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| Malcolm & Lucy Turnbull |
Turnbull was never popular with the hard right. The self made millionaire, former barrister and banker (estimated worth : $300M) is seen as a bit of a latte sipping elitist probably more suited to the Labor Party which it's reputed he once tried to join.
The problem for the party is that Turnbull is popular amongst the rank and file members who see Malcolm as their best bet to return to power, if only he could act like a politician. He does have a tendency to cut to the chase having come lately to politics.
Perhaps he should turn to his cousin the legendary actress Angela Lansbury for acting lessons on how to present himself as a politician rather than a man in a hurry to get to the top job so he can show the country just how it should be done.
Lansbury was out last week in New York and attended the Actors Fund Annual Gala at the New York Marriott Hotel. As our picture show, she is remarkably fit looking and as large as life at the fabulous age of 87.
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| Angela Lansbury & Hunter Ryan Herdicka (Rob Rich) |
Turnbull's mother was the academic and actress Coral Lansbury who is Angela's cousin. She split with Malcolm's father when he was nine and went to live, like Angela in the USA.
Turnbull is not only the richest politician in the country, he's probably one of the smartest as well. He worked for a number of years as Kerry Packer's personal lawyer before taking on the might of Margaret Thacher's government in the famous Spy Catcher trial when he successfully defeated the British government's attempts to block publication of the memoirs of the former MI5 officer Peter Wright.
He made a motza with the merchant bank he started with Nicholas Whitlam, the son of former Labor PM Gough Whitlam and then sealed his fortune during the dot.com boom. As chairman of the Republican Movement Turnbull really felt the loss of the referendum when the country voted in 1998 to keep the British royal family as head of state.
When Turnbull produced an excellent paper on housing affordability recommending the adoption of European style housing associations and co-ops plus spending more on government housing, the paper was quietly shelved by Howard.
Turnbull is clearly in the wrong political party. He should ask his cousin for some tips. The Lansburys have long been on the left of the political spectrum. Angela's father was a politician and member of the British Communist Party and her grandfather was the leader of the British Labour Party.
Angela now lives in a New York apartment having returned from Ireland where she lived for a number of years. She starred in the film Gaslight when she was just 19 and went on to make a string of Hollywood films co-starring with the leading Hollywood stars of the day. She's probably most famous for the long running TV series Murder She Wrote.
At the Actors Fund Gala Bebe Neuwirth was honoured while Al Pacino received The Lee Strasberg Artistic Achievement Award
