Star line-up for the ACCTA Awards.

Nicole Kidman will be jetting into Sydney for this year's ACCTA Awards next Wednesday evening. She'll be joined by Vance Joy and Katie Noonan who will perform alongside a star-studded line-up of presenters and guests, including nominees  Simon Baker, Deborah Mailman and Bruce Beresford.

Whispers will be there of course at the The Star Event Centre with bells on to bring our readers all the action.

And what a line-up of talent:

Host Stephen Curry will be joined by top Australian film and television talent who will take to the stage to present, including: Rebecca Gibney, Marta Dusseldorp, Jack Thompson, Sigrid Thornton, Rodger Corser, Erik Thomson, Julia Zemiro, Shane Jacobson, Fred Schepisi, Nazeem Hussain and Kat Stewart, as well as KATH AND KIM’s Gina Riley, Jane Turner and Magda Szubanski.

Jumping for Joy at Tropfest

Dan Ilic jumps for joy on the black carpet.

The Tropfest short film festival is back in a big way and superstars turned out to support the founder John Polson as our snaps show : Rebecca Gibney, Mel Gibson ( pictured below with John Polson) and Simon Baker.
Winners of this year's prize were animators Spencer Susser and Daniel Cloud-Campos.
whose stop-frame animation with real clothing called Shi picked up the gong.

 

And well worth reading is Gary Maddox's article in the Sydney Morning Herald about some of the woes that bedeviled Tropfest. 

Given the recent background of the festival, it's remarkable that John Polson has been able to resurrect the popular event so quickly.

When Aussie Stars Arrive

Have you ever been to Cannes. Whispers has several times. During Summer the lovely town is the ideal French resort. Meanwhile the Cannes Film Festival is an experience everyone should have at least once. The whole town is in a party mood and every day is an adventure.

The Cannes Festival may not have invented publicity stunts but producers and publicists sure refined the art at this movie festival where just about anything no matter how outrageous will garner precious column inches throughout the world and in the hundreds of European glossy gossip mags. Here are a selection of two Aussie stars Miranda Kerr and Naomi Watts snapped at several events and this is just the beginning!. On the right is former Oz soapie star Simon Baker arriving at Cannes Airport.
(pics :AgenceFrancaisTele)

Rose Shines at Premiere

Rose Byrnes who was in Los Angels last week for the G'Day USA events flew into Sydney yesterday to attend the world premiere of her new film I Give It A Year.

The movie, a romantic comedy looks at the trials and tribulations of a pair of newlyweds during their first year as a married couple. Directed by Dan Mazer, Rose stars with Anna Faris, Simon Baker, Rafe Spall and Minnie Driver.
While in town Rose will be completing some vocals on Hugh Jackman's production of X-Men, Days of Future Past in which she plays a world authority on human genetic mutation. Isn't our Rose talented?

Below is a trailer for her new flick:

Another Day..Another AACTA

a red dog

This is becoming repetitive. Not a week seems to go by without a new film award. Just a few days ago Geoffrey Rush was in Los Angeles helping hand out AACTA gongs to the Gumleaf Mafia and LA locals like Meryl Streep. That was followed by the SAG Awards a few days later.

Cate Blanchett shines

Miranda Kerr

Megan Gale

Last night he looked bright eyed and bushy tailed at the Sydney Opera House handing out more AACTAs to those in the local film industry.
He had some help from colleague Cate Blanchett. Actually that is the Samsung AACTA Awards. It's the re-incarnation of the Australian Film Awards and Samsung have put a hefty sum behind the whole deal hence the media were invited inside to the Opera House instead of being, as is film publicist's wont, bundled into some pen alongside the red carpet out in the elements. So we in the meejah are now very fond of Samsung and almost as happy as actor Simon Baker who keeps popping up on television promoting Samsung products for a reputed $3M a year.

The "Australian equivalent of the Oscars" went off without a hitch and anyone who has done anything in an Aussie film was there including some who haven't like Miranda Kerr. And there was a bar for the media.

