Bianca channels the Duchess

Spotted this week at the Victoria & Albert Museum summer party was Bianca Jagger, one time wife of legendary aging rocker Sir Mick Jagger.
Guests commented on Bianca's rather remarkable new look that is reminiscent of the famous (or infamous) Margaret, The Duchess of Argyle as our pictures show. Whispers met the Duchess several times and once dined at her rather splendid home in Mayfair with the late Lady Edith Foxwell.

The daughter of a multi-millionaire businessman Margaret married the Ian Douglas Campbell the Duke of Argyle in 1951 but the marriage only lasted a few years after the Duke accused her of being unfaithful. The subsequent divorce case scandalized 1960's Britain when Polaroid photos of the Duchess were produced in court with her in flagrante delicto wearing nothing but her regular pearls. Rumours spread around town as the identity of her paramour - from cabinet minsters to the movie star Douglas Fairbanks Jr. She died in 1992 keeping her secret.
These days, Bianca Jagger serves as a Council of Europe goodwill ambassador.

Gerry & The Pacemaker Get Hitched !

         READ ALL ABOUT IT

Reporting the Love Match of the Decade

 
The British media were out in force at the now famous Rugby match at Twickenham between New Zealand and Australia. One lucky snapper secured the first pictures of the love-birds Jerry Hall & Rupert Murdoch as they arrived at the grounds. Whispers is a cynical old thing and finds this most odd. The photo is clearly taken as the loving couple are arriving - not via the VIP entrance as other celebrities did, but along with the general public. The photographer appears to have been the only one to get the shot almost as though he/she had prior knowledge of this. And then likewise the photo of Uncle Rupes planting a kiss on a coy Jerry's cheek. Again just one snapper got the pics. And the source of the coupling :"a family friend". Such friends revealing info like this are usually banished to the outer realms, Not that Whispers is complaining as every time Rupert Murdoch's private life is reported our now famous snap of he and former wife Wendi Deng features throughout China's media (Chinese Hello! seems to love it)
Even odder is the fact not one News Corp outlet (proprietor Rupert Murdoch) has mentioned the tryst or published photos. Yet the pair seem happy to pose and appear in public ! Amongst the dozens of News Corp titles across the world that passed on the mention of the Love Match of The Decade:

The Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall rumours

Fleet Street in the UK is having one of it's meltdown moments as the claim that Jerry Hall is now dating Rupert Murdoch run riot. Oddly they all echo the same source who is said to be a 'family friend' - the usual way of describing an unknown source - and all quote the same thing :
" they are set to go public by attending next Saturday’s Rugby World Cup final at Twickenham. Billionaire Murdoch was introduced to Texan Jerry by one of his sisters and a niece while in his native Australia." 
 Time will tell. As Whispers reported on the September 20th Murdoch's defunct News of The World  bugged the phone of Mick Jagger's publicist when Jagger was married to Hall and they were having marital problems. The bugging provided many stories that were published. So is all forgiven?

Rupert Murdoch & Jerry Hall : so much to discuss

One of the madder tales doing the rounds and which is bound to be repeated ad infinitum is the rumour that billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch is dating the Texan model Jerry Hall. Jerry is pictured here with her former boyfriend Warwick Hemsley and with her daughter Georgia May Jagger during Sydney visits.
What could this newspaper obsessed mogul possibly have in common with fun loving Jerry?. Well according to Nick Davies in his best- seller Hack Attack about the recent hacking scandal, perhaps pillow talk could involve a discussion about how Rupert's tabloids hacked the phone of Bernard Doherty who was Mick Jagger's publicist when he was married to Jerry which provided a string of exclusive tales about the couple's divorce for the Murdoch newspapers.

MBFW Day 2

Lots of colour and movement at the Camilla fashion parade at the Sydney Mercedes Benz Fashion Week with Georgia May Jagger.

