He's been keeping late nights at the nightclub Beach Haus in Kings Cross, sitting in a booth surrounded by half a dozen pals-Leo DiCaprio in Sydney and working on the re-make of The Great Gatsby.Tonight he slipped into the grand opening party of The Star, Sydney's re-vamped Star City casino and joined Russell Crowe in the restaurant.
The current owners have spent nearly one billion dollars on the re-vamp. That would seem a brave move with the Federal government under great pressure to curb poker machines -of which there are several thousand at The Star-by 2 parliamentarians who Labor needs the support of to pass legislation.
The Star opened it's doors in 1995 with a spectacular party for several thousand with Diana Ross singing, fireworks and such. It had been designed by a Feng Shui master from Hong Kong. It certainly raked in the bucks for the owners but perhaps that had more to do with lucrative gambling contracts handed over by the NSW Government and a promise that the casino would be the only legal one in the state. Tonight Olivia Newton John entertained.The Shuttle attended the original opening in '95. During the day we had visited the couturier Claire Handler in her Double Bay boutique and she had shown us an amazing yellow feathered full length cape she had designed for a customer who had never returned to collect it.
"Looks very Diana Ross" we remarked. With that Claire summonsed a taxi and bundled the feather creation into the cab and sent it off to Diana Ross's suite at Star City.
That night Ross appeared on stage in Claire's creation, sweeping around the stage before flinging it off after 3 songs. As for Claire-she never got the boa cape back or heard from Ms Ross. Not a peep.
