Less is more..

Apparently everyone will be watching the much criticised 60 Minutes tonight ( late of Lebanese kidnap fame) as they broadcast a "hard hitting" interview with publicist Roxy Jacenko whose clients we have now all but forgotten. We have an appointment with some old friends so sadly will miss it.
A Telegraph feature pushes the tabloid TV show with a shocking revelation and we quote:

“Someone wrote on Hunter’s Instagram, ‘How’s your mummy’s fake cancer?’” she said.
“It makes me angry, I mean the reality is you’d have to be sick in the head to think that someone would actually manipulate a timeline on cancer. People die from cancer.”
A two year old with an Instagram account? And a two year -old who can read and understand such a complex issue as cancer?. The mind boggles.  Pictured- Roxy with Hunter as he prepares dinner.

Society plays guessing game

It's been the talk of the Eastern Suburbs over the past week: who is the writer of this article referring 

 to?

Financial Review journalist Joe Aston who writes the gossipy Rear Window column has written a rousing defense of Roxy Jacenko who has been as would be expected, supporting her husband Oliver Curtis during his insider trading trial for which he has just been found guilty. Curtis will find out on Friday if he will receive a jail sentence.
Whispers met Curtis last weekend where he was keeping a low profile at a racing royalty Ingham's family christening held at Doyles in Circular Quay. We didn't like to bring up any controversial subjects. We've also attended many of Roxy's PR events and she's always pleasant and we find, one of the more efficient publicists in town. She's been receiving some flack for her choice of outfits while attending court but nothing new there- Roxy just dresses as she always does.
But this line has set the tongues wagging as names of columnists have been bandied about :
"And the laziest journos in the game, the furry-teethed ones with two decades of free canapes (literally) under their belts, write their one dog-tired column a week (don't ask us what their other workdays are devoted to), loathe Roxy" Ouch !

Read Joe's column here.
Update : Curtis was jailed for 2 years with a minimum of one year to be served.

Ouch ! Roxy Jacenko unloads

Sydney high profile publicist Roxy Jacenko has hit out at those who are attacking her over the controversy surrounding what apparently are some pretty distasteful photographs of her daughter's head superimposed into other pictures. The photos are said to have been circulated among rivals in the fashion industry.

While Roxy, whose events we attend does promote her daughter Whispers cannot see why Roxy should be so viciously attacked for it even if we think it's not very prudent.

An attack on the mum is almost a vicarious attack on the daughter. The child is an innocent party in this and no matter what your views are, she will grow up and read all this (?) in the future.

So hands off as you take a perilous path when tangling with Roxy. You will get back as good as you give and then some.

Reality Bites For Glam Pair

They're a couple who live a glamorous life-attending the right parties and swanning about with plenty of baubles and toys.

Oliver Curtis & Roxy Jacenko

Roxy Jacenko is one of Sydney's top publicists and her boyfriend 25 year old Oliver Curtis, son of one of the countries top corporate high fliers is a young man about town-good looking and seemingly rolling in money.

She drives an Aston Martin, he the latest Range Rover.

They just bought a $6.6M house in chic Woollahra and Roxy has been sporting a $200,000 engagement ring.

She wore it the Cleo Bachelor Of The Year bash she organised at Ivy last week and at the Hermes beach party at Nielsen Park in February.

Roxy runs the top PR firm- Sweaty Betty and she and her equally gorgeous sister Ruby Jacenko have been likened as an Antipodean answer to  Paris Hilton and her sister Nicky.



Ruby Jacenko

The Shuttle mentioned in it's report on the Hermes' party that although the pair looked jovial, Oliver may soon face some sort of enquiry in respect of his pal John Hartman, son of society obstetrician Dr Keith Hartman, who was jailed for 4 and half years last December for insider trading.
Now the Sydney Morning Herald reports that the enquiry may soon be under way. It's claimed that Hartmann who confessed to making nearly $2M profit from his illegal enterprise may have passed on financial information to Curtis so he could benefit.

 Hartmann is in protective custody and it's reported has agreed to give evidence against Curtis.
Read more at the SMH.

                    




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Hottest Bachelor Named - Loser Strips

Australia's Cleo Magazine Bachelor of The Year was named last night-Olympic swimming champ Eamon Sullivan (above) described as "charismatic, ambitious,  intelligent, and amazing in the kitchen ".

 Organisers this year sensibly chose ace PR Roxy Jacenko of Sweaty Betty to promote the event-hence acres of coverage on TV networks and newspapers. Roxy is the sort of publicist who doesn't subscribe to the current fad that media workers-photographers, journalists and TV crews are some sort of 'necessary evil' to be tolerated and shoved into a pen and then discarded when it suits.

hosting-Sophie Monk

This years' event was a glittering bash with a black tie dinner at the Ivy ballroom and actress Sophie Monk-still looking for that big break in Hollywood, flew into town to host the event. Sophie confided to the Shuttle that she had been 'celibate' for a year but was looking for a possible candidate amongst the 50 bachelors on show that evening.

