Sneak Preview : The Great Gatsby 2

We don't really have any footage-yet, but we are privy to the inner workings on the set of Baz Luhrmann's $150M epic, The Great Gatsby currently being filmed in secrecy at Fox Studios.

Jeff Duff

News comes that alternative singer and entertainer Jeff Duff has scored a role in the epic, playing an eccentric friend of Jay Gastby the movie's hero played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

The Shuttle first encountered Jeff Duff-then called Duffo- at Country Cousins, a London cabaret restaurant off the Kings Road in Fulham.
Duffo appeared on stage one Sunday afternoon singing up a storm with his Duff Orchestra and wearing a jacket that had a dozen brightly coloured dildos hanging from it. We aren't sure if the dildos were part of Duffo's act but they certainly ensured he wouldn't be forgotten.

As we have previously reported, Leo DiCaprio has been hanging out at the tiny Kings Cross club Beach Haus where he regularly takes a corner booth with a group of male friends.

Last night he attended the opening of the glitzy re-vamped The Star casino. Leo slipped in unnoticed by most. He can be seen here in the Sydney Confidential pages of the Daily Telegraph, chatting to friends including Russell Crowe, and scratching his backside. (that will teach him for not posing for the snappers).

Meanwhile guests at the party were talking about how healthy and slim Russell was looking. He seems to have shed several kilos so all that walking he does in the mornings is obviously paying off.

 Crowe learnt ages ago how to get the paparazzi to leave him alone. When he sets out each day from his magnificent Woolloomooloo penthouse on foot, he wears exactly the same gym suit, shoes and cap thus lessening the price of any paparazzi snaps. They gave up hounding him long ago. The rest of the day he can be seen tooling around Sydney in a sleek black CS Class Mercedes.

Here is Jeff Duff in a video we have tracked down with Jeff singing Stairway To Heaven in his inimitable style. Remember, in The Great Gatsby you may see something similar in glorious 3D !

Leo Stars

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.

Russell Crowe Unhappy With Waiters

Word came at about Mid-day. Russell Crowe who occupies the penthouse at the end of the Finger Wharf in Woolloomooloo was unhappy with the noise.

Glen Wheeler & Maria Venuti

It was the annual Variety day when the kid's charity takes over seven iconic restaurants along the wharf for a long lunch while a number of local show biz stars entertain.
Russell wasn't unhappy for too long when he heard what the event was for and although invited to join the throng he declined but sent a very large cheque instead.

Over $200,000 was raised.

And that's what it's all about. Raising lots of money for kids. The theme was a Wharfies day and there was one special treat-The Singing Waiters.

If you haven't seen them check them out in our video. They are one of the most successful corporate acts of all time. Three opera singers pose as waiters at a party, serving drinks. Then they burst into opera favourites to the surprise of the party goers. So successful is the act that it has been franchised around the world-to the UK , USA , Asia and Europe.

Benny Elias, Sami Lukas

Country music star John Williamson & Meg Doyle

Picture : News Corp Boss Sleeps In Street

Luna Park

John Hartigan

There he is in our snap-John Hartigan the boss of Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd empire in Australia.

He'll be sleeping rough tonight at Luna Park (motto : Just For Fun) along with over 200 other CEOs to raise awareness and cash for Sydney's homeless which is reaching epidemic proportions.

In a city where one house (Altona) just went on the market for an estimated sale price of $60 million, there are families living rough in caravans, cars, on church steps while hundreds of young people sleep rough at train stations and so on.

The Mathew Talbot men's hostel in Woolloomooloo, just a stones throw from the Finger Wharf with some of the countries most expensive restaurants and the penthouses of Russell Crowe and broadcaster John Laws, accommodates around 35000 people a year and serves 600 meals a day.

So far the combined CEOs have raised over $1,230,000 $3,326,064 but aim to quadruple that overnight. Hartigan, who reckons he can "sleep on barbed wire " is the biggest fundraiser to date.

You can go to the website of the CEO Sleep out 'Rise To The Challenge' and donate in the name of your favourite CEO (if you have one/) or register to sleep-out with them

Russell Crowe, Kidman & Urban Move House

Antonia Kidman and husband Keith Urban have finally taken possession of a new $17M penthouse in New York at 200 Eleventh Avenue in the West Village overlooking the Hudson River.

The duplex apartment has one outstanding feature: it's own special lift to transport the couple's car to their  19th floor home which has it's own garage adjacent to the flat.

In a city were parking can be a veritable nightmare, this has to be the ultimate luxury.

The building was designed by architect  Annabelle Selldorf who installed freight sized lifts into which a tenant can drive, sit back and relax while remote sensors guide the lift to the correct floor and then the car into it's designated parking area.

All the flats were snapped up as soon as they hit the market and Kidman & Urban's neighbours include celebrity decorator Jamie Drake and  Domenico Dolce of Dolce & Gabbana. Actor Kelsie Grammar who had eyed off one of the 2 penthouses decided to pass and purchased in an equally smart building at 100 Eleventh Avenue.

Kidman & Urban have a growing real estate collection including Bunya Hill in the Southern Highlands of NSW, a beach side block on the South Coast with 2 Heritage listed 1920's weatherboard bungalows  on it and an estate in Nashville.

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And still anxious to move to larger premises from his Finger Wharf penthouse in Woolloomooloo, actor Russell Crowe has inspected a Bellevue Hill house for the third time now.

Headingly House

Fashion designer Carla Zampatti and husband John Spender, the former Australian ambassador to France have put their beautiful 26 room stucco mansion Headingley House on the market for $23M.


Crowe is reported to have offered $20M in his bid to find a backyard for kids Charlie & Tennyson. 

With so many rooms the Crowes should easily be able to house Danielle's father Don Spencer a TV children's program host who plans to live with the family.
And our spy in the Crowe camp tells us Rusty & Danielle want to add a girl to the family before too long.