Eddie’s out-Rob’s Still The One!

Rob Astbury

Eddie McGuire

Two decades ago Eddie McGuire at Channel 10 and Rob Astbury with Channel 9 were arch rivals. Both changed the way television sports news was presented especially the coverage of AFL. 

They won many awards for their tabloid style of breaking football stories on television, once the domain of newspapers. At the height of his career Astbury was reported to be the highest paid television sports reporter but in the mid 1990’s their career paths changed dramatically. Eddie became a house hold name fronting the Football Show and later Who Wants To Be a Millionaire while Astbury turned to real estate on the Gold Coast.

Within five years Astbury established himself as the top agent in Queensland with the Ray White group winning a swag of awards for sales and marketing. In 2003 he shocked colleagues by relocating to Thailand where he was instrumental in turning a small real estate agency into the largest property developer on Thailand’s Eastern Seaboard.

During the next seven years he says he made a lot of money for his employers and himself but during the last three years, with the world economic meltdown, everything turned sour. 

Rob told the Shuttle today:“after making a small fortune I ended up with nothing and had two options. I didn’t like the second option so I decided to return to the Gold Coast to resurrect my life from scratch, literally.”

Eddie McGuire’s glittering career has also hit hard times. 

This week the Nine Network has pulled the pin on the sports quiz show Between the Lines. The series launched three weeks ago and fronted by McGuire struggled for ratings outside the southern metropolis.  It is McGuire's third failure this year, after Million Dollar Drop and This Is Your Life.

Queensland's Gold Coast

Meanwhile, three months after returning to the Gold Coast Astbury is kicking goals again. During the past six weeks he has notched up four sales totalling $4.5 million dollars. 

Renowned for his marketing skills Astbury has commissioned half page advertisements in Melbourne’s main metropolitan newspapers published by the Leader Group. Promoting the Gold Coast’s renowned climate and a real estate market undergoing a major price correction Astbury said, “Now may never be a better time to buy Gold Coast property, escape the southern winter and secure an excellent investment.”

The advertisements brazenly feature a photo of Astbury and a slogan once used by the Channel he worked for, “Rob Astbury... Still the ONE… for experience and impeccable service”. The advertisement encourages buyers to click on his personal website www.robastbury.com that features properties ranging from $600,000 to a 700 square metre Penthouse priced at $5,590,000.

Sex, drugs and orgies with TV and sporting stars.

Rob Astbury

Rob Astbury barely scratched the surface of an amazing life when he wrote the best seller King and I, detailing his 20 year love affair with Graham Kennedy, Australia's first major TV star who was billed as the King Of Comedy.

Astbury’s second book, an autobiography entitled Twice as Hard, opens with the words: “I’m on my way to have my homosexuality removed. They’re going to take it out like a bad tooth that’s been rotting in my head….’’

Twice as Hard goes beyond the Kennedy era to uncover Astbury’s youthful struggle to stop falling in love with his mates; his rise to the pinnacle of television sports journalism; a drug-fuelled decline into sexual depravity; rebirth and riches in Queensland’s Gold Coast real estate jungle, and finally finding peace of mind and the love of his life in a gay bar in Thailand.

Tracy Grimshaw

Along the way he rips aside the slick veneer of showbiz and TV stardom to reveal the true character of household names including Eddie McGuire, Jana Wendt, Tracy Grimshaw, Derryn Hinch, Don Lane, Bert Newton and Daryl Somers. Astbury knew them all, intimately, and he even found time for a hilarious, but terrifying, encounter with Kerry Packer.

Astbury also spurned the advances of singer Peter Allen, the subject of the successful Broadway musical The Boy From Oz which catapulted Hugh Jackman into superstardom.

He describes television as a despicable industry and his explanation will have stars and TV executives on tenterhooks. And if the lawyers don't maul the manuscript (tSS has read it) many popular and well known sporting stars may be outed.

Frightening-Kerry Packer

At the pinnacle of his media career Astbury was Australia’s highest paid television sports reporter. Although he won many awards there were stories that were simply too hot to touch. However, this book may lift the lid with controversial revelations about football's biggest star sand also sports administrators, many of whom are still today’s mover sand shakers.

Sam Newman

But it wasn’t all wine and roses. A road accident set Astbury on a downward spiral of addiction, initially to medicinal, and then recreational, drugs. Along with the drugs came sex, more of it than most men could handle.

