Australia's Cleo Magazine Bachelor of The Year was named last night-Olympic swimming champ Eamon Sullivan (above) described as "charismatic, ambitious, intelligent, and amazing in the kitchen ".
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| hosting-Sophie Monk |
This years' event was a glittering bash with a black tie dinner at the Ivy ballroom and actress Sophie Monk-still looking for that big break in Hollywood, flew into town to host the event. Sophie confided to the Shuttle that she had been 'celibate' for a year but was looking for a possible candidate amongst the 50 bachelors on show that evening.
On the subject of celibacy-there was much talk during the evening about the successful TV film
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| Bachelor shows his charms |
Paper Giants : The Birth of Cleo just screened on the ABC and it's creating editor Ita Buttrose (who famously declared after divorce she intended remaining celibate), and the late media mogul Kerry Packer's hand in getting to print Cleo Magazine in the 1970s which at times reached sales of up to 250,000 copies a month and is still going strong.
Everyone credited actress Asher Keddie for her role as the lightly lisping Ita Buttrose as having given an award winning performance.
Society photographer Bill Ranken who has been around long enough (he's 81) to know the Packers and all the personalities featured in the film (he's also 'landed gentry') agreed Asher's performance was superb and that Tony Barry as the guff Sir Frank Packer was spot on.
As to the long rumoured romance between Buttrose and Packer, Ranken says it never happened :
"Kerry never mixed business with pleasure" says Ranken.
"Kerry admired Ita for her talent and he would never have risked complicating the business relationship by making it personal. It was just the usual Sydney gossip that ramped the relationship into a love affair. "
Ranken , whose Society Spy pages can be seen in Latte Life also says the film skipped over Kerry Packer's tipple of choice Fanta and how that choice of drink it came about.
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| Asher Keddie & Rob Carlton as Ita Buttrose & Kerry Packer in the ABC's Paper Giants. |
"Restaurants around the world would be phoned ahead to tell them Kerry was booking a table and that a crate of Fanta should be on hand. The corporate jet was always stocked with plentiful supplies." says Bill.
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| bachelors come in all sizes |
" In the film Kerry says he went on a bender when very young and woke up with a shocking hangover the following morning. He says in the film and that 'he never wanted to feel that way again'. The real truth is that in between the drinking and waking up there was a scene that resulted in tragedy that Kerry never got over. He swore off alcohol for life and kept his word". Ranken declined to illuminate on what had happened that fateful night.
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| bachelorette attacks cake |
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| The media behaves |