The big winner was the film Red Dog judged Best Film. It's a charming feel good movie that was inexpensive to make which should delight the producers as not only has it been a box office success, animals don't get residuals.

The LaPaglia Brothers

And Judy Davis-who Woody Allen reckons is the "best actress in the world" won Best Actress for Eye Of The Storm which is based on the book by the crankiest ever Nobel Prize winner Patrick White. Olivia Newton John, Anthony La Paglia and Magda Szubanski were there as was  Shutle pal Jaqui Weaver who was up for an Oscar last year. She spent a few hours regailing us in the bar and roaring with laughter over some very risque tales of Jacqui's after Oscar party experiences, plus Claudia Karvan who is still having difficult recalling how the Shuttle bounced her on our knee in her dad's bar Athurs in Kings Cross (innocently of course!) when she was seven. Miranda Otto and her sis Gracie Otto and their dad Barry Otto attended. And Barry is the man that Sir John Gielgug once said was the best actor in the world.

SNOWTOWN picked up a gong and qute right too. It's a pretty gruesome true life tale but well made and  based on the shocking serial murders where ten bodies were found dumped in barrels of acid n a disused bank vault in Snowton in South Australia.  Done wonders for the tourism trade I'm told.

Miss Universe Ditched From Hollywood Gala

The most successful Miss Universe ever, Jennifer Hawkins has been dropped from the annual G'Gay Australia USA celebrations in Los Angeles by the department store Myer.

The annual affair that runs from the 15th to the 29th January features a grand ball attended by the USA's Gum Leaf Mafia at the Hollywood Palladium on the 19th. Guests have  included the likes of Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett, Hugh Jackman and a host of local stars who have made it big in the USA. 

Jessica Hart

There are events from Dallas to Boston as the Australian government promotes everything local from business policy to the still struggling film industry. This year the timing is perfect with the 2 shows filmed in Sydney by Oprah Winfrey to be shown on US TV with Oprah herself being a guest at the ball.

Last year Jennifer Hawkins was a guest along with her fiancee Jake Wall (they got engaged last week) Barry Humphries, Kristy Hinze and Rupert Murdoch.

Myer are investing big in the event with a fashion festival to run for the 14 days and Jennifer was meant to be the star  model but she has now been dropped with the gap-toothed Jessica Hart picking up the role.

The Shuttle can exclusive report that the reason for Hawkins being canned was nothing to do with her personally but because of friction between her ambitious manager Sean Anderson and the Myer public relation's team. Myer CEO Bernie Brookes says that Hawkins was dropped because of a"culmination of a number of issues".

Although Anderson has presided over Hawkin's career as she raked in millions of dollars in appearances and endorsements her crown has begun to slip lately with the Seven TV network announcing that they will not be re-newing her contract this year.

Below: A reason to be glad you were not be at the last G'Day Ball : Nicole Kidman and  Keith Urban's ditty to Simon Baker.

Star Struck Weddings & a new Beiber

 

Former Home & Away star Chris Hemsworth has married his girlfriend Spanish actress Elsa Pataky. Hemsworth has a major role in the new Avenger's film along side Scarlet Johannsen and Robert Downey Jr due for release in 2012 but it's his starring role in the film Thor which should catapult him into action superstar status. Thor is to be released in March next year.

Hemsworth and Elsa married in Bali surrounded by a handful of close friends and family and are honeymooning on Phillip Island.

Emma Cooper

And one of Australia's top film publicists Emma Cooper wed  film writer  Henry Cripps at a North Sydney chapel yesterday with a host of Hollywood stars in attendance including her good pal Naomi Watts as a bridesmaid. Naomi's husband Liev Schreiber gave a reading of Henry Lawson's After All during the service and the party moved onto Taronga Park Zoo for the reception.

