Winners are grinners at the Diamond Awards

 Pictured above are jewelers Berj Ohanessian (centre) and Robert Musson (right) who received awards at the Diamond Guild Australia Awards at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Pictured left is Berjs ( Berjani Jewellery) creation Waves the overall winner for 2015. You pick up all 4ccts for $33,000. On the right is Robert's Loire creation which won him the Daily Diamonds award.
Diamonds are still very big business. Recently a flawless 100 carat gem sold for a whopping $22M at Southebys in New York.

Panos Levendi (left) and his brother Mike Levendi (right) of Levendi Jewellers won the Men's Award for their diamond ring Oceanus (inset)
(Diamond photos by David Perryman Photography)

Antoinette Marie wore the Perfect Summer Outfit when she joined pals Jennifer Hawkins & Jake Wall (below) for the launch of Sesion Tecquila

Above: Michael Wipfli & Guy Sebastion are Sesión Tequila fans

Is Tequila the new drink for this summer ? Oprah Winfrey seems to think so. She joined a bunch of pals last night-as our exclusive snap shows - to celebrate her Australian visit with Tecquila Sunrises.

The Ellen File

Just as we had an insider on the Oprah Winfrey tour, the Shuttle has an onboard spy posing as a diesil dyke same sex gender lover on the great Ellen deGeneres tour of Sydney.

Here is our first picture of Ellen and Portia de Rossi an their harbour cruise today. (pic by Andy Lassner)

Diamonds Are Forever

Top jewellery designer Stefano Canturi who has been wowing them in New York threw a cocktail party to launch an exhibition of artworks and accompanying creations at the MiCK Gallery in Paddington, featuring some of his best works from the past 25 years (he began when he was just 17).

Neale Whittaker, Stefano Canturi, Patricia Canturi , David Novak Piper

Jessica Rowe

Of special interest is the amazing 'Satine' necklace commissioned by movie director Baz Luhrmann and Academy Award winning costume designer Catherine Martin. This amazing necklace was worn by Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge. Other confirmed Canturi fans include Oprah Winfrey, Kylie Minogue, Linda Evangalista and Miranda Kerr.

 The Louis XVI inspired Satine design features open lace patterns,scrolls and a splendorous bodice with 1308 diamonds totalling an awe inspiring 134 carats ! .Nice.
Stefano's exhibition is worth seeing for that alone but there are a wealth of beautiful sketches and wondrous jewels on display and it's a must see for everyone.
The exhibition Journey is open until the 12th February at 44 Gurner Street, Paddington. Tel : 02 9231 1799

Grown Up Children

Shari-Lea & Paula

Socialite Shari-Lea Hitchcock took the opportunity to introduce her daughter Paula to Sydney at the Billich Gallery last week.

Paula is now 15 and is the daughter of the late billionaire Dick Pratt who left a $5.6B fortune. Polish born Pratt emigrated to Australia in 1938 and became the biggest supplier of cardboard in the world.
Spreading his fortune around he was an avid patron of the arts and medical research, hosting charity bashes at the Melbourne mansion Raheen  where he lived with wife Jeanne.

Jeanne & Dick at Raheen

The existence of Paula became known during a court appearance when a lawyer mistook a journalist for a solicitor and revealed details of a large payment that was to go to Shari-Lea to care for her daughter. When Dick Pratt died in 2009 he left a legacy to Paula who he adored and Shari-Lea estimated at around $40M plus a sensational beach-side house in snooty Watson's Bay and a NSW farm.
Good mum that she is, Shari-lea whisked Paula away for dinner before the arrival of some nude models at the party.
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Meanwhile at the launch of the 2012 Kings Cross Festival a young man was entertaining the guests including the Shuttle with some amazing card tricks.

Max Rendall

Ace, Christian & Rendall

 Max Rendall placed a packet of cards in our hand and requested we hold them firmly while he did a few tricks to a wide-eyed audience. Upon asking for the cards back, they had turned into a block of perspex?. How did he do it ?.

