Over Here & Over Priced

It's a perfect example of how Australian property prices, especially in Sydney are sky-rocketing. With just an average suburban house, inner city terrace or a Redfern apartment now costing up to $1M, Iona , the gorgeous residence of Academy Award winning film duo Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin has gone on the market for a whopping $16M US with the pair moving permanently to New York.
Whispers has been to the property twice, once before Baz bought Iona and it was fairly run down and once for a garden party given by the pair. We managed to peek inside and the decor is truly wonderful and an example of Catherine's exquisite taste.

But consider what their movie contemporaries pay in Hollywood or New York. Julia Roberts put her sensational NY penthouse on the market for $4.5M while fitness guru Russell Simmons picked up a stunning LA house for $5.8M. Meanwhile writer and actor Larry David purchased a huge mansion with 7 bedrooms & 9 bathrooms in the snooty Pacific Palisades with stunning water views for $15M (Iona may be in Darlinghurst but it has absolutely no views at all) and comedienne Rosie O'Donnell has listed her New Jersey mega mansion for sale at just $7M while mega star George Clooney & Amal Alamuddin paid an affordable $16M for a 300 year old Grade II listed Georgian mansion in a five-acre islet in the River Thames west of central London.

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: