With skin like porcelain, Clare Oliver possessed a milky white complexion other Chinese women would regard as to die for. Yet, her desire for a killer tan brought about a tragic and premature death.
Just weeks after celebrating her 26th birthday, Hong Kong-born Clare was laid to rest yesterday in Melbourne after succumbing to the most aggressive and deadly form of skin cancer.
Under normal circumstances, her death would have been just another depressing statistic in the appropriately nicknamed 'sunburnt country'.
Australia has the highest incidence of melanoma on the planet. But Clare's legacy looks set to last long after the pain of her passing has subsided. In her final weeks, after being told she was going to die, the aspiring TV journalist campaigned from her hospital bed to alert her peers to the dangers of UVA and UVB radiation; whether it came directly from the sun or in more concentrated doses at tanning salons.
Her public bravery stopped Australia in its tracks and forced politicians to pledge new laws to license the unregulated and burgeoning solarium industry.
When Prime Minister John Howard was told she had died, his stunned and unscripted reaction summed up the mood of a nation. 'Oh dear, I'm so sorry about that,' he said, visibly shocked. 'I think it's just an appalling Australian tragedy. It's terrible.'