"A Theme Park For Every Human Desire"

 The title is a quote from broadcaster Philip Adams about Sydney's Kings Cross where he partied in the 60s and 70s with the late media mogul Kerry Packer. Bizarrely, the Coca Cola sign that signals the beginning of 'The Cross' is now  National Trust listed.

Playwright and author Louis Nowra who has lived there for yonks has written a superb history of Kings Cross, a place he says : "attracts the sane and the mad… but that at times it’s hard to tell the difference."
The Cross is a no-holds barred place -backpackers, prostitutes, strippers, chefs, mad men, poets, beggars, booksellers, doctors, gangsters, sailors, musicians, drug traffickers, movie stars, eccentrics, judges and artists and a former Prime Minster (Paul Keating) live side by side in elegant terrace houses and cheap flats. And slam bang in the middle are George Miller's studios were he filmed Babe and Happy Feet.

Part flaneur, part historian and part eyewitness, Louis Nowra is the best possible guide to a place both real, and a state of mind. The Cross attracts hordes of tourists from all over Australia and the world. It's history began as a sort of melting pot for European expats- there are still gracious old Art Deco buildings lining Macleay Street packed with little old Hungarian and Polish ladies who fled from WW2. During the 20s it became the night time entertainment area offering every conceivable sin man desired- from strip clubs to bordellos, gay bars and 24 hour drinking clubs, illegal gambling casinos and even a few opium dens. The legendary Razor Gangs fought duels in the back streets over the cocaine trade.
 The illegal casinos were frequented by visiting celebrities and  local politicians including premier Sir Robert Askin who like a character out of Casablanca would have his winnings thrust into his hand and be ushered out a side door just before his own cops would raid the joint (mainly to collect bribes).

Norton & Goossens

The list of memorable characters is too long to chart: like the practising witch Rosaleen Norton who became entangled with the British conducter Sir Eugene Goossens (he attended her orgies) whose career crashed when he was stopped at customs retuning from the UK with a suitcase of porn for Ms Norton.

Mr Sin- Abe Saffron

 And Mr Sin Abe Saffron who came from humble beginnings to dominate The Cross for 40 years like an Antipodian Al Capone- just as powerful and deadly and finally like Capone, they could only get him for tax evasion. Owning a string of strip joints and the all male revue bar Les Girls and with a finger in every club and bar in the area, Abe made an art of bribing politicians and police including the Commissioner. And he saw off the US Mafia when they tried to muscle in on the action. When Saffron died he left around $30Million but it's rumoured there was another 30 or 40 hidden away.

Louis Nowra & wife Mandy Sayer

                                                                                                             
Things began to change in the 1960s with the mass influx of US  soldiers on 'R&R" leave from Vietnam and the appearance of Bernie Houghton reputedly the former boss of the infamous Air America who arrived with suitcases stuffed with cash and a new passport courtesy of his spook friends in ASIO. And with the opening of his Bourbon & Beefsteak 24 hour nightspot came hard drugs.

The unexpected can still happen in Kings Cross. Two years ago the Shuttle witnessed an impromptu one hour performance by comedian Robyn Williams at the Kit & Kaboodle when he arrived with actor Elijah Wood for dinner. The Beach Haus club became Leo Di Caprio and his entourage's favourite club of choice as he nightly commandeered 6 tables (leaving about 3 ).  And actor Russell Crowe could be often found popping in to the Portuguese Chicken bar around midnight after a munchies attack.
There's more, much much more in Nowra's book

Teflon John needs to tone down that profile.

Arriving in Sydney in the early 1990's tSS was fortunate to land a job on a local newspaper covering the inner city. The main beat was  Darlinghurst-the Golden Mile of gay Oxford Street , it's surroundings and Kings Cross.

Dawn-ran Oxford Street

 It was an eye-opener. Oxford Street truly was fun city with all manner of night clubs and bars with every taste catered for. It was friendly  and packed every night. Sure it was run by some questionable characters like the late  Roger Claude Teyssedre. who had arrived from France penniless and was a multi millionaire within 5 years. Claude died in mysterious circumstances with his lover  by his bed-Ludwig Gertsch who 18 months later was found strangled and trussed up in a sleeping bag in the Blue Mountains, his murderer still free.