Emma's dad Guy Cooper was the director of the zoo for years and was once named Australian of The Year.

bridesmaid Naomi Watts

And cheering on the couple-Mentalist star Simon Baker who has just scored a $30M contract to appear in his hit show for the next 3 seasons,  Without A Trace's Anthony LaPaglia who flew in from the US for the wedding, actress Lisa Hemsley, singer Tim Freedman from The Whitlams and designer Collette Dinigan.

Cooper who has become the top Aussie film publicist over the past 20 years divides her time between Sydney , Melbourne and New York. In 1996 she masterminded the successful Victor Chang charity visit of Princess Diana to Sydney on her last ever public appearance.

The happy couple return to New York next week where they are neighbours of Watts and Schreiber

              ******************************************
 Move over Justin Beiber.

Get ready for Munther Mania with the new teen heart throb 16  year old Swedish singer and songwriter Ulrik Munther. 

With the cool tussled looks of the late Rivers Phoenix Ulrik has become an internet sensation and his first album-Boys Don't Cry had 30 record companies bidding for it when the title song was uploaded to YouTube. It's released early next year and here is rough cut of the video :

Comings and goings..

A reminder this week of a once grander Australian social scene with the passing of 2 stalwarts.

Pat Tudor

In London the former beauty queen Pat Tudor has died after a tragic accident when she fell down a set of steep marbles stairs in her Knighstbridge home. Aged only 68, Pat was regarded as one of the great beauties of her day. 

Tall. elegant and with impeccable manners and poise she was crowned Miss Victoria in the early 1960s and forged a highly successful modeling career in Melbourne and Sydney before moving to London to act as a sort of roving ambassador for Qantas.

She was also appointed as Kerry Packer's personal UK representative and up until her death still liaised with Kerry's widow Ros and son James Packer, organising all travel arrangements whenever they visited the UK.

When the Packers wished to throw a shindig in the Old Dart, Pat was the girl to get the details right especially when high profile guests like Rupert Murdoch or Lord Rothschild and Sir James Goldsmith were expected.

Pat had only recently attended the Ascot races with visiting Sydney broadcaster Alan Jones.

                                       ****************************

After a lifetime of refined wealth the last scion of the David Jones department store empire, Charles Lloyd Jones has died after a long illness at 77.

Lloyd Jones' funeral was held at All Saints Anglican Church in Woollahra yesterday and a who's who of the retail world turned out to send him off.

Sidney Baillieu Myers from the Myer empire (he married the daughter of Sam Horden from Hordens), John Walton of the Walton Stores chain and former newspaper publisher James Fairfax all attended.  Former premier Neville Wran read the eulogy along with nephew Edward Lloyd Jones. A wake was held at the nearby home of Lady Pagan, widow of the former High Commissioner in London Sir Jock Pagan.

Charles Lloyd Jones, a confirmed bachelor was born into extraordinary privilege and wealth. Brought up in the magnificent Rosemont mansion in Woollahra he attended Tudor House and Cranbrook, being ferried to and from school in a chauffeured Rolls Royce. Shy and easily embarrassed., he would ask to be dropped off around a corner.

With his father an avid art collector, Rosemont was packed with valuable artworks amongst them  a Chagall, Picasso, 2 Van Goghs and a Rembrandt

Weekends were spent at the David Jones corporate summer house at Palm Beach. Lloyd Jones became chairman at the family store  (begun by his Welsh grandfather David Jones in 1838) when his brother David died suddenly and later  he headed the advertising department. It was Charles who introduced the houndstooth pattern that has become so synonymous with the store. Today flags at all of David Jones flew at half mast.

In later years he fell on financial hard times. Charles invested  most of his money in a scheme proposed by 2 friends that fell apart within 3 years. He was broke and suffering cancer and the 2 friends agreed to re-pay him $3000 a month, expecting the payments to last less than a year. But Charles survived the cancer and outlived the 2 friends putting him in a precarious financial state.

