.

“We have to be always mindful of that 'cause things can backfire on
us, like the baby Bob incident,” he said.

Meanwhile, it has been revealed that Irwin had agreed to appear in
a child safety DVD to help raise awareness to the plight of missing
Sunshine Coast teenager Daniel Morcombe.

The 13-year-old disappeared as he waited for a bus on the Nambour
Connection Road at Palmwoods on December 7, 2003.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3829586a12,00.html

Bindi has big shoes to fill
17 October 2006

Since the death of her famous father, Bindi Irwin has stepped into
the spotlight, but at what cost, asks Robert Wainwright.

In his last interview, published a month before he was killed by a
stingray in a freak accident off Port Douglas, Steve Irwin gave this
homespun assessment of his daughter's future: "We've connected a
big green cord from the ground to Bindi's butt to keep her earthed.
She has celebrity parents, lives half the year in America and the
other half in a zoo with 1000 animals.

"She travels to amazing places, is part of a multimillion-dollar
conservation foundation. It'd be easy for her to develop an 'I don't
need to work, I'll do whatever the hell I want' mind-set, thinking
that life's only about fun. That just ain't true. Bindi has to earn her
own money. She has to earn respect."

The first of her father's desires appears to be well on the way to
fruition. The second has already been achieved, with aplomb, at
his memorial service.

The diminutive eight-year-old moved many to tears as she stood
before a crowd of 5000 and a television audience of millions to pay
tribute to her daddy.

It wasn't just her delighted gap-toothed smile in response to the
applause as she walked onto the stage at the Crocoseum, or the
183 words she wrote herself the day before.

What left its mark was the way she read them, tracing the words
to avoid any mistake. The crowd could see the shadow of her finger
behind the paper, blown up tenfold on the giant screen above the
stadium, carefully following the lines of simple text, complete with
an endearing lapse into present tense:

"My daddy was my hero. He was always there for me when I needed
him. He listened to me and taught me so many things, but most of
all he was fun.
"I know that daddy had an important job. He was working to change
the world so everyone would love wildlife like he did. He built a hospital
to help animals and he bought lots of land to give animals a safe place
to live.

"He took me and my brother and my mum with him all the time. We
filmed together, caught crocodiles together and loved being in the
bush together. I don't want daddy's passion to ever end. I want to
help endangered wildlife, just like he did. I have the best daddy in
the whole world and I will miss him every day. When I see a crocodile
I will always think of him.

"And I know that daddy made this zoo so everyone could come and
learn to love all the animals. Daddy made this place his whole life.
Now it's our turn to help daddy. Thank you."

Even then she did not rush from the stage back to the comfort of her
distraught mother, but stayed to feed a trio of elephants led into the
stadium, peering out into the stands while the crowd cried and fell in
love with her.

So what were we witnessing? How could a little girl be so capable at
such a traumatic moment? Was it genuine or practised; the product
of a childhood sacrificed to ensure a television legacy? Will the weight
of expectation snuff out the flame?

The day after the service when Alison Garton, a professor of
psychology at Western Australia's Edith Cowan University, dared to
suggest that too much pressure was being placed on her tiny shoulders
it caused an outcry.

"She's obviously a very poised and mature eight-year-old, but I think
some of these public statements are probably a bit extreme in this
point in time," Garton said.

"She probably doesn't even understand properly what it means not to
have daddy around anyway. It's a rare child that would actually live
up to those expectations and thrive in them."

Garton told me her comments elicited a mixed response: "A lot of
colleagues supported my concerns but, yes, I got a few emails from
people telling me to butt out because I didn't know what I was
talking about."

Among those who disagreed with Garton was Karen Brooks, a senior
lecturer in Australian and cultural studies at the University of the
Sunshine Coast, who argued Bindi would simply be continuing to do
what was already familiar.

"Bindi has lived an exceptional life," Brooks said. "It is different to a
lot of other young people, and I think what we see as extraordinary
and incredible expectations are probably within her world of reality."

Garton and Brooks are probably both right. Bindi is a rarity who has
already lived an extraordinary life. She took her first overseas flight
at just two weeks, joining her parents on a film shoot in Texas chasing
rattlesnakes.

She made her television debut in the US just after her first birthday
and by the time she was seven had boarded more than 400 flights,
visited 14 countries and crisscrossed Australia dozens of times as
the Irwin caravan lurched its way from desert to swamp and reef
to mountain range.

She sings and dances with a band - Bindi and the Crocmen - as part
of the Australia Zoo entertainment, has her own line of clothing and
next year will debut in a 26-episode pay TV program in the US.

Understandably, the family has shielded the children since the
memorial service, although Bindi and her mother appeared last week
at a children's TV awards show in Sydney to honour a commitment
given before his death by Irwin.

This time there was no script. She faced questions with an innocent
frankness that seemed to confirm the family's confidence: "It's kind
of sad that he [Irwin] couldn't be here but it's nice that I can be here
to do it," she nodded with amazing assurance.