 Or the one time champion lesbian ice skater turned nightclub mogul Dawn O'Donnell. A lovely lady to dine with who could talk for hours on which lesbian porn sold to straight men in huge quantities over an after dinner cigar. Dawn would know-she owned a few shops openly selling illicit hard core adult porn.

Costellos fan?

Kings Cross was something else. Drugs prostitution and live sex shows that made Amserdam look decidedly tame. And there was supposed to be a bar called Costellos beneath the giant Coca Cola sign where 12 year old boys were on tap at the bar.  At a later Royal Commission witnesses swore it was true and one even claimed  improbably that the late American actor Karl Malden had once visited the bar. Wacky stuff.  

And the police. Well they ran the show as journalist Michael Duffy points out in his piece on 2 books to be released by 2 honest cops that got run out of town for their efforts. tSS recalls one quite scary lunch at the Bourbon and Beefsteak hosted by 4 Kings Cross detectives which we thought was some sort of community and neighbourhood watch get-together. It turned out to be a boozy afternoon where one couldn't actually leave and the tales we heard about who did what  to whom and who ran who and was on the take and which politician was in whose pocket just wasn't what one wished to know. Well certainly not from the cops. Fortunately they got so drunk one was able to slip out carefully ripping our name tag into tiny pieces. 

Sir Joh-premier of the corrupt Sunshine Coast

The excellent reporter Chris Master of the ABC who exposed Queensland's police corruption in the 1980's amongst govermment figures and police under the premier Sir Joh Belke Petersen, has been giving out a warning to 'Teflon 'John Ibraham, the current Kings Cross bigwig . Masters says John's profile will be boosted so much by the Underbellly TV series his life will be in danger. Masters knows what he is talking about. When his film on the Sunshine State corruption was broadcast the state's Police Commissioner Sir Terry Lewis  immediately fled back to his native UK only to be discovered by Scotland Yard detectives a year later living in luxury in  Richmond . He did 8 years in jthe Boggo Road jail after being extradited back to Oz.

Sunday sees the 2 hour premiere of

Underbelly 3, TheGolden Mile that continues the tale of the extraordinary corruption of police and the rule of gangsters during the 1980/1990's before a Royal Commission finally put paid to a scene that would have made Al Capone envious. The then king of Kings Cross, the 5'4" Abe Saffron known as Mr Sin was only finally put behind bars for tax evasion, just like Capone,despite having a finger in every piece of action.

friendly Teflon John

 The series also brings up to date the new breed of local entrepreneurs who now rule Kings Cross, namely our ever friendly luncheon pal John Ibrahim whose career we have watched flourish ever since he and his younger brother Fadi cornered us in his first nightclub, The Tunnel in a back laneway and demanded we promote him in the local rag. Why not?. They seemed nice enough lads and despite police saying Telflon John is now a major 'leading crime figure' he is certainly charming..The Tunnel was eventualy shut down when the Chinese triad murdered 2 men outside it's entrance, hacking them to pieces.

According to Masters the new ruling mafia in town are the bikie gangs who are so organised they have left authorities scratching their heads in bewilderment. And they don't take prisoners. Masters warns that this is new breed of crim who holds no respect for rank and privilege, as enjoyed by Ibrahim at present, and will ruthlessly remove him. They are called bikie gangs but they drive Mercedes and BMWs and wear designer suits. It's said Ibrahim has an interest in about 8 Kings Cross nightclubs and nearly all bouncers in every club including Oxford Street's gay strip are controlled by his firm. The bikies have their own security firm who would like a share of the action.


 

One honest copper forced out by the bent ones was Deborah Locke who has written a superb book Watching The Detectives in which she describes attempting to report serious misconduct at the Parramatta Police Headquarters only to be taken to lunch by a head honcho with Louis Bayeh-the then drug baron of the Cross and currently doing a few years in prison .It's a superb and racy read and you can order it at Deborah's website.
 

Another great read is Dirty Work by an honest ex-cop Glen McNamara who fled to California after attempting to report bent cops only to find there was a contract on his life. He was tracked down in an LA motel with a chilling phone call from hitmen saying that they knew where he was, whereupon his pregnant wife miscarried. It's an amazing record of a sorry era in Sydney.

 Underbelly-The Golden Mile starts next Sunday 10th April at 8.30pm on the Channel Nine network