Max is the son of ex-pat London resident John Rendall who found amazing fame when he and Christian The Lion became a mega YouTube hit as a videoed reunion was set to music.

Rendall and his business partner Anthony 'Ace' Bourke purchased Christian in Harrods in 1969 and kept him in their Kings Road antique store, eventually delivering him to the conservationist George Adamson in Africa.

The grainy film  of the pair re-uniting with Christian in 1971 shot to fame in 2008 and along came book and film rights and a tour of TV chat shows around the world including the Oprah Winfrey show.
Rendall lives in Chelsea and lectures about conservation and keeps a vintage Rolls Royce in Sydney for visits.
 Max Rendall has just finished his studies at Sydney University and is entertaining at corporate events while he contemplates the future.

Stefano Canturi Shines

rare gems....and beautiful baubles

Stefano Canturi has come a fair way in 25 years of designing precious jewellery and now numbers the likes of Katy Perry, Alicia Keys, Oprah Winfrey, Melissa George and Madmen star Christina Hendricks amongst his fans and customers. He's even received the ultimate accolade : designing a necklace for Barbie! (the necklace sold at a New York charity auction for over $300,000)

Stefano Canturi, Silvia Colloca & Richard Roxburgh

During the week Stefano hosted a dinner at the social set's fave new restaurant Apollo in Macleay Street, Potts Point with the restaurant kitted out with Stefano's original design sketches for his creations including the amazing diamond necklace worn by Nicole Kidman in Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge.

Amongst the guests: designer Carla Zampatti (left) and Moulin Rouge star Richard Roxburgh and his beautiful Italian wife Silvia Colloca.  Roxburgh, a friend of Canturi's from the Moulin Rouge days had another reason to celebrate that night-his hit show Rake  premiered it's second season that night on ABC TV.

Christina Hendricks wears Canturi

       














left : Nicole Kidman wears the Stefano Canturi creation

Colour & Movement from Camilla

Sydney's Mercedes Fashion Weak Week is upon us again. Never mind that the star designers have done a bunk, there's till a load of aspiring newbies willing to stump up 60 grand to show their wares.

 Here are a  few shots from today's parade with the ever so nice Camilla Franks (right) who whips up these wondrous floaty caftans. Zillionaire Gina Rinehart and Oprah Winfrey buy them by the dozen:

 Caftans for blokes (right)

(left) Cardboard cut-out hats-a must.




(right) Where to carry your boomerang-why didn't I think of that?







(below) Caftans For Kids

the Seal Of Approval from Oprah.

Life Changing Moments On The Bridge

Just the other day we had David Hasslehoff proposing to his Welsh girlfriend Hayley Roberts at the summit of Sydney's famous Harbour Bridge.

James Cameron & wife Suzi last month on the Sydney Harbour Bridge

It's one of the all time great tourism successes-shackling together groups of eager climbers and leading them to the top to take in the awe inspiring sight over Sydney's magnificent harbour. The Shuttle did it once. By the time you get to the peak the oxygen levels kick in. It's an instant high and you feel like taking on the world. Hence The Hoff and his fiancee following in a long line of those making life changing decisions (one reader unkindly suggests it was a publcicit stunt..surely not ?). Marriage proposals are the norm for couples chained together in their bridge issue overalls.

Oprah Winfrey and gal pal Gail did it as our picture shows. Michael Caine and his gorgeous wife Shakira climbed as did Richard Branson and even the Vienna Boys Choir have all made been to the top.

Now a Christmas visitor who was spotted on the bridge, movie director James Cameron has announced that he will be leaving America and moving South of the Equator. The director who spent December and January in Sydney with his family checking out facilities at Fox Studios has bought a 1067 hectares farm in New Zealand and will be moving there to live.

Oprah

In April this year Cameron, who directed two of the all time most successful films, Titanic and Avatar will move to the property which is about 90 minutes from Wellington and the Weta Digital studios that won an Oscar for it's work on Avatar. He will spend the next twelve months working on the sequel to Avatar.