The Rolling Stones-50 Years Later

The Rolling Stones at The Marquee club in Wardour Street London today on the anniversary of their first appearance there in 1962. Below-as they appeared 50 years ago . Ronnie Wood joined The Stones in 1975 while Bill Wyman left in 1997. Brian Jones who founded The Stones died in his swimming pool in 1969.

 

 Jade Jagger, Mick & Bianca Jagger's daughter married DJ Adrian Fillary in June in The Cotswolds. By contrast is the wedding snap of her parents when the wed in the South of France in 1971.
And our Aussie connection is : Mick's mum, the late Eva Scutts was born in Sydney.

Donald Friend Re-visited

The Savill Galleries in Paddington has a retrospective of Donald Friend's works which is a must see. It's rare to get this many Friend paintings together at one time-there are 28 on show- works that come on the market are snapped up immediately by collectors.

Donald Friend studied at the Westminster School of Art in London and served as a gunner in the AIF during WW2. While stationed in Albury  he became friends with Russell Drysdale and the pair were instrumental in establishing the famous art colony at Hill End.

Donald Friend portrait by Greg Weight 1987

He's probably most famous for his Bali period although there are some wonderful portrait studies at the Savill from his time in Paris in the 1940s.
 Friend discovered Bali in the 1960s when the island paradise was unheard of by most in the West. He moved there and built a magnificent house where over the years he entertained all manner of people from visiting diplomats to pop stars like Mick Jagger and David Bowie.


He moved back to Australia in the 80s when Bali became an Antipodean version of the Costa Brava and died in 1989.

Savill Galleries
156 Hargrave Street
Paddington
Tel: +61 2 9327 8311

Palm Beach shack For Sale

'Kaluha'

Every summer a flock of paparazzi set out for ritzy Palm Beach at the very furthest end of Sydney's northern peninsular where local and international celebrities spend their lazy days in the handful of mansions available in the area.

Now the most famous house that usually hosts an international star over summer is up for sale-Kalua, the magnificent property owned by businessman Ian Joye can be yours for an asking price of over $25M.

The 1920s Caribbean style beach house is actually three separate houses on about 5,500sqm in the cul-de-sac at the prestigious southern end of the beachfront, nestled among the lush vegetation of historic Cabbage Tree Boat Harbour with filtered views direct across to the beach, bordered by tall Pines.

Only HRH Prince Charles' friend Bob Rose has a better property being right at the end with commanding views over the beach.

Kalua was once owned by the Horden department store family (they all had Palm Beach houses in the 1930s-the Graces, the Lloyd Jones while the Myers opted for Sorrento in Victoria ). Gazing over the azure waters of the Pacific it's secluded amid magnificent sprawling grounds and really hearkens back to a more stylish era when Eastern Suburbs' families would motor down for the week end and jostle over who could host the smartest  garden party.

These days Palm Beach is a bit of a film colony with Oscar winning director Peter Weir, actors Bryan Brown and Racheal Ward and Sam Neil all living in the area while the North Palm Beach Surf Club is used as a set for Home &Away.

Those who have rented Kaluha for $40,000 a week include Mick Jagger, John Cleese, Bono, Nicole Kidman,Tom Cruise, Rupert Murdoch, Paul McCartney and Billy Connolly.

If you are short on cash the vendor is offering 60% finance which means you could look forward to a monthly mortgage of about $120,000.

The Downfall of 'Lord' Davenport

The Emmanuel's famous wedding gown

The Shuttle exclusively revealed in December last year that 33 Portland Place, the home of 'Fast Eddie' Edward Davenport was used to film part of The King's Speech. Now the resident of the grand London terrace has been banged up for 8 years in prison for perpetuating one of the most common scams today-the offer to raise non-existent multi-million dollar loans on payment of an up front substantial fee. Dozens of conned souls have lost millions.

Sadly one of Eddie's victims was another Shuttle discovery, the designer Elizabeth Emmanuel who has lost her life savings to the ghastly rogue.
Many moons ago The Shuttle was commissioned by a New York nightclub to bring a host of the newest up and coming British fashion designers to the Big Apple for a series of parades. Elizabeth and her then husband David Emmanuel were two struggling designers operating out of a minuscule West End studio when we chose them as designers of refreshingly new and romantic designs.