Until one day he found himself answering the front door to the host of Channel Nine's Footy Show Sam Newman while reeling from the after effects of a full scale orgy involving 40 or so whores, mates and showbiz stars, regulars at such events at his Toorak mansion. He didn’t exactly see God in Newman’s face, but he did see something else – the realization that death was the inevitable finale to his excesses.

Peter Allen

Rebirth began with his mother pulling him back from the brink –literally. He was about to jump from the balcony of an exclusive Gold Coast hotel when she intervened.

Astbury stayed on in Queensland, forging himself a second fortune and a swag of real estate awards to go with the ones he won for his ground breaking sports journalism.

Eventually he decided another rebirth was necessary, this one in Thailand, a land full of the people his racist, war hero father had taught him to hold in contempt. But Astburyfor adoration.

At first it was the kid in a lolly shop attraction of the gay bars, and a different lover every night. But then came HIV, and the love of a man known as The Deer.

Astbury's 2006 book King & I was a best seller but it drew mixed reactions mainly from those who wanted Kennedy's image to remain intact even though his homosexuality was well known. Following it's success Astbury considered a political role standing for the Senate as a gay rights campaigner.

In the end he chose to remain living his current life as a successful property developer in Thailand where healso operates a model dairy in the North.

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Following the Shuttle's revelation that a facebook page Eddie Mcguire is ruining the 2010 Winter Olympics coverage, wit hover 10,000 members had started after Eddie McGuire's gay digs at the ice skating stars, nearly 30 top name footballers and coaches are joining in a campaign to begin next month calling for more understanding in sports of gay and lesbian issues.

Eddie 'Everywhere', one of the countries biggest stars issued a press release (ignored by nearly all except the Shuttle)proclaiming his own disappointment in his remarks and promised to do better. The ensuing controversy after the broadcasts eventually made it onto the front page of The Sun newspaper in the UK . Eddie is one of the big names who will front the campaign.

Eddie's straight talk on gay comments

 earlier we brought you the news of the facebook page :  
Eddie Mcguire is ruining the 2010 Winter Olympics coverage
which now has 10742 member castigating football club manager and TVstar Eddie McGuire over his perceived homophobic comments during the men's ice skating competitions. The tale was featured in some UK tabloids.

The latest member Jane says "ah yes.... let's see if he can wiggle out of this."

Has Eddie done it ?.he has issued a press release:

 PRESS RELEASE: Gay rights activist Gary Burns met today with Winter Olympics host Eddie McGuire at Sydney's Hilton Hotel to look at ways of remedying the complaint against him and his co-host, Mick Molloy.

 Gary Burns said: "Eddie McGuire now understands his on-air banter with Mick Molloy during the Winter Olympics Games could impact on vulnerable gay teenagers.

"This was not Eddie's intention. Eddie does not have one homophobic bone in his body.

"As president of the Collingwood Football Club he has, and continues to promote, tolerance for all minority Australians, including homosexual Australians.

"I found his candour one of openness. Eddie McGuire is a man of integrity."

Mr Burns has written to the president of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board and withdrawn his complaint against the pair.

AND so ends the official proceedings from what was a bit of light-hearted banter about the outrageous ice-skating costumes at the Olympics that led to me being branded a homophobe.

As shattering as that allegation was for me, it wasn't about me or, for that matter, Gary Burns.

What it is about is the horrific statistic that in a country that suffers from one of the highest rates of youth suicide in the world, the incidence of suicide among gay teenagers is six times that of the straight world.

Burns is seen in the gay community as either a hero or a troublemaker.

Yes, he's a maverick and has taken big names like Sam Newman and John Laws to the anti-discrimination tribunal over the years, but he also is fighting for a big cause.

Many may not like his tactics and I, as did Mick, certainly bristled at the allegations made against me. But when you sit down and think of what the end-game result is of his stance, it isn't hard to work out there are bigger issues at play than headlines and embarrassment.

For me, the charge of being homophobic hurt deeply.

For all the carry-on that goes with my profile and public positions, one thing that I will fight for is any person's right to exist without vilification whatever their race, religion, socioeconomic standing or sexual orientation. I am also pretty big on free speech and having a sense of humour.

So when two worlds collide it is an awkward position in which one finds oneself, especially as the media likes to embellish and embarrass these days rather than reason and investigate.

Burns and I corresponded for weeks, worked out what we were both about and then found we were in vigorous agreement. He agreed the Olympics comments did not deserve the ferocity of the attack on Mick and myself, but, in being magnanimous, Burns quite rightly reminded me of the pain and suffering so many young people continue to endure for something as basic as their sexual orientation.