Ain't Love Grand

He  brought down the Berlin Wall (or something like that), now Baywatch star 59 year old David Hasslehoff has proposed to his 31 year-old girlfriend, Hayley Roberts, this morning while climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The Hoff is currently in Sydney starring in Celebrity Apprentice and has been seen around town doing all sorts of weird jobs like washing dogs and selling hot dogs on Bondi Beach.

 The Bridge Climb is one of the great tourism successes and every visiting celeb has to do it. Even Oprah Winfrey managed to, chained to a dozen of her fans that she had transported Down Under with her on the great adventure in 2010 that has largely been forgotten.

At $200 a person and in teams of ten they set off every ten minutes. Everyone gets a nice certificate after the climb and a photo as in the one above of the Hoff and Hayley. You aren't allowed to take a camera with you but at least the snap is included in the price of the climb. Everyone says it's a great experience but that may have more to do with the oxygen levels at that height. The climbers are as high as kite in every way.

Royal update:Limos,Guards,Guns and Paddington

It's generally one of the quietest times of the year with just the Sydney Festival providing some light relief but last week was fairly eventful for the normally deserted Paddington and Double Bay.

Najib Razak & Rosmar Mansor

 The Shuttle became embroiled in a minor fracas in Paddington mid-week as we motored through the back streets and emerged onto William Street, the tiny thoroughfare of smart boutiques (Gail shopped there for chocolates for Oprah Winfrey when they were in town) to find the street blocked by a fierce looking black limousine- the four wheeled drive variety now so beloved of today's celebrities. With two sunglass wearing black suited gentleman blocking the traffic.

 A full five minutes past before these self-appointed traffic wardens graciously allowed the mounting traffic to pass, with a furious waving of the hands as we inched our way past the shop and peered in to see who it was that may have commanded such pomp and ceremony

King of Tonga

One report appeared today stating that Rosmar Mansor the wife of the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak happened to be shopping in Paddington that very day

But the plot thickens.

A report arrives that a similar vehicle was seen idling outside an upmarket boutique in Double Bay the same afternoon. A well-known paparazzi reports that as he began to take photographs of an "Asian looking" lady who emerged from the shop and headed for the limo, he was suddenly confronted by a pistol packing minder telling him to buzz off.

 Co-incidentally word spread through the Bay that the daughter of the Tongan rulers His Majesty King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV and Her Majesty Queen Halaevalu Mataaled was on a shopping spree in Double Bay that day as well. Such excitement!

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Queen Margrethe

 Meanwhile the crowned heads of Europe gave e their collective tiaras an outing at a grand party at Christiansborg Palace Chapelin Copenhagen to celebrate Queen Margrethe II of Denmark's 40 years on the throne. 

Naturally the popular former Tasmanian Crown Princess Mary was featured along with a variety of dethroned and serving royal heads such Pavlos & Mary-Chantal of Greece (they have no last name-so chic!) Queen Silvia and King Gustav of Sweden and Queen Sonja of Norway.

There is a Shuttle connection to Queen Margretthe. In her 20s she shared a flat in London with Jean Onions, the sister of Shuttle contributor Bill Ranken.

 And we have an exciting exclusive on the British Royal Family. According to one report HM the Queen will announce her abdication at her Jubilee celebrations later this year and handover to Prince William. No King Charles or Queen Camilla-they are to by-passed for the younger and more glamorous Wills and Kate.

The scoop comes to us courtesy of the newsofthewoldonline.

Sadly we note this must read glossy website no longer appears to feature our favourite minor German aristocrat Frederic Prinz von Anhalt as a show biz writer.

Married to the ailing Zsa Zsa Gabor, perhaps he has other things on his mind.

