Reality Bites For Glam Pair

They're a couple who live a glamorous life-attending the right parties and swanning about with plenty of baubles and toys.

Oliver Curtis & Roxy Jacenko

Roxy Jacenko is one of Sydney's top publicists and her boyfriend 25 year old Oliver Curtis, son of one of the countries top corporate high fliers is a young man about town-good looking and seemingly rolling in money.

She drives an Aston Martin, he the latest Range Rover.

They just bought a $6.6M house in chic Woollahra and Roxy has been sporting a $200,000 engagement ring.

She wore it the Cleo Bachelor Of The Year bash she organised at Ivy last week and at the Hermes beach party at Nielsen Park in February.

Roxy runs the top PR firm- Sweaty Betty and she and her equally gorgeous sister Ruby Jacenko have been likened as an Antipodean answer to  Paris Hilton and her sister Nicky.



Ruby Jacenko

The Shuttle mentioned in it's report on the Hermes' party that although the pair looked jovial, Oliver may soon face some sort of enquiry in respect of his pal John Hartman, son of society obstetrician Dr Keith Hartman, who was jailed for 4 and half years last December for insider trading.
Now the Sydney Morning Herald reports that the enquiry may soon be under way. It's claimed that Hartmann who confessed to making nearly $2M profit from his illegal enterprise may have passed on financial information to Curtis so he could benefit.

 Hartmann is in protective custody and it's reported has agreed to give evidence against Curtis.
Read more at the SMH.

                    




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Hottest Bachelor Named - Loser Strips

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 ".

 Organisers this year sensibly chose ace PR Roxy Jacenko of Sweaty Betty to promote the event-hence acres of coverage on TV networks and newspapers. Roxy is the sort of publicist who doesn't subscribe to the current fad that media workers-photographers, journalists and TV crews are some sort of 'necessary evil' to be tolerated and shoved into a pen and then discarded when it suits.

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



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.

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.



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.




bachelorette attacks cake

 

The media behaves

At Least The Boss Can't Fire Her !

It was one of the most embarrassing moments on TV-the host tonight announcing the winner of Australia's Next Top Model.

Gorgeous supermodel and host of the show Sarah Murdoch announced Kelsey Martinovichas the winner of the first prize which is guaranteed to lead to an international modeling contract.

Seconds later she corrected herself and announced that in fact-18 year old Amanda Ware from Queensland was the winner. Sarah looked close to tears as she said "Oh no this is wrong, this is what happens on live TV -it's insane, insane , insane "

Amanda's prizes include an eight-page spread in Harper's Bazaar, a contract with Priscilla's modelling agency, a $25,000 Levi's campaign, a $20,000 cash prize, a Ford Fiesta Zetec and a trip to New York.

The awards were held tonight at Luna Park (motto-Just For Fun!) at North Sydney beneath the Harbour Bridge and broadcast live on Foxtel.

Kelsey's tears of joy turned to despair as the truth sank in but she is probably thanking Sarah tonight. Foxtel have decided to give her a $25,000 consolation prize.

As for Mrs Murdoch-her job should be safe. Dad-in-law Rupert Murdoch is the major share-holder in Foxtel and husband Lachlan Murdoch holds a great swag of shares in the cable network.
Sarah took over the hosting job when previous host, Jodhi Meares, ex-wife of James Packer said she suffered stage fright and couldn't handle the job any longer.

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Former Cleo Bachelor Of The Year Dr. Richard Young has been banned from practising medicine after paying a prostitute/patient for sex. You can read the tale in The Sydney Morning Herald here

A victory for the little man !

To the Channel 7 studios for a public performance by Justin Bieber. This was a dangerous mission. About five thousand teenyboppers were there in the streets in the grip of Biebermania. Bieber is minute, tiny-perfectly formed. Undeniably as cute as a button, confident and extremely professional.

Someone I first mistook for a slightly older fan, his mum, confirmed my suspicions. Far from being a phenomena on youtube with the home produced films of his singing, Justin has been attending every known class for dance and song since he was about 3. Which isn't long ago.

The police called off the outside performance claiming it unsafe. Those of us privileged to be inside stood as far as we could from the giant plate glass windows facing Martin Place that seemed to throb as waves of tearful hysteria come from the wild eyed girls in the street.

Justin was singing and dancing in front of us, the fans outside were going berserk. 3 constables manned the barricades just a metre from the windows which I was sure were about to crack as the girls surged forward to rip little Justin to pieces. There wouldn't be much of Justin to go around.

Firass Dirani

Another small star had a victory of some sorts. Firass Dirani who stars as nightclub promoter John Ibrahim in the purported tale of Kings Cross police corruption Underbelly, The Golden Mile has been voted Cosmo's Bachelor Of The Year at the Zeta Bar in the Hilton Hotel. Firass is about the same size as Bieber but thankfully, the camera lies. He looks like a 6 foot hunk in the series. He does have piercing blue eyes though. Or are they contacts?.

By contrast the party at the Bulgari on the same night to launch their exhibition of famous jewellery was as good as it gets. The chilled Louis Roederer champagne and Belinda Frank's catering helped.

The Bulgari family have been buying up some of their previous masterpieces for years and this exhibition features some of the treasures. It was in Rome last week, will be in Sydney for another 7 days and then heads for Paris. They won't quite say who owned some of the diamonds and rubies but a few names get mentioned in passing.

Diamond Liz

The Duchess of Manchester was a Bulgari fan. Elizabeth Taylor still is. Apparently when Liz was filming Cleopatra and began her affair with Richard Burton, her then husband Eddie Fisher plied her with Bulgari jewels in an effort to woe her back.

Burton did likewise and won the fight. Taylor ended getting Fisher's invoice from Bulgari which he had refused to pay. Bulgari never did get payment but figured having Liz wearing their creations was more than enough in publicity value.

The Seven Wonders

One amazing necklace must be seen to be believed. The Seven Wonders of The World is one large emerald surrounded by 6 slightly smaller ones in a diamond encrusted necklace. That's about 160 carats of emeralds and around 116 of diamonds.

It was purchased by an Italian industrialist as a wedding present for his wife. Years later when she had to go into an aged nursing home she sold it back to Bulgari on the understanding it wouldn't be re-sold while she was alive.

When she was filling in the form for the retirement home she got to the part that said "occupation'. "I've never worked " she puzzled." what should I put " She wrote-'well off' !.