Vale Sir David Frost

David Frost has died of a heart attack at the age of 74 while travelling on the QE2.
Frost was in Sydney 2 years ago to appear on a stage chat show with Michael Parkinson.
At a press conference Sir David practically gave a full show as he chatted for over 40 minutes to the assembled media.

Some of the most fascinating people who he had interviewed ? (apart from Richard Nixon) : John F. Kennedy, Julian Assange and a man he considered the most intellectual politician in the world , Gough Whitlam.

Drama In Double Bay

The chattering amongst the clientele of the cafes, bars and hairdressing salons in the streets of Sydney's up-market Double Bay has been deafening.

Dee Bees : flags are flying but no-one's home

Last Saturday in the late afternoon huge black plastic covers started appearing on the windows of the suburb's most popular coffee shop and restaurant, Dee Bees. Stickers were pasted on the windows stating Closed For Renovations.  Removal vans appeared and the hundreds of photographs that adorn the walls- mostly of celebrities who have visited Dee Bees- began to be loaded into the back.

Many carry signatures of the great and famous who have dined at the restaurant-from Bill Clinton, Bob Dylan, Kylie Minogue to Michael Parkinson.

All this was happening while customers were still drinking their coffees around 5pm but it's what happened next that has set tongues wagging. An ashen faced  manager gathered the staff in a corner and soon several were in tears and it's said one even collapsed and had to be revived. Some have been employed at Dee Bees for as long as 15 years. Will Dee Bees ever open again ?.

Times in The Bay are hard and the suburb has numerous empty business premises. As Dee Bee's owner Graeme Goldberg, (known locally as Mr Double Bay) has pointed out numerous times in his Latte Life columns, former properties like the Ritz Carlton Hotel (which he once managed) are lying derelict and empty. For 20 years it was the favourite inn for visiting international celebrities like George Bush Jr, Princess Diana,Tom Jones and Madonna.

Graeme Goldberg

Sam Neill

Goldberg has been a thorn in the side of the snooty Woollahra Council who control Double Bay and has constantly urged them to up their game. He's fought against odd decisions to no avail, like the bizarre 2 hour parking limit imposed a few years ago in the streets in an area where people loved to lunch for hours and then wander amongst the shops.

The Shuttle has been unable to contact Goldberg but perhaps an odd moment said it all as we passed via the back lane on Tuesday. Workmen were seen removing the kitchen equipment and loading it into the back of a van. Watching with a rather puzzled look was a Dee Bee's regular, actor Sam Neill, puffing away on a cigar.

Sir David Frost on Julian Assange and Robert Kennedy

 David Frost spoke today of the most impressive person he had ever interviewed in his long career: The former US Senator Robert Kennedy who was assassinated in 1968 .

Robert Kennedy

"He was forthright, honest and had a keen intellect, one of the most truthful people I have ever interviewed" said Frost at a press conference he gave today in Sydney with the former British talk show host Michael Parkinson.

Parky & Frost

The pair are doing 2 shows at the Sydney Theatre this week where they interview each other and reveal some candid moments  interviewing some of the most famous people during their respective careers.

Both said Nelson Mandela was a interview subject they had both greatly admired. Frost who has concentrated on world leaders said that he found former Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam to be a "towering intellect, possibly the most intellectual politician"' while Parkinson said that both he and Frost were fond of cricketer Shane Warne who he described as "a life enhancing force".

Of all the people he had loathed David Frost described the former head of the Hitler Youth League
Baldur von Schirach who served 20 years in prison for crimes against humanity as a "particular loathsome person".

von Schirach "loathsome"

"He had absolutely no regrets about his time as a Nazi and I shivered after the interview when he put his hand on my arm and with a twinkle in his eye said 'at 23 you were in charge of your own television show and at 23 I was in charge of the Hitler Youth-you see we really aren't so different! ' "

On Julian Assange who Frost has just interviewed and Wikileaks he said: "I was expecting a fairly soul-less person but I was pleasantly surprised and liked him by the end of the interview".