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And here is a snap that young Jack Vidgen sent us from the red carpet at last week's G'Day Ball in LA. Tonight he sings at the New York G'Day Ball..  he sent the following message :

" The New York Gday USA Ball is tomorrow night.. Loved the LA one so much am really excited for this one.!! The other acts were so awesome in LA, Guy Sebastian is going to be performing as welll. Will be great to see him!
It was FREEEEEZING in New York today! Apparently it's meant to snow tomorrow so i better rug up lol
Am flying to Houston in a couple of days, I bet Texas will be awesome!
Hope your all well and only a few more days till I'm back in Oz :)"

Christian The Lion Hits Hollywood

 Ace Bourke & friend Christine at the Sherman

Ace, Christian $ John

One half of the Christian The Lion duo-Anthony 'Ace' Bourke has confirmed that the famous saga about Christian, the Harrods bought lion that was raised in a Kings Road, Chelsea furniture shop is to be made into a Hollywood film.

Ace was talking at the Sherman Gallery at the exhibition of Vietnamese artist Dinh Q. Lê. 

In 1969 he and Australian born social writer John Rendall purchased Christian and raised him in their shop Sophisticat, eventually returning him to Africa under the care of the famous conservationist of Born Free fame George Adamson.

Bourke and Rendell returned a year later to see how Christian was faring and the grainy film of Christian bounding down a hill to hug both John and Ace became a YouTube hit  (with over 30 million views) when put to the song I'll Always Love You. It lead to a  publishing deal and a world wide tour on TV interview shows including Oprah Winfrey.
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Brian Sherman & Dinh Q. Lê

Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation's current exhibition Erasure, is a newly commissioned work by Vietnamese artist Dinh Q. Lê – an interactive sculptural and video installation that draws on recent debates in Australia concerning refugees and asylum seekers.

The darkened gallery space is dominated by a floor-to-ceiling moving image of an 18th century tall ship beached on an isolated coastline slowly being consumed by flames. The gallery floor is strewn with small islands of debris – discarded clothing and wooden fragments. Amid the destruction are thousands of small black and white photographs – self-portraits, family and passport photos – which Dinh spent years buying in second-hand stores in the hope of finding his own family’s pictures.

To date the Shermans have now sponsored 11 similar artists to the tune of $100,000 each. The exhibition runs until the 11th September 2011, Wednesday to Saturday 11 am – 5 pm
16–20 Goodhope Street, Paddington
Sydney NSW 2021 Australia
Phone +61 (0)2 9331 1112

# a short film of Dinh's installation :

Chef Goes Bananas !

Courtney Act & Danni Minogue at Aria

Is it all a stunt ?. It's certainly a wonderful promotion for Masterchef now in it's 4th season and driving us all witless as we sit munching on our baked beans and watch amateurs produce sensational dishes.

Chef Matt Moran who is now a fixture on the show has thrown a tizzy and it could become a youtube hit (with our help)

Moran owns Aria, one of Australia's smartest restaurants over-looking the Sydney Opera House. His food is simply to die for and the Shuttle will go to the opening off a pantry door if it's at Aria just to sample the hors d'ouvres.

The last shindig a few weeks ago was a promotion for Danni Minogue's TV show and the previous party late last year was a super secret bash for the Queen of TV Oprah Winfrey.

Winfrey who was staying at the nearby Hotel Interontinetal also rented an apartment above Aria in the infamous 'Toaster' Building. She used the apartment to dine on several nights with Matt preparing some of his world famous dishes.

Here's Matt doing a Gordon Ramsey:



Update : as we correctly guessed..a stunt !. All for a good cause by http://www.ozharvest.org/ to highlight food wastage.

The giveaway- despite Matt's superb acting skills, when the camera pans around the crew as Moran storms off. It's something we see in every fake 'reality' TV show ala The Office.