Yep, in 2010, young men and women, for the crime of being themselves, are still thrown out of home and bashed.

The biggest regret I had through the whole incident was that bigots would use our comedy schtick as a front for more venomous attacks.

There is always the chance that we are being far too sensitive and in fact all but one of the gay people I canvassed to assess the segment believed there was nothing in it.

But when young people's lives are at stake you need to be very sensitive and careful when in a public position.

As always, it's not the majority of the people who are fair-minded you have to worry about - it's the minority of idiots causing trouble.

So, given there was no call from Burns for compensation, or even an apology, have I dodged a bullet and will it make any difference to how I ply my trade?

Quite the contrary, it has given me a sharp reminder of the difficulties many face in everyday life and how, in my little world where everyone is gay friendly and open-minded, it is not necessarily the norm.

I will continue to react in live situations the way I have throughout my career, but just as we once thought it was fine to call indigenous footballers by racist names - "they don't mind" - it also isn't OK to take liberties with the feelings of gay people as a collective.

Yes, my gay friends send me up for being a hetero and we joke among ourselves, but we are all in on the gag. Not that long ago, the number of Aboriginal footballers in the VFL/AFL could be counted on two hands in almost 100 years of the game.

Now, some 11 per cent of players are indigenous.

Treating them as equals, but also putting in safeguards against discrimination - either deliberate or otherwise - has made for a safe haven for our players and we all are better for the experience.

So far we have had one gay footballer in the NRL, Ian Roberts, and none in the AFL.

We all know we are kidding ourselves to think that is really the case.

If helping to lead the charge against vilification of gay people leads to an environment in which gay boys feel safe to play AFL football, and the natural flow-on from that, then the embarrassment and genuine hurt that both Mick and I have felt will have served a purpose.

That Burns and I found ourselves singing from the same hymn book in our attitudes again shows most people are closer in thinking than they ever give each other credit for.

And that the power of conversation and collaborative thought is still the best way to sort out issues rather than combative legal processes that make lawyers rich and turn potential friends into enemies.

Mardi Gras come-down

 Sunday : Driving down Oxford Street today is like entering a war zone. The trash and litter from the estimated 700, 000 spectators has been collected overnight but the human flotsam and jetsam is everywhere. It's pretty clear thousands of party goers never made it home-they chose to continue the celebrations at the numerous "recovery parties" that can last 2 days.

   Behind all the fabulous colour and movement, inventive costumes and year long planning , there is a serious side to Mardi Gras. While tSS was correct in nearly all predictions-George Michael was there (he gave the parade a plug in his brilliant concert on Thursday night) largely unnoticed in the VIP section, we were wrong in one aspect. There was no tribute to TV star Eddie McGuire.

Olympic ice-skater

AFL footballer

on edit # The person who passed themselves off as a noted gay "activist" to our tSS staffer was just bizarre. Perhaps it was heady excitement of the night.  Our apologies to the 'activist' (what does one call him ?) but imitation is a form of flattery. You are in good company though. Actor Matt Damon has experienced the same recently.

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     On the same night at a house in Bellevue Hill, veteran good manners and deportment queen June Dally-Watkins was celebrating her 81st birthday.

      June once almost took Hollywood by storm in the 1950's when she set up business in LA after taking a successful fashion show to the US.

   She set about grooming a host of newly signed starlets, including a young Marilyn Monroe on how to behave at movie premiers, parties and such. Studios sent all their new contracted actresses to Dally-Watkins for mentoring.

   In Rome she met and was wined and dined by Gregory Peck who proposed marriage on a moon-lit night overlooking the Roman Forum. Peck wanted the pair to live in Monte Carlo. Instead she returned home to Sydney to care for her ailing mother and eventually married John Clifford-a dead ringer for Peck. Her Double Bay school still tutors a new breed of nice young gels how to behave correctly in polite society.

blogging from the Champagne Bar at Pink Stiletto

     Light rain has kept early racegoers away-except for tSS who has commandeered a corner of the Champagne Bar with a track-side view to host drinks for our expected numerous instant new friends. That was half an hour ago, now they are streaming in for the world's first Gay & Lesbian race day at Royal Randwick, Pink Stiletto. The ladies look glamorously turned out at this stage. But are they cocks in frocks ?. We can't tell until they get a little closer.

