‘My heart is broken’: Nicole Kidman confirms mum Janelle’s death
Janelle Kidman, the mother of Australian actor Nicole Kidman, has died. Nicole’s US representatives confirmed the news overnight. A brief statement was released: “The family is heartbroken and asks for privacy at this time.”
The news broke as Nicole touched down in the Italian city of Venice, to attend the Venice Film Festival. She left immediately to join her sister, Antonia, and their extended family in Australia.
Janelle Kidman with her daughter Nicole and granddaughter Lucia.Credit: Getty
Kidman was named best actress at the festival for her work on the film Babygirl. The film’s director Halina Reijn accepted the award on Nicole’s behalf and, from the stage, immediately acknowledged Janelle’s significant contribution to Nicole’s success.
“Today I arrived in Venice to learn shortly thereafter that my beautiful, brave mother, Janelle Ann Kidman, has just passed,” Nicole said, via a statement that was read on stage in Venice by Reijn.
Janelle with daughters Antonia and Nicole.Credit: Instagram
“I’m in shock and I have to go to my family, but this award is for her,” Nicole’s statement continued.
“She shaped me, she guided me, and she made me. I’m beyond grateful that I get to say her name to all of you through Halina. The collision of art and life is heartbreaking, and my heart is broken.”
Like many women of her generation, Janelle began her adult life focused on her career: she enrolled as a student nurse at the University of NSW. It was there that she met Tony Kidman, who was a student in the university’s science faculty. The couple married in 1963, and had two daughters, Nicole and Antonia.
When Tony won a scholarship to the University of Hawaii to complete his PhD in biochemistry, Janelle was by his side. Their first child, Nicole, was born there. In the early 1970s, they returned to Australia, and their second child, Antonia, was born.
To say they both shaped the lives of their children would be an understatement. Many of Nicole’s choices as an actress have reflected a desire to deeply explore the human experience. Antonia became a journalist, a broadcaster focused on parenting and, more recently, a lawyer specialising in family law.
In one of our many interviews, Nicole referred to her mother as “my mentor, my guide and my nurturer”.
Janelle Kidman with husband Tony and daughter Antonia.Credit: Steve Lunam
“She’s given me the fire to pursue the career I have because I’ve always wanted to please her,” Nicole said in 2020. “But she also carved her own path and wanted her daughters to have the same opportunity to carve their own paths.
“Mum didn’t necessarily get the career that she wanted, but she was determined that her daughters would have opportunities that were equal,” Kidman adds. “That’s given me my life. And she gave me my life, she and my dad.”
Janelle Kidman with daughter Nicole.Credit: Instagram
In another interview, Nicole credited their mother for the gift of kindness.
“My mother was the greatest nurse and takes incredible care of you,” Nicole said. “At the same time, she does not suffer fools, you can’t get away with a superficial response, she will break it down and challenge you.”
In many respects, it sums up the role Janelle continued to play in Nicole and Antonia’s lives, even after Tony’s death in 2014: instructive, wise, compassionate and thoughtful, but also resilient, practical and no-nonsense. Like many quintessentially Australian mums, Janelle always had both a healing hand and an honest word.
My first conversation with Janelle was an unexpectedly serious one: we were seated next to each other at a media lunch in the early 2000s and, when she realised I worked for The Sydney Morning Herald, she shared her thoughts on the paper and its purpose.
Because she and Tony had two subscriptions to the Herald at the time – “We fight over the sections, so in the end it was easier to just have two copies,” she told me – I nicknamed her Subscriber #001 and gave her permission to call if she ever needed anything. She did, usually when The Guide or Good Food went missing.
In 2020, Nicole and I spoke about our mothers, the upcoming Mother’s Day and the fact that the pandemic had put all of us in different cities, and unable to connect physically.
“I would love to be able to have a cup of tea with Mum and sit on the balcony and talk about life, and have her tell me what I should be doing,” Nicole said.
It is a sentiment shared by everyone in the Kidman family, and anyone who had the good fortune to meet and know their mum.
Janelle Ann Kidman is survived by her daughters Nicole and Antonia, sons-in-law Keith and Craig, and 10 grandchildren, Isabella, Connor, Lucia, Hamish, James, Sybella, Sunday, Nicholas, Faith and Alexander.