"Cold As Ice"

Mildred

 Is the Shuttle's office cat Mildred Pierce psychic as we believe ?. We regularly place a host of celebrity snaps before her and where her paw lands we know a tale about that famous face is in the ether. And so it came to pass twelve days ago as a calico paw landed on Oprah Winfrey's beaming face :

On Saturday 12th February after we reported on Oprah Winfrey's amazing love affair with Australia reciprocated by the local media, and that the famous biographer Kitty Kelley gave another side to looking into the lives of the rich and famous. Now a tale hits the headlines about a former lover of the great media star who has described Oprah as "cold as ice":

"Kitty Kelley — It always happens. The day after your book is published you meet someone who says, "Oh, I wish I'd known you were writing that biography. I could've told you about ...." Fill in the blanks here with some hair-raising incident you did not have in your book, despite years of research and hundreds of interviews. Never fails

Shortly after the paperback publication of Oprah: A Biography last month, I received an email from a man, gently chiding me for my vaunted investigative skills. "How come you didn't find me?" he teased. "I was Oprah's lover back in the 1980's and lived with her for four months before Stedman came on the scene."

Read the tale at gawker.com.

Fear & Loathing in Oprah Land

She swept into Australia and took the country by storm. Well certainly the media that is who all sang from the one song sheet as the Oprah Winfrey tour Downunder descended upon the nation with over 300 guests and 200 staff (and Gayle of course) and spread to points all over the land while the collective readers of the nation's tabloids were treated to every thrilling encounter with a wallaby, barbecue or rutting Koala and so on.

No-one could possibly deny that Oprah did the country proud with her TV specials recorded at the Sydney Opera House which were broadcast in the US last month. It remains to be seen if the expected tourist flow-on is forthcoming and certainly having what could be the world's most powerful media personality spruiking for Australia has to be seen as a major publicity coup.

But can one image what it's like when that  power is turned against you ?.

The writer Kitty Kelley found out when she published her best selling book Oprah : A Biography. Doors slammed shut all over the place as she details in this piece just published in The American Scholar titled  Unauthorised But Not Untrue:

 "I had felt the chill of media disdain when my publisher began booking my promotion tour. Larry King barred the door to his CNN talk show because, he said, he didn’t want to offend Oprah. Barbara Walters did the same thing, proclaiming on The View that the only reason people wrote unauthorized biographies was to dig “dirt.” There was no room for me at Charlie Rose’s roundtable and no comfy seat next to David Letterman. The late-night comic had recently reconciled with Oprah after a 16-year rift and did not want to risk another. On my 10-city tour I made few, if any, appearances on ABC-owned-and-operated stations because most of the stations that broadcast The Oprah Winfrey Show are owned by ABC or its affiliates. No one wanted to displease the diva of daytime television"

There is much much more in her article as Kelley writes about researching biographies of the Bush family, Frank Sinatra, Jacqueline Kennedy and more. Read the full story here.

courtesy Kitty Kelley (c)

First Oprah Conquers-Now Ellen & Rosie O'Donnell !

Anyone watching the Oprah Winfrey specials that were filmed in Australia in December last year could be forgiven for thinking that America's top talk show host had fallen head over heels in love with the place. Insiders from the Harpo camp say Oprah's enthusiasm was genuine and that she is itching to return and is already planning regular shows for her new cable TV network based on the country. And some Aussie talent is in line for a summons from the great lady to fly to Chicago to attend talks about joining her network . More on that soon.

Rosie O'Donnell has also caught the bug and announced that she would love to film one her specials in The Great South Land. The talk is of Rosie planning a luxury cruise ship special like the one she did in 2004 on the Norwegian Pearl where a bunch of gay and lesbian families cruised with O'Donnell and a film crew, calling in at different ports.

Rosie is bound to get a hearty reception if she makes it to Oz and certainly not like the one she received when the ship docked at Nassau in the Bahamas to be met by anti-gay protesters. O'Donnell actually stayed on board.

Now a facebook group has started : Bring Ellen Down Under and it has a staggering 29479 members and our mole in the Ellen camp says that Ellen DeGeneres has taken note of the facebook page and may have an announcement soon. Her partner Portia de Rossi was in Sydney in October last year and there is a rumour she was hunkered down in talks for one day with the same Tourism Australia chiefs who brought Oprah out.

