Frank loved language, literature and lunch, and I was lucky enough to share his meal table on many occasions during 12 months as his deputy during the time he edited the Australian in 1988-89. Our noisy arguments on taboo subjects – sport, religion and politics – sustained a friendship of opposites. Frank cared deeply for his many friends, lavishing praise and bolstering spirits when they were down.

An avowed conservative, with an unshakable Catholic faith since his days as an altar boy, Frank became the bete noire of the Australian left: he took pride in prime minister Paul Keating’s sneering description of him as “that old fart”.

Fortune often smiled on Frank’s early career; leaving New Zealand for a planned trip to Britain he took a job, instead, on the West Australian in Perth, where he fell for the charms of a women’s page reporter, Jacqueline McGee. They married in 1959.

Later, during his many globe-trotting years as an international correspondent in Britain, America and Japan, he scored several notable exclusives: he was in Joe Louis’s corner during a world championship fight and, covering race riots in Alabama during the 1960s, found himself seated aboard a plane next to Martin Luther King. The resulting interviews went around the world.

A bon vivant to the end, Frank shunned hospital food in favour of Sydney rock oysters, caviar and pâté delivered to his bedside by his devoted daughters Miranda, Rosalind and Alexandra. Frank is survived by his wife, daughters, five grandsons and a granddaughter.