ATTENDEES at some of Sydney's smartest cocktail parties would recognise the face of the amusing, charming and affable man who served them a glass of champagne.
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Like many actors, Blair Milan supplemented his income by working as a waiter. And, like many fit, happy and healthy 29-year-olds, he tried to ignore feelings of being unwell.
Over the past few weeks, he put down a lack of appetite and general sickness to a slow recovery from dental work at the end of March.
Last Wednesday, after urgings by his flatmate, he visited a GP. His mother, talking to her son on Skype while on holiday in Sicily, had become gravely concerned about his condition too.
The next day, blood tests revealed he was suffering acute myeloid leukaemia. Within hours Blair was on life support at Royal Prince Alfred hospital, where he died in the early hours of yesterday.
His parents - who divorced many years ago but remain good friends - the TV personality and author Lyndey Milan, and a former SBS managing director, Nigel Milan, were at his bedside. His sister, Lucy, was travelling from London, where she lives.
Acute myeloid leukaemia often has the most devastating effects on young men. "They get very, very sick very quickly,'' his mother said, ''but because they are strong their bodies fight it. In fact, this is poisoning their bodies. In people who are older, it's more obvious earlier.''
Blair was the public face of GO! channel when it was launched by the Nine Network.
He grew up on the north shore, attending Barker College before graduating in communications from Charles Sturt University in Bathurst. He also studied at the Professional Actors Workshop in Los Angeles and the Australian Institute for Performing Arts.
Despite his parents' media backgrounds, he doggedly set about carving out an independent career. He appeared in the ABC's Australian Film Institute award-winning comedy Review, with Myles Barlow.
Late last year, he and his mother made a 13-part TV series Lyndey & Blair's Taste of Greece, which SBS is due to broadcast later this year.
When Blair died, 30 family and close friends were in the hospital's waiting room, another 30 or so waited outside. Former Barker students met in a nearby pub.
The hugely popular man planned a three-city celebration for his 30th birthday in January. He would have partied in London, New York and Sydney.
Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.
