I'm not interested in crocs of gold'

FEARLESS Aussie wildlife warrior Steve Irwin has wrestled crocodiles, tangled with venomous snakes and dodged poisonous spiders. But there's one thing guaranteed to make him get hot under the collar - wearing a suit.

"The scariest moment of my entire life was my wedding when I had to wear a tuxedo and this thing round my neck. I would sooner take on a boa constrictor," he says. "I was so scared sweat was running down my hands. Yes mate, I've worn a suit and will never do it again. I've learnt from my mistake."

Irwin was kitted out in trademark khaki shirt and shorts in the less familiar territory of London Zoo, posing with wife Terri and their four-year-old daughter Bindi Sui with a toy crocodile. He's used to the real thing, thinking nothing of jumping on to the back of one of these enormous reptiles, wrestling it into submission, and transporting it to a safer area of the river.

Accompanied by his familiar cry of "Crikey!", his TV documentaries about The Crocodile Hunter have been seen by more than 200 million viewers worldwide.

Thousands of people visit his Australia Zoo wildlife reserve at Beerwah on Australia's Sunshine Coast each year. His passion for animals and conservation can be traced back to his parents, Bob and Lyn Irwin, who founded the zoo. As a youngster, Steve helped his dad rescue and relocate crocodiles in the rivers of North Queensland.

Now he's made a movie, The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, combining his daring wildlife rescues with a fictional story about secret agents. By his side in London, as she is in his TV series and the film, is his American wife Terri. They have much in common as she started a rehab facility in Oregon to re-educate and release predatory mammals such as raccoons, bears, bobcats and cougars, back into the wild.

The pair met in 1991 while she was on a working holiday Down Under. "I'd been out in the bush for a couple of years and hadn't seen too many sheilas," recalls Irwin. "I came back to my parents' zoo and was doing a routine demonstration. I was in there with my favourite crocodile, looked into the crowd and there was this drop-dead gorgeous sheila staring at me. I gave the crocodile some chicken and thought, 'I hope she stays around'."

Terri did, they started talking and she faced an important test - meeting his dog Sui. "She sniffed her and accepted her in a roundabout fashion. We were walking back through this construction site and there was this big log. I swung under, said, 'be careful'. Sure enough, as she swung under, it whacked her in the head.

"She composed herself, there were tears in her eyes, and said she was all right. And I thought, 'you little beauty'. Here's a woman who's gorgeous, my dog has accepted her and takes a hit in the head well. This is the woman for me."

They married in 1992, spending their honeymoon filming the first The Crocodile Hunter documentary. The occasion also marked the first time Terri launched herself on a crocodile's head to assist in a capture.

There was never any doubt she'd be part of the film, although producer-director John Stainton, who makes the TV series, wanted to find a format that would allow Irwin to be himself. Film of him catching and relocating two crocodiles was the starting point for Collision Course. When MGM was approached for backing, they mistakenly assumed animatronic reptiles would be used. All the creatures on screen are as real as the expressions on the couple's faces. "It's real fear. If we made a mistake, we died. You can't do three takes because someone dies if you do that," says Irwin.

Terri soon discovered differences between making documentaries and movies - like trailers, catering and proper toilets. She'd been used to filming with four men in the middle of nowhere, where sometimes there isn't even a bush, eating beans and sleeping with large spiders.

"There was one point in our documentary filming where I was bathing in a pond and kept slipping on something hard. I thought it was a tree limb and asked Steve to remove it. He went down in the water, reached and reached, and finally pulled out a cow's pelvis. I'd been bathing, brushing my teeth and swimming with a dead cow for a week.

"Doing the film was very different. Steve couldn't understand why I wanted to be in an air-conditioned trailer while he sat under a tarpaulin between two trees. I said, 'because it's 130 degrees out there and there's a million flies'."

She's used to watching Irwin get up close with dangerous animals. "I don't think, 'he's going to die'. I'm on the edge of my seat wondering, 'how is he going to get out of this?'," she says. "It's more intrigue, excitement and adventure. I'm usually with him, which makes it a lot easier. But he's good, he's never been bitten by a venomous snake. If he gets bitten by something, it's his own fault, a mistake he's made, and he's the first to admit it. He genuinely believes in what he's doing and Steve's ethics are always that the animals come first."

The cameras filming his wildlife encounters posed their own problems. "With the danger aspect, sure I thought my wife was going to die. I said the s-word twice. We had to cut them out and a lot of blood because I got busted up a lot, which you can't have kids watching. When the croc came in the boat I thought I might have overstepped the mark. Terri had a paddle to try and fend him off if he made a pass at me."

He thinks there's a fear factor in everybody and that's what keeps you alive. "I was born into wildlife. I didn't have a choice, I had a gift which my parents saw when I was four. They gave me their skills and that helped my gift flourish. With the likes of venomous snakes, sharks and crocodiles, I can do what most people find unbelievable. They think I must be scared crazy or have got no brain. But I'm so well rehearsed in what I'm doing that I'm confident."

For all his outgoing Aussie ways, Irwin is deadly earnest about conservation, seeing the film as spreading the message. The money doesn't matter, he's not interested in crocs of gold. "I don't need a Ferrari or Rolex or gold-plated dunny seat, mate. I live in a three-bedroom brick home that I've always lived in. Every cent we earn from The Crocodile Hunter goes straight into conservation."

The pair seem to have the perfect marriage with Terri saying she's achieved what few women have. "He's macho and he's nice. Overall, he's great and we have a common goal with wildlife."

It's reassuring to find there's one little thing that drives her crazy. "Never, ever, when he takes his shirt off, does he unbutton it," she says. "The shirt is usually covered with blood or poo, so I have to make this decision: Do I unbutton it before I wash it. Urgh. Do I wash it and unbutton before I put it on the line and get all wet? Do I wait and unbutton it before I iron it?"

An incredulous Irwin turns to his wife and asks: "How long has this been a problem? For years I've been taking my shirt off like that and now you tell me."

* The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course (PG) is showing in cinemas now.