On the subject of celibacy-there was much talk during the evening about the successful TV film



Bachelor shows his charms



 Paper Giants : The Birth of Cleo  just screened on the ABC and it's creating editor Ita Buttrose (who famously declared after divorce she intended remaining celibate), and the late media mogul Kerry Packer's hand in getting to print Cleo Magazine in the 1970s which at times reached sales of up to 250,000 copies a month and is still going strong.

Everyone credited actress Asher Keddie for her role as the lightly lisping Ita Buttrose as having given an award winning performance.

Society photographer Bill Ranken who has been around long enough (he's 81) to know the Packers and all the personalities featured in the film (he's also 'landed gentry') agreed Asher's performance was superb and that Tony Barry as the guff Sir Frank Packer was spot on.

As to the long rumoured romance between Buttrose and Packer, Ranken says it never happened :

 "Kerry never mixed business with pleasure" says Ranken.

"Kerry admired Ita for her talent and he would never have risked complicating the business relationship by making it personal. It was just the usual Sydney gossip that ramped the relationship into a love affair. "

Ranken , whose Society Spy pages can be seen in Latte Life also says the film skipped over Kerry Packer's tipple of choice Fanta and how that choice of drink it came about.

Asher Keddie & Rob Carlton as Ita Buttrose
& Kerry Packer in the ABC's Paper Giants.

"Restaurants around the world would be phoned ahead to tell them Kerry was booking a table and that a crate of Fanta should be on hand. The corporate jet was always stocked with plentiful supplies." says Bill.



bachelors come in all sizes



" In the film Kerry says he went on a bender when very young and woke up with a shocking hangover the following morning. He says in the film and that 'he never wanted to feel that way again'. The real truth is that in between the drinking and waking up there was a scene that resulted in tragedy that Kerry never got over. He swore off alcohol for life and kept his word". Ranken declined to illuminate on what had happened that fateful night.




bachelorette attacks cake

 

The media behaves

Pairings and Partings

The former Premier of NSW Bob Carr once described him as "the Rumpole of the Lower Traffic Court"- colourful barrister Malcolm Duncan has passed away suddenly at the age of 54.

Duncan was a regular sight around Kings Cross and Potts Point where he was born and lived his entire life.
Taking on what some said were lost causes, he regularly tackled in the city courts issues that he saw as  'attacks on democracy' . One of his regular targets was the Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore who Duncan told the Shuttle was"out to turn Sydney into a bureaucratic nightmare where one will have to file a form in triplicate to the appropriate council office just to cross the road"

Duncan, a conservative was an adamant opponent of the Kings Cross  Medically Supervised Injecting Room but despite this he attended the launch of a book about the centre by it's director Ingrid van Beek.

Earlier in the week he had unsuccessfully attempted to obtain an injunction to prevent it's publication. The book described him in less than flattering terms during the very public political battles to keep the injecting room open. Malcolm was particularly miffed at being described as 'florrid' in the tome. but he couldn't keep away from the party and on spotting Clover Moore there he said "does she have the appropriate planning permission to be here !"

Despite his professed conservatism Duncan moved in many circles, supported the new nightclubs and discos springing up in the Cross with their extended drinking hours, successfully railed against Town Hall plans to redesign Fitzroy Gardens and wrote a blog on the left wing writer Margot Kingston's Webdiary where he described former PM John Howard's 11 year term as The Howard Drears and filed amusing chapters on his two books-The Great Australian Novel and The Chronicles of Nadir.

Duncan will be sorely missed-certainly by his political opponents who begrudgingly put up with Duncan's regular measuring of their campaign posters. Perched perilously atop a ladder in the busy Kings Cross streets during elections with a tape measure Malcolm would check the posters adhered to the rules and more often than not, would place his own above theirs at the same time.

Malcolm stood as an independent at almost every state and Federal election usually getting around 500 votes. He'll miss the appointment he had early next month with the private eye Frank Monte to give him some of his election tips for the March 2011 state election and next week the political rally he was staging in Kings Cross against the ruling Labor Party.
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Oliver and Roxy

Anthony & Terry

They were both at the recent Hermes beach party and they have just announced their engagements. Shoe designer Terry Biviano has told the world she and her current beau the Sydney Swan's footballer Anthony Minichiello will be getting hitched . Terry is also due to join the cast of the new Foxtel reality TV show WAG Nation which will follow the daily lives and adventures of sportsmen's wives and girlfriends.


And the effervescent boss of top PR firm Sweaty Betty Roxy Jacenko was sporting a sparkler on her hand that our diamond adviser says "looks like 5 carats to me!" when she arrived at the bash with her fiancee stockbroker Oliver Curtis. Perhaps these two should get their honeymoon in early. The Shuttle's legal mole says Curtis may soon be called to appear before some sort of official body over the affairs of his friend John Hartman who was jailed recently after being found guilty of insider trading.