    One correction. The Mardi Gras is tomorrow night and not next Saturday as we  reported earlier . The Mardi Gras party is next Saturday night and tonight there is a sort of Mardi Gras carnival at the Fox Entertainment Centre-the venue for  mass orgy gala after-parade party was previously booked. Such is No, we can;t work it all out either.

      One guest who we hope will be joining us later this afternoon, film-maker John Waters of Hair Spray and Pink Flamingos fame. Waters will be presenting a one-man show at the Concert Hall in the Opera House (tickets $45 at their website) on March 2nd during which he talks about his career onwards from his first 8mm film in 1964-Fag in a Black Leather Jacket.

John Waters

    Will the Channel Nine publicity department take note of our suggestion relayed to them yesterday and extend our invitation to Olympics host Eddie McGuire to front the Pink Stiletto day and kill 2 birds with one stone ?. Probably not in these days of corporate group think. The CH 9 publicist couldn't grasp our concept that it would produce fantastic front page photographs of Eddie with Minnie Cooper, Clair de Lune and other delightful Ladies of the Oxford Street circuit. Just as we did similarly at past Mardi Gras events with snaps of comedian Billy Connolly and Men Behaving Badly stars Martin Clune and Neil Morrisey with groups of drag queens which garnered media coverage throughout the world.

Eddie-investigation

   And Eddie's image in the gay community  may have been repaired which may  help mitigate circumstances with today's anouncement that the Anti-Discrimination Board will hold an inquiry into McGuire and co-host Mike Molloy's disastrous Olympic commentary. There can be repercussions if a finding is against McGuire-although a fine would mean little a TV station's licence can be seriously affected not to mention when negotiations come up for the station to broadcast the next Olympics.

There is now video up on the Sydney Morning Herald's website of the drag race where a few delightful trannies lined up at the barriers for a foot race. Boobs flopped out much to the delight of all. So predictable and obvious-they had to say what everyone has been avoiding-the Sport of Kings became the Sport of Queens.

Eddie McGuire-arrogant, over rated meglomaniac.

  Hey, they aren't our words !.

       They're from one of the 10880 10886 10890 members (coincidentally mirroring the same number of tSS readers since we first revealed the website's existence) who have joined up to Eddie McGuire is ruining the 2010 Winter Olympics coverage facebook page.

    Another recent joiner Tim Stone says "he should be cryogenically frozen so future generations can be annoyed."

    Poor Eddie. We feel guilty. He really is a nice chap. Eddie is a regular at Graeme Goldberg's Dee Bees cafe in Double Bay and on nodding terms with tSS. He calls in after picking his kids up from the nearby snooty Cranbrook School.

   What would former Channel Nine boss the late Kerry Packer say about Eddie's crass homophobic remarks on the men's skating efforts at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games ?. Probably a lot after the number of complaints that have flooded the Nine switchboards. The current owners of the Nine network. PBL Media didn't return our calls.

Rob Astbury at his 2006 book launch

The King

   Instead we turned to the nation's former top sport's broadcaster who reigned at the Nine network for years, the openly gay Rob Astbury who now lives in Thailand where he is a property developer.

      Astbury, a good friend of McGuire's isn't saying much. He referred us to Peter Jess who mangers the biggest names in Australian sport including Olympian and aboriginal Cathy Freeman whose book, which Jess promoted, was a best seller. Jess has contracted Astbury to promote his upcoming autobiography Twice As Hard. Jess told tSS Astbury’s book will reveal intimate details about some of the nation's top sporting personalities and the biggest names in television. Jess says Astbury’s account of his personal and business life in Thailand will ensure the book is a block buster that is sure to amuse, bemuse and shock.
        Astbury's 2006 book King & I, about his long time relationship with the King of  Television, the late Graham Kennedy was a best selling despite ruffling feathers in the media..

  
     46 year old McGuire has had a meteoric rise from his working class background. He is president of the Collingwood Football Club and hosts a number of TV and radio shows. He is reputed to earn up to $5M a year.

    He was appointed the CEO of the Nine Network in 2006 in a surpise move after the departure of David Gyngell whose father, the legendary Bruce Gyngell was the first person to appear on Oz TV and Channel Nine in 1956.

     McGuire lasted nearly a year and presided over plunging ratings before Gyngell was lured back from the USA.

Jessica-boned

      His famous quip "bone her"-a directive to sack newsreader Jessica Rowe has become common lexicon after an internal memo was leaked. Jessica had the last laugh-her husband Peter Overton is now the network's top newsreader. Eddie is also a good friend of Kerry Packer's son James.