Asked what he thought about Assange's release of secret cables Frost said:
"it hasn't been proved that anyone has been harmed by them and they have exposed serious crimes. It's the sort of thing journalists should be doing".

Parkinson and Frost said that research and preparation was the most important aspect of interviewing any person with Parkinson giving the ABC interviewer Andrew Denton as a great example of a young interviewer of today who gets the most out of his subject.

And they weren't giving much away about what their two man show will be about :
"I'm still working out things to ask Michael "said Frost."In fact this press conference has given me some new ideas".
"I think David will turn out to be my favourite interview subject of all time " responded Parkinson.

To book for Parky And Frost. Two Nights Only Tues 8th Feb & Wed 9th Feb go to this website.

Here is David Frost and part of his famous interview with Richard Nixon:

Parky Declares A Republic is Needed !

One aspect of Sir Michael Parkinson's Australia Day speech last night at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music was the inevitable subject of whether Australia should become a republic after the failed republican campaign led by Malcolm Turnbull in 2000 was defeated in a referendum before the Australian people.

Parky leans to the left of politics- born in working class Yorkshire and the son of a miner- he once told the Shuttle in 1998 over dinner in response to the question of what he thought of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher :

"she was a perfect example of total power corrupting. I'm with the Queen on this-she couldn't stand Maggie !"

Sir Michael reckons that Australia, where he is spending more and more time in retirement , should become a republic but not until after the death of his favourite Royal, HRH Queen Elizabeth 11.

And the reason ?. "Just think" said Parky, "and you should put this jingle to the tune of The Beatles 
"We all Live in A Yellow Submarine":

"your -next -Queen- is- Camilla- Parker- Bowles, -Camilla -Parker -Bowles ".

If you have forgotten the tune-here is the original:

Michael Parkinson Becomes Honorary Australian

Comedian Ben Elton has become a citizen and 70's star Leo Sayer loves the place.

Now Sir Michael Parkinson has been given the rare honour of giving the Australia Day address at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music tonight.

Parky is no stranger to the place, Both he and wife, the TV presenter Mary Parkinson have been visiting Australia for 30 years. They spend most summers in an apartment in Rushcutter's Bay overlooking the harbour. One daughter and her family have lived here for 20 years which gives them the excuse to visit.

But of course, Parkinson's love of Australia has always been well known and since his retirement last year he told the Shuttle in January 2010 that one of the joys of giving up his interview program was the ability to spend more time here and of course, the ability to watch even more cricket, one of his greatest loves.

Leo Sayer (Australia Day Council)

Tonight Michael Parkinson in his speech pointed out some of the reasons he loves the place including the lack of snobbery and the directness of Aussies. He used former Prime Minister Paul Keating as an example pointing out the outrage that surged through British tabloids when Keating put a protective arm around HRH The Queen on an official visit and labelled Keating The Lizard of Oz :

 "He was simply reaching out in a friendly gesture as one human being to another. Here we are all human beings."

Parkinson said Australia first came to his attention as a boy in Shropshire when his miner father constantly commented on the quality of Australian cricketers. In his speech he marvelled at how the country had progressed from a penal colony to in his words : "one of the most powerful and progressive nations in the world".

And he brought up the subject of the devastating floods in Queensland and the dreadful bush fires in Victoria last year saying :


"It is a reminder to the world of the resilience and the courage of the Australian people"

# Fans of Parky should check out former East Ender Graeme Goldberg's Dee Bees cafe in Double Bay where Michael and Mary often take breakfast. You may even see Leo Sayer there-he and Goldberg are great mates. According to Graeme, Ben Elton is yet to visit as he lives in Perth with his family.

See our earlier chat with Michael Parkinson at Doyles in Watson's Bay.

A reminder of Michael Parkinson's brilliant show with one of his favourite guests-Dame Edna Everage.

just another balmy day in Sydney...

The perfect start to a warm sunny spring day with a light breeze. Breakfast at Doyles with former chat-show king Michael Parkinson. 

In Watson's Bay with it's boardwalk lined with weatherboard houses-Doyles gives the feeling of a Mediterranean fishing village cafe. It was where the legendary Marlene Dietrich dined before she appeared on stage one night at the Theatre Royal in 1972, promptly fell over mid-song and broke her leg which not only ended the cabaret but the great Marlene's stage career forever.

