Former Glamorgan Spring Bay mayor Bertrand Cadart's family and friends have described the flamboyant Frenchman as "colourful", "gentle" and "fearless" after he died, aged 71, following a three-year cancer battle.
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Bertrand, who moved to Australia in 1972, and was formerly an ABC Radio presenter, had an on-screen role in the classic Australian film Mad Max, playing one of the members of the villainous Toecutter's gang.
Shaun Lennard, a former president of the Tasmanian Motorcycle Council, said director George Miller handpicked Bertrand to craft the post-apocalyptic look for the motorcycles in his movie.
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"Bertrand went about modifying a fleet of new Kawasaki Z1000s to create the movie bikes," Mr Lennard said.
"As his work neared completion, Miller apologetically fronted Bertrand with the news that production funds were running low.
"Rather than paying him for his work, Bertrand was offered the non-speaking role of the intellectually challenged Clunk.
"Forever after, Bertrand preferred to be known as 'the crowbar man', referring to his feature scene in the movie."
In 2000, Bertrand relocated to Bicheno on Tasmania's East Coast after visiting the town and realising he wanted to spend the rest of his life there.
Five years later, he was elected to the Glamorgan Spring Bay Council and after another two years became mayor before missing out on re-election in 2014.
Moving to the Sunshine Coast shortly thereafter, where his two adult children Mathieu and Anne-France live, Bertrand received a terminal cancer diagnosis in 2017.
Mathieu said his father had prepaid "99.9 per cent" of his funeral costs and even organised a living wake so his loved ones could say their goodbyes to him while he was still alive.
"Everything he's done throughout this process is to minimise the emotional damage to me and my sister," he said. "Because he knows that we're sensitive people."
About two weeks ago, Bertrand underwent a double blood transfusion and a platelet transfusion at a hospital in Nambour. There, nurses discovered he'd developed a fever as a result of an unidentified infection.
He was told that he may wish to return home and be with his family during his final days.
Not prepared to confront death just yet, Bertrand stayed in the hospital for nine days before it was determined that he had a lung infection. That was when his family were called in, along with a group of doctors and social workers.
"The doctor actually said to him, point blank, 'Do you want to die in hospital with s----y chicken schnitzel and broccoli or do you want to go home with your kids and have your wine and have your cognac and look around at your amazing life'," Mathieu said.
"Naturally he said yes.
"My dad's always been an Epicurean - he's always been someone that loves good food, good wine, good colours and clothes."
And so Mathieu and his husband had the opportunity to spend some quality time at home with the ailing Bertrand, as did Anne-France, her husband and their son.
After four nights, Mathieu said his father "crashed" and had to be admitted to a hospice at Caloundra.
He died there on Friday.
Former Hobart mayor and incumbent alderman Damon Thomas, who was a close friend of Bertrand's, said he was a "larger-than-life figure".
"He was a gentle guy that had an exuberance for life, an absolute exuberance for life," Mr Thomas said.
"There aren't that many characters that really jump out at you in life - but he was one of them.
"If life was for living, then Bertrand was part of that."
Donning gendarme hats and singing the French national anthem La Marseillaise, Mr Thomas and his wife raised a flag to half-mast at their home on Saturday morning, in honour of Bertrand.
Debbie Wisby, the mayor of Glamorgan Spring Bay, said Bertrand was a "buoyant" personality who few people forgot once they'd met him.
"He certainly was a colourful character and promoted the [Glamorgan Spring Bay] area well outside of Australia, and within Australia, too," she said.
"He did do some great things for the community and for the region in general.
"He probably brought something different to the area that's generally not here."
He was a gentle guy that had an exuberance for life.
- Damon Thomas, friend and Hobart alderman
In recounting all that his father meant to him, Mathieu said it was the way in which Bertrand seemed to time his death that summed up much of what it was that endeared him to people.
"He hung on until Good Friday," Mathieu said. "And if there's anything you know about Bertrand Cadart, it's that he likes himself a diva moment."
"I thought, 'Mate, you've died like you lived - right in the spotlight and you've taken your moment. Even when you had your last breath you made sure you were up there on the level with Jesus Christ'.
"I just think that really speaks to who he was: that was a man who was shameless, fearless and wasn't afraid to be that diva."
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