The subsequent fashion spread featuring the Emmanuel's clothes in the US prestigious Woman's Wear Daily brought them to the attention of the British media and three years later they were commissioned to design the dress of the century, Princess Diana's famous wedding gown in her marriage to Prince Charles in 1981.

But why did London ever fall for this con-man and is he a symptom of the instant celebrity culture that has invaded British society?.

His pompous website, replete with incorrect spellings of names reeks of self-promotion with a series of snaps of Eddie with a host of movie actors and pop stars.

Most of the pictures were taken at the various events held at Portland Place which Eddie hired out for parties to PR companies. Large West End houses that can be hired by the night are rare so obviously the venue was popular. Most homeowners, except the most desperate are sensible enough to never allow a bunch of wannabes and certainly a film crew to trample their muddy boots through their rooms.

33 Portland Place

                                                                         
Tales abounded from those who hired Portland Place of Eddie's penchant for attending every bash with his own snapper and muscling in on the action by button-holing any celebrity for a snap. Boy George is reputed to have said after posing with Eddie :"who the fuck was that?. I thought he must be the butler"

The British tabloids duly reported every phony aspect of Eddie's life as though it were fact, from the hired luxury cars and planes that Eddie claimed to be his to his supposed wealth and never twigged to the fact that Davenport's family tree seems oddly free of aristocratic titles yet he claimed his was an inherited one.

As for Portland Place-it was purchased for a small sum in a highly dubious deal that some have likened to a classic pea and thimble trick. So clever was the dream Davenport weaved when obtaining the lease  that government officials from the impovererished country of Sierra Leone who owned the premises (and may still) are still scratching their heads as to how Fast Eddie ended up with the deeds to the graceful mansion.

British newspapers are still slipping up on facts-one has claimed that Eddie's Thai 'girlfriend' was in tears in the court. "Girl friend?" Eddie may feel right at home amongst the chaps at Wandsworth Prison.
As for the Daily Mail's decimation and exposure of Fast Edward Davenport's exagerated claims of wealth, perhaps they could have mentioned the magazine that leant credence to the Davenport Fantasy : The Mail on Sunday!

The Vanity Fair Academy Award's Party



Selena Gomez & Justin Beiber



It's the most sought after invite at the Academy Awards ceremony. The Vanity Fair Oscar's party hosted by editor Graydon Carter.

Most of those attending the awards either rush off first to the Governor's Ball and then, if invited to the Vanity Fair bash or Elton John's Aid's benefit. The big plus at the Vanity Fair do is that they invite all the older Hollywood legends so it becomes a mix of ageing and newer starlets, sporting stars, new and old music identities and the real Hollywood power brokers like Summer Redstone  and director Oliver Stone.



Joan Collins in that dress that sent her to hospital





Sandra Bullock



Rupert & Wendi Murdoch

Tom Ford



Chris Hemsworth




New York's top society snapper (and the most famous in the USA) Patrick McMullan as an associate editor at Vanity Fair has exclusive access to the party.

 Here are some of his snaps. There is much more at David Patrick Columbia's New York Social Diary

all photographs copyright : Patrick McMullan Inc.


Serena Williams



Mick Jagger







Marianne Faithful's Nemesis Photographer Dies

One of Australia's most popular photographers Peter Carrette has died of a heart attack.

 Regarded as the gentleman of the paparazzi, London born Carrette first came to prominence when he photographed Marianne Faithful in a drug coma in her hospital bed in 1969.

Faithful had travelled to Australia with Mick Jagger who was to star in a film about Ned Kelly. She had over-dosed after it was claimed she had discovered Jagger in bed with another woman.