Will it be a race to the finish ?. The obvious time for the world's two most famous lesbians is to arrive in Sydney in time for the annual Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras-not this year but in March 2012.

Here's Portia singing 'Happy Birthday' to Ellen last week:

Knives Out After Oprah Winfrey Trip

She held the country in the palm of her hand for 10 days. (Or should that be the local media ?)
Oprah Winfrey's tour of Australia and the recording of what will be her final 2 shows at the Sydney Opera House was treated by the Aussie media like the second coming.

When the Social Shuttle reported that 12 of her security detail had been sacked without pay because one had the temerity to enter her hotel room to check that it was secure, only 2 tabloid reporters followed up the tale.

Despite us being unable to give our source (protected) we did hand them on to the local law firm acting for Winfrey's Harpo company. They denied the tale but within a day the 12 guards were told they would be paid after all. The Shuttle witnessed documents that confirmed the story.

Now an American who has been living in Cairns and operating two successful tour boats around the Great Barrier Reef is hopping mad.

John "The Yank" VandenHeuvel  says he approached Tourism Australia 6 years ago with an ambitious plan to bring Oprah Winfrey to Australia. And the outline of his plans were basically identical to Oprah's tour as it unfolded over her 10 day visit. VandenHeuval proposed tying in Oprah's visit with Qantas and their ambassador, actor John Travolta and rewarding a number of Oprah's regular audience members with the "trip of a lifetime"

Backing VandenHeuval's claim is the Opposition Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison who was the head of Tourism Australia at the time. Pilot Dennis Wallace says he flew Morrison to Cairns to discuss the project which was common knowledge amongst the majority of local tour operators.

 “Tourism Australia has done the wrong thing, it is very un-Australian,” says Mr Wallace.

“It is not about the money, this is about Tourism Australia blatantly lying,” says VandenHeuval

“They reneged on the deal, cut me out of it and cut Cairns out of it and Cairns ended up getting screwed as bad as I did.”

VandenHeuval says he spent $200,000 on the project and while Tourism Australia acknowledged to the Shuttle that they had met with him in 2004 they declined to discuss details.

VandenHeuval has instructed high powered solicitors Slater and Gordon to issue proceedings against the government body and is claiming  $2Million in damages.

George Michael, Real Estate Fantasies & Serial Killers

It's laughingly referred to as No Idea in the trade. Pacific Magazines hugely popular weekly New Idea magazine which has around one and half million readers each week.

Unfortunately it doesn't, unlike a few British tabloids and several News Ltd publications scour the Social Shuttle for tips. Otherwise they would have known as we reported on the 10th October that Oprah Winfrey would be staying at the Hotel Intercontinental when she booked into Sydney to record her 2 shows at the Sydney Opera House.

New Idea brought it's readers the fantasy story (pictured) on December 6th of how Oprah would be choosing from one of several million dollar harbour side mansions lining exclusive Wolseley Avenue.

Their choice was home loan's king John Symond's new $60M glass palace which was a surprise to him when we contacted him a week after the story was published and he told the Shuttle he wouldn't be moving out for Oprah or anyone else.

The usually reliable Real Estalker website informs us that George Michael has purchased a $6M house in Whale Beach (left-and not Palm Beach as they call it) which may come as a surprise for Michael who next February is booked into the same Icon apartment in Kings Cross where he stayed for 6 weeks earlier this year when he was the guest at the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras- as exclusively revealed by the Shuttle 5 weeks before anyone else.

As George spent nearly every night partying on the Oxford Street gay strip, ten minutes from Kings Cross it's a mystery why he would buy a house on the Northern Beaches when it takes a good two hours to travel into the city.

In a city obsessed with property, how appropriate then that the Darlinghurst Theatre brings us a musical about real estate titled 'Open For Inspection' opening on the 21st January 2011.

It's a rollicking tale of a real estate agent who becomes a serial killer as 2 rival agencies battle for customers during a property slump and go to extreme lengths to literally make a killing. Nice. Here is a number from the show :


To book seats for Open For Inspection go here.