   

  It's hard to believe McGuire would actually be anti-gay. Comments like those of his and Olympic's co-host Mike Molloy are pretty much standard football language. The Footy Show is a perfect example with hardly a week going by without a footballer climbing into drag for an amusing sketch.Not for long though.

      The rumour mill inside the Nine network is in overdrive with the current bosses including Gyngell said to be alarmed at the backlash.

Sir Frank and son Kerry

# The founder of the Nine network Sir Frank Packer was a noted homophobe who abhored the number of gays in the budding TV industry.

Barton-"fluid" sexuality

# Sir Frank's sons and heirs Kerry and Clyde talked tough but rebelled against their father's views. Clyde used to attend publisher Gordon Barton's famous "anything goes" parties where one's sexuality was expected to be "fluid". Whilst Kerry Packer took care of business, his older brother Clude roamed Sydney in a Bentley convertible, his enormous girth encassed in flowing brightly coloured caftans. He could have been the lead float at any Mardi Gras.

# Cranbrook School-the expensive private boarding school in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs where the Packer, Gyngell & Murdoch clans were tutored was the butt of endless jokes in it's early years including the raunchy song that ended with the words-"if you can't get a girl get a Cranbrook boy "!

Cranbrook

# # tSS is travelling to Thailand next month to interview Rob Astbury amongst other expatriates who live there. Astbury’s manager, Peter Jess says, “Astbury is ready to blow a trumpet which will make King and I seem like comparing a wave to a tsunami.” According to Jess, Astbury, in his book Twice as Hard, describes television as a “despicable industry” and he will name stars with first hand account tales about top executives which will have lawyers working overtime. Is the raw truth a defence?.

 # Derryn Hinch is a leading contender for the title of 'Australia's Worst Journalist". Voting at the website ends on the 28th Feb.

# Bruce Gyngell was the driving force behind the successful networks-TV am and Yorkshire Television in the UK.

# Expect a float dedicated to Eddie McGuire in the Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras on Saturday week.

Eddie's houseguest-Johnny Weir

# Eddie has invited top US skater Johnny Weir to stay with him during his upcoming visit to Australia.

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Everyone is invited to join the Social Shuttle team in the Champagne Bar in the Member's Stand at the Pink Stiletto Race Day tomorrow (Friday) from 1pm at Royal Randwick racecourse.

If you make a substantial donation to the Bobby Goldsmith Fund we may even introduce you to singer Maria Venuti !

like some bastard love child of Rupert Murdoch and Silvio Berlusconi..

  Oh dear. That's how Nicky Moore describes the Olympic coverage by Eddie McGuire : "Racist, insular, lowest common denominator, uninformed, homophobic, dull, cheesy, irrelevant, flag-waving … like some bastard love child of Rupert Murdoch and Silvio Berlusconi.".

   The facebook page- Eddie Mcguire is ruining the 2010 Winter Olympics coverage has a growing membership. In the past few days it's grown from a few dozen to 2075. It's description in the 'philosophy' section says : "Anyone else absolutely sick of this no-talent clown and his verbal diarrhoea during the 2010 winter olympics?"
    Michaela Riddell says :"I was embarrassed and ashamed and then to top it all off The Brokeback (Mountain) comment was just outrageous- does Eddie have any evidence that sexuality affects capability ? ".
    Why did the Channel Nine network put Eddie in charge of the Winter Olympics coverage ?. Surely they learnt from James Packer's experience. When McGuire-the host of the quiz show Who Wants to Be A Millionaire ran the network on behalf of Packer he almost stuffed the place. It was typical of younger James-his father Kerry would never have made such a mistake. Nor would Kerry have allowed a raft of homophobic comments to air. He would have been on the blower the following morning blasting the commentators if he got wind of any statement-like McGuire's fellow host Mike Molloy's dig at some Olympians for "not leaving much in the closet" remark.
     Packer cared for every viewer no matter what their race, sexuality or age. They were his meal ticket and he knew it. When he lured one of the top sport's broadcasters away from a rival network he interviewed him personally in his office. When the broadcaster announced he would taking his male partner to any social functions Packer said "everyone knows your a bloody poof and couldn't give a stuff-now sign the bloody contract".
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UPDATE : within 5 hours of tSS reporting on the anti-McGuire facebook group membership has climbed to 4328.

The UK Sun newspaper has got in on the act. The fact the The Sun is owned by Rupert Murdoch who also owns the rival Foxtel cable network where the Olympics are also being reported is entirely co-incidental.