Carrette borrowed a white doctor's coat and stethoscope and sneaked into Faithful's room, took the photo that was flashed around the world as one of the first examples of intrusive photography. Earlier this year when Faithful was in town for an arts festival, she told the Shuttle she'd still like to give the snapper a "quick boot in the backside". However she conceded she had forgiven him.

After studying photography in London, Carrette travelled to Sydney and snared a job as Sir Frank Packer's copy boy when the media mogul owned the Daily Mirror newspaper.

Once established, he worked for various publications photographing news stories. He gatecrashed the US invasion of Grenada by hiring a smuggler's boat while the world's media waited for official transport in Barbados, worked in New York for 6 years and  photographed  for Vogue in Paris for 2.

More recently he and another photographer squirted the actor Heath Ledger with water pistols at a Sydney film premiere-again in an action where the film of a startled Ledger was flashed around the world. Briefly banned by film companies from red carpet premieres, Carrette later made peace with Ledger shortly before he died in New York.

Carrette also supported an orphanage in Cambodia by donating the fees received from his exclusive candid photos of celebrities often taken around the beach at Bondi.

 For the past few years Carrette had been running his own studio and photo distribution service from a Bondi flat where he had lived for the past 20 years. The flat is owned by his good friend , the actor Jack Thompson.

Carrette was concentrating on studio portraits and had just completed a series of studio shots of Danni Minogue when he died suddenly on Sunday evening from heart failure while working at his computer.

Mick Jagger's Big Dick and Rats !



Jerry & Georgia in Melbourne



Mick Jagger is has a big dick  !.

That's according to Jagger's ex-wife Jerry Hall in response to Keith Richard's claim in his autobiography life- that the Rolling Stone's front man has a "tiny willy".

She didn't quite put it like that to our Shuttle operative in Melbourne today.

"Mick has nothing to complain about, nor would anyone with him be disappointed in the slightest ! " said the 6' Texan.





Jerry was attending a cosmetic launch at Myer along with her gorgeous daughter Georgia Jagger who has inherited the best aspects of her parents. Tall and languid with Micks big sensual lips.

Jerry says she hasn't resorted to plastic surgery-or face designing-but is very into yoga.

"I like to change things from the inside" she said.

On her extended visit to Australia she said: 

 "I love this country. Everything is better here. " (mind you, they all say that). She is a regular visitor having been to these shores 6 times now.

" I think I'll be spending a lot more time here " presumably referring to her current beau, Perth businessman Warwick Hemsley (pictured right).

On Mick :"he's the most wonderful father to our children".

Jerry still lives in Jagger's Surrey house which is divided into 2 sections and where she keeps a menagerie of pets.

On the subject of animals we specifically asked our Melbourne mole  (who chickened out at the last moment)  to remind Jerry of a Shuttle tale that appeared in a UK newspaper a few years ago.

Mick had already collared the Shuttle at a Sydney party and chided your scribe over our claim that the Jagger house on Cheyne Walk in Chelsea had a cellar that was a seething pit of huge rats.

As a regular visitor to a friend who lived opposite on  a barge on the Thames, we once spotted one of those horrendously huge foot long rodents that appear at low tide, scuttle across the road and disappear into the Jagger garden and duly reported the fact, as one does, to a Fleet Street tabloid in exchange for a generous financial consideration.



former Jagger householder

Mick remonstrated with your scribe and said Jerry had not only read the tale and believed it but had ordered in the exterminators who fumigated the entire house and grounds whilst the  family retired to a country retreat for the weekend.

On returning the fumigator's report stated no rats had been found, but any number of cockroaches had been destroyed and a dozen tiny mice had bitten the dust.

Apparently Jerry said Mick, had worried for weeks that the deaths of so many insects and mammals may affect her karma !

Amazing isn't it ?. Some old boozy hack can completely upend a celebrity's life no matter how famous they are !

# Jerry has also taken the opportunity to introduce daughter Georgia to some of her Australian cousins. Mick Jagger's mother originally emigrated to the UK from Australia and Jagger, a family man has always maintained contact with the Aussie side of the Jagger family.