Bindi has made clear in several interviews to promote her coming TV
show that she wants a career in entertainment.

"I love being photographed, it's cool," she told the Women's Weekly.

"When people clap and cheer me, it makes me happy because I feel
I've done something well. When I grow up, I want to be doing exactly
what I do now - sing, act and work with animals."

The local paper, the Sunshine Coast Daily also did a short profile. It
found she liked what normal eight-year-old girls like - dolls, the colour
pink, chocolate, Britney Spears and The Simpsons.

When asked to describe herself, she replied: "Well, she's a wonderful girl
who loves animals." And her parents? "They've given me a lot of good
advice. Mostly how it's good to protect animals, and now that they've
done that I'm like, 'No, don't kill that mosquito, don't step on that bull ant'."

Her mother feels the same way. When Bindi was three years old Terri
Irwin wrote: "I will do my best to make the world a better place for
Bindi, and I'm really not terribly worried about her. Life will be filled
with adventure and challenge and I know Bindi will do well. She has to.
Like her family before her, Bindi is a wildlife warrior."

But there are distinct differences between Bindi and her father, which
he understood.

Steve grew up inside a tiny and struggling reptile park, attended
Caloundra State High School and went surfing on weekends in a rusty
Mazda with his mates. He even trained as a diesel mechanic before
pursuing his madcap career as a crocodile trapper and conservationist.

By comparison, Bindi is growing up inside a major tourist attraction -
a zoo come theme park that has no neighbours. She is home-schooled -
by "Miss Emma" - because the family is too famous and travelling too
frequently to keep up with lessons at the local primary school.

Even when they travel, the Irwins are mostly isolated in bush camps.

Bindi's hand-written letters reprinted on the zoo website - some
delightfully skewiff, and complete with spelling mistakes - talk mainly
of trips, croc research and animal encounters. There is little time or
opportunity for friendships with children her own age.

Fame and fortune has its price for a family that prides itself on being
ordinary - in an extraordinary kind of way.

The ubiquitous John Stainton, Irwin's long-time manager and film
producer, doesn't look like a man who should be slopping around muddy
creeks pouncing on crocodiles. He admits, ruefully, that often it was not
much fun on a shoot with the Crocodile Hunter. Swathed every day in
insect repellent, his ginger hair and pale, freckled skin a poor match for
the Queensland sun. Perhaps that's why he is the only member of the
Irwin crew who doesn't wear khaki, but it doesn't mean he is any less
fierce in his defence of the family.

Behind his now trademark sunglasses, Stainton's eyebrows twitch at
the suggestion that Bindi's welfare might not be at the forefront of
their thoughts or that she is too young to have clear ambitions and a
path in life. After all, her father caught his first crocodile when he was
just nine, albeit with the help of his dad, and Stainton (in his mid 50s)
insists he was the same age when he realised he wanted to make films.

"Bindi's really lucky that she has a direction at the age of eight," he
says. "Most kids get to 17 and still have no idea where they're going
or what they want to do."

Stainton, who met Irwin in 1992 while filming a beer commercial at the
zoo, recalls a moment when Bindi was five.

It was during a pause in shooting around the zoo with Steve. "One of
the crew asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up," Stainton
says. "We all thought she would say that she wanted to be like her dad
but she didn't. Instead, she said, 'I want to be like John because he tells
my daddy what to do'."

The point he is making is that she has very strong goals for such a
young girl.

"Until this year we hadn't done anything with her. She'd just come along
and filmed and was, well, Bindi. "It happened suddenly. She wanted to
do things. I sent her off with a cameraman and told her to go around
the zoo and talk to the camera about all the animals. She didn't stop
talking for 30 minutes; a single take on everything she knew on this
tortoise, just like her father - who could talk under wet cement.

"Look, those kids have got fantastic parents. Terri is very different
to Steve. She's very, what would you say, together. She's articulate
and thoughtful. Those kids have the best manners."

Like a good filmmaker, he reverts to story-telling to illustrate his point:
"Terri was always tolerant. She'd come home from the office after
making the bed to find Steve was hiding [his son] Bob jr under the
covers. So she'd make the bed again and then Steve would do it all
again. Sometimes she'd make the bed three or four times in a morning
because he'd keep mucking it up hiding Bob.

"As parents Steve and Terri made a decision to take the kids with
them when they went on a shoot. They didn't want to leave them
behind, so filming and travelling is part of their lives. As a producer,
I would never ask anyone to do anything they aren't comfortable
about. There would be no point.

"I know where Bindi is going and she knows where she's going.
We all know that she will end up a much bigger star than Steve ever
was. Things will explode when we get this series done, just like Steve.
I knew it with him and I know it with Bindi. You can just tell."

It is this statement that seems so hard to understand. How can he
be so confident about the future of an eight-year-old?

