Family, friends and fans honour the late actor’s legacy.
Somewhere in the night sky there is a twinkling reminder of much-loved Home and Away star Dieter Brummer, who died last year at just 45.
Family, friends, and fans are still grieving the charming actor who captured hearts and won two Silver Logies as Summer Bay favourite Shane Parrish a year after his unexpected passing.
Now that Dieter has passed away, his bereaved mother Dawn has taken steps to ensure that her witty, giving, and sensitive son will never be forgotten. She has started a Beyond Blue fundraising and purchased and named a faraway star in Dieter’s honour.
“Diet loved the universe,” his good friend and former castmate Mat Stevenson fondly recalls.
“He was a well-grounded guy who could get on with anyone, from a concreter to a philosopher or astronomer.
He was so unassuming, easygoing, and laconic. He probably never really appreciated how well-known he was back then. He enjoyed meeting new people and always had a broad smile on his face.
“The world would have been Diet’s oyster if he had concentrated on pursuing his acting career rather than camped out in the wilderness or rappelled down a rock. He was capable of anything if he had focused on Hollywood.
Happy-go-lucky Dieter, who was cast in Home and Away when he was only 15, was never that fame-hungry.
Dieter requested to be written out of the programme in 1996, at the height of his fame, amid rumours that he and Melissa George, who played his on-screen wife Angel, could not stand to be in the same room.
In a later interview with TV Tonight, Dieter said, “I wanted to show to myself I could get my hands dirty and sweat for a buck instead of getting primped and preened on set.”
Despite how wonderful all the fame and adulation was, “I just wanted to get a bit of real-life experience under my belt.”
After leaving the show, Dieter chose to stay in Australia and put his climbing skills to work as a successful high-rise window cleaner.
Last year however, with his business hard hit by COVID, he became increasingly withdrawn and stressed.
The Brummer family described him as “handsome, talented, humorous, complicated, and adored” in a statement following his passing on July 24, 2021. Our lives have been left with a gaping hole by him, and things will never be the same.
Dawn, who just lost Dieter, hosted a small gathering in Dieter’s honour at the family home in Sydney recently. Mat was among the visitors, and the gathering included a medium.
“She told me Diet had a message for me,” grins Mat. “We always used to have competitions about who looked better in their Speedos, which he always won.
“The medium informed me she could see Diet laughing and doing bicep positions, which astounded me. He continues to humiliate me in this way! He was the life of the party everytime.
Another priceless keepsake from that evening belongs to Mat. Dawn gave him a tiny Silver Logie created from one of Dieter’s two Most Popular Actor trophies, which was “no bigger than a five cent piece” as he walked away.
“It was beautiful,” says the father of two. “To keep Diet grounded, Dawn told him acting is a team sport and he couldn’t have done it without his Home and Away colleagues.
“They melted down one of his Logies and got a jeweller to use the metal to make 26 tiny Logies to share.
At the time, Dieter didn’t quite get around to giving them out, but Dawn has done it now.
“It’s really touching, she’s a remarkable woman. I’m planning to make mine into an earring, so Diet will always be with me.”
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