Parkinson is as amusing and interesting as any of the guests who appeared on his show. He doesn't mind he may always be remembered for Rod Hull and the Emu incident or the Meg Ryan debacle."Part of the territory" he says. Asked what went wrong between he and Ryan, Parky has a quick answer-"it was hate at first sight and went downhill from then on".

2 of Parkinson's favourite interview subjects were Dame Edna Everage and the late Kenneth Williams : "both made an interviewer's job so easy-one could sit back and let them do all the work".
He related the tale of when he, Kenneth and the late Marti Caine were invited by Lady Hardy to go on a Sydney Harbour cruise aboard an ancient clipper. A proper boat as opposed to the gigantic gin palaces that now blight the docksides.

" I'd warned them both it was a sailing boat-not a cocktail cruise. Marti turned up in 6 inch stilettoes and Kenneth wore a suit, a homburg and a mac. He spent the next 3 hours shivering in the cold wind and complaining about his piles" .

His most satisfying interview-Nelson Mandela who he travelled to South Africa to interview. "I couldn't have the president walking down that staircase on the show like he was a celebrity" says Parky.

He won't name the few stars whose interviews were nipped in the bud just as they were about to appear-totally written off. But he did cope with a stoned Robert Mitchum, and a drunken Elliot Gould and Donald Sutherland . Sutherland apologized 20 years later.

And his very first interview for TV in Manchester ?. A young Mick Jagger who reckoned he had about one year to make the most of his rock career-as long as Parky thought he himself may last.

Parkinson's reason for his cool manner during interviews-"sheer terror "!. He doesn't miss being on television and he doesn't miss 'modern ' celebrity and says he wouldn't touch reality stars with a barge poll. This weekend he gives the keynote address at a journalism conference.

"Ironic" says Parkinson,"especially as I know less about the business than I did 40 years ago. But I'll muddle through ".

Michael Parkinson's "the One-Man Show" begins in Melbourne on Monday 12th October. Bookings at the Arts Centre. 
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And so to a light lunch at our favourite Manta Restaurant on Woollooomooloo Wharf. It's strangely quiet for mid-day, mid-week. Except for one table looking alarmingly like the Last Supper.

It's new 'media personality' Mick Gatto and associates. Mick has been doing the rounds of the chat shows to promote his auto-biography (see below). As I took a snap and eyed the small gold mine adorning his wrists and fingers he kindly gave me a quick rundown-'Cartier, Versace and Bulgari" he said beaming. 

Mick Gatto (centre) with friends (c)

Mick's a pretty friendly bloke for someone who the National Crime Commission says is a figure behind organized crime and may have been involved in a few murders." Would you like a copy of my book" he asked ?."I declined."Never much time to read" I replied as Gatto's pals eyed me suspiciously.

I made my excuses and left.

Sir Michael launches his new show in Sydney

Sir Michael Parkinson will soon arrive to tour Australia in Parky, The One-Man Show, an evening with Michael Parkinson live on stage, when he will relive the best of his guests and their greatest moments on screen beginning on 12th October.

Parkinson's broadcasting and television career spanned 40 years before his retirement last year. Now, the legendary chat show host will share his anecdotes about the famous, in a stage show, supported by video clip highlights from his career. His 2008 autobiography and CD "My Life in Music" have been huge sellers and did anyone really expect Parks to retire quietly ?

After all, he has to do something between cricket matches.

 The Shuttle caught up with Sir Michael and Lady Mary (she gently chides people when greeted with her title) at the launch of the Moonlight Cinema in the Botanic Gardens earlier this year. The Parkinsons have owned a harbourside apartment in Rushcutter's Bay for 20 years and spend nearly 2 months of the year here over summer. They confided they planned to spend far more time here to be with their daughter and grandchildren who moved to Australia 10 years ago.

The Shuttle  plans to join Parky for lunch at Doyles in Watson's Bay 2 days before Michael begins his Aussie tour.