"Bindi is compelling. You can get any eight-year-old up on television. In
America there are thousands of them, in soapies and series but they are
very much little actors, set in what they can do.

"Bindi is natural, and being natural is the hardest thing on television. She
has no fear; it's like a walk in the park for her. Everyone who has seen
the early stuff we've done has the same reaction." And her character?
Surely, not another Crocodile Hunter?

"Dunno, dunno; it's too early to tell. Maybe she'll be a famous Hollywood
actor like Nicole Kidman or a singer like Britney Spears or Madonna.
Maybe a dancer. Or maybe she could be a great wildlife presenter like
David Attenborough. Who knows?

"Whatever she does she will be in the public eye. She loves performing;
she's comfortable, it makes her happy. She may change within that
scope, but that's her choice.

"If she wants to drop out and be a nurse at the age of 18 then no one
is going to stand in her way. The saving grace for Bindi and for Bob is
that they don't live in Hollywood; they live here, in Beerwah, which is
very levelling. They will always be fine as long as they have this base.
Australians will keep those kids on the straight and narrow."

She may not be used to anything else, but that still doesn't make it
natural. After all, she grew/grows up quite isolated in the Irwin Bush
Camps.....
I just don't know what to make of this. Overall it just makes me sad

[Lobelia]

Responding to critics who say Bindi is too young to be in the spotlight so
soon after her father's death, Stainton says, "I think they don't understand
that this little girl is very much enjoying what she's doing.

"She is in control."

Yes, it's always a good idea to let small children make life-affecting decisions for themselves. Their little frames of reference & basis for judgment is so gooooood.

She's enjoying it? My kids enjoyed eating too much candy & darting into traffic.

[Voodoo Child]

In all fairness she had already been signed up to this deal for 26 shows before her father even died. I don't see a problem with it.

[Sleuth]

As terrible as it seems, thats just the sort of kid that she is. If it is definatly her own decision than i don't see a problem, its her way of commemorating her father. She was working on this before he died, and is probly sees no reason not to finish it. However i would have a problem if it was Stainton pushing her to do it which im hoping is not the case.

[Lobelia]

Eight year-olds should not be in charge of their lives. Not saying that what she's going to be doing is terrible, but her mother needs to be making these decisions, not the child herself. It's this ridiculous parenting trend nowadays of letting children call the shots that has produced the legions of obnoxious brats running around. Kids in show business need love & guidance, not free reign.

[A*O]

This has bugger all to do with 'continuing Steve's legacy' and everything to do with showbiz and $$$. She's been groomed for this since the day she was born (Steve + filmcrew in the delivery room recording every moment) and Terri Irwin is yer basic stage mom and that John Stainton (Steve's business manager, aka 'best friend') is a total parasite. One way or another that kid is doomed.

[Grimmlok]

"Remember, it's for the children!" - pageant mom

[Laurent]

Steve's manager John Stainton explains, "We'll never refer to the
fact that Steve is no longer with us. The way it works is that
Steve plays co-star to Bindi.

So they're going to ignore the fact that her father is dead and gone so that he can remain her "co-star" and keep the show going.

Wow, he just comes right out and announces his agenda, doesn't he?

[A*O]

Ah yes, the famous Pageant/Stage Mom Universal Defence "I'm not forcing her, she WANTS to do it and can stop anytime she likes".

It's interesting that now the hysteria has died down about the death of St Steve there is an increasing backlash (proper sense of perspective?) about his whole schtick and there is most definitely a lot of unease about the way Bindi is being shoved into filling his shoes.

[Sojiita]

Eight year-olds should not be in charge of their lives. Not saying that what she's going to be doing is terrible, but her mother needs to be making these decisions, not the child herself. It's this ridiculous parenting trend nowadays of letting children call the shots that has produced the legions of obnoxious brats running around. Kids in show business need love & guidance, not free reign.

Remember that eight year old they let try to FLY A PLANE cross country? Died when she crashed of course. Could not agree more..Eight year old's should NOT be in charge of their lives.

[Sassiness]

I was hoping they'd let Bindi be a kid and not be shoved in the spotlight, but there goes that idea...

[LynnieD]

I can see her wanting to continue whatever the hell her father was attempting to do, but perhaps after she has finished highschool and maybe some professional zoo/animal training?? And I would think that her being BIGGER and STRONGER would only benefit her as well.......

Just me...
She's damn cute though.

[Grimmlok]

till she gets her face bitten off that is

[Voodoo Child]

^^There are hazzards in every occupation! You could be a toilet cleaner, slip on the floor, hit your damn head and die.

[ediebrooks]

Remember that eight year old they let try to FLY A PLANE cross country? Died when she crashed of course. Could not agree more..Eight year old's should NOT be in charge of their lives.

I remember that very well. Eight year-olds are definitely not equipped to make their own decisions, but I strongly agree with AO who says Bindi's stage mom and John Stainton are all for keeping Bindi in the spotlight. Bad move.