A brief scandal ensured in the early 1990s when it was claimed that Lloyd Jones and , improbably the American actor Karl Malden (who had never visited Australia) had allegedly attended a notorious Kings Cross bar frequented by underage male prostitutes.
Friends who had been trying all their lives to get Charles to just once, walk into a pub or bar and never succeeded found the ridiculous claim a huge joke.Those who knew Charles well noted his preference for rather muscular male gentleman but he did score on one occasion with a lady who fell for him and wanted marriage-Zsa Zsa Gabor !

                                       
                             *********************

And off briefly to the launch of a new Samsung TV where the guest of honour was actor Simon Baker who was voted by US magazines as the World's Sexiest Man. Simon says he never watches The Mentalist , the series that has brought him stellar fame throughout the world as it's hard enough making the series to also have to watch it. 

With family in tow, he was soon off to north NSW to the once sleepy former whaling village that is pricing out locals, Byron Bay. Earlier this year Baker paid $1.5M for a nice but average sized cottage in the hinterland of the resort.

avoid Los Angeles this week..

Is Skippy on the menu tonight ?

           LA must be thrilled with it all-'G'Day USA' kicks off today with "Come Walkabout in Beverly Hills'. No it ain't a guided tour of movie star homes but an Australian 'cultural' event at the The Paley Center for Media, where the general US public is invited to sample Aussie wines, take walkabout travelogues and view cultural performances. Presumably a didgerdoo player-that always dazzles the crowds and maybe a few indigenous kiddies dancing.

         Tonight is the gala black tie dinner at the Hollywood & Highland Grand Ballroom where invited guests include Bryan Brown and Rachel Ward, Nicole Kidman and hubby Keith and acting brothers Chris and Liam Hemsworth. Liam is currently dating Miley Cyrus and the pair just jetted out from Melbourne after a secret visit.

        Other guests have been invited to accept an inevitable award-Greg Norman for sport, Toni Collette for 'Excellence in FIlm and Television' and the USA's current TV heart-throb who has just been voted the most popular man on television, ex -Home and Away star Simon Baker whose series The Mentalist may be pulling small audiences in the UK but is the USA's current Number One show.

 

There is no way the organisers could get away with not inviting Olivia Newton John of course and Honorary Aussie John Travolta who literally parks a vintage Qantas Boeing 707 in his backyard

 And it would be impossible to get this one of the ground without Avatar star-Sam Worthington.  Oh, and needless to say Russell Crowe along with Rupert Murdoch and wife Wendi.

    

But where is our favourite lady Dame Edna ?. Sadly her manager Barry Humphries says she has other duties back home to perform which also means no diplomatic representation in the form of Minister for The Yartz, Sir Les Patterson.

Entertainment sounds fine-with boy band Human Nature -but celebrity chef Peter Evans who will be feeding the guests ominously specialises in Kangaroo recipes and may present his take on the prawn cocktail-'prawn and avocado stack'.

Tickets-at from $5000 to $10,000 each sold out weeks ago.  And yes, of course Hugh Jackman will be the MC !
                                                    **********************

ps : an email arrives to inform us we forgot to mention another star guest at tonight's LA dinner-former Miss Universe winner Jennifer Hawkins who will be with her boyfriend, the handsome model Jake Wall who has become a gay pin-up in the USA. Very re-miss of us, particularly as Hawkins hit a few headlines around the world recently with her Marie Claire magazine "un-air brushed" photo shoot.

The cover was the concept of Marie Claire's brilliant editor Jackie Frank, daughter of Melbourne social scribe Lillian Frank.

         tSS accompanied Jennifer on her triumphant 2 week tour of Oz when she won the title. Having been up close and personal on numerous occasions and in back stage dressing-rooms with Jennifer we can assure there are few imperfections that need to be air-brushed. Yet another superb campaign by Frank who fronted interviews stating she couldn't understand all the fuss !.
     tSS's snap of Hawkin's unscripted wardrobe malfunction (above) during that tour also hit a few front page newspapers worldwide earning tSS enough for a recuperating rest in Bali after the hullaballoo died down.
       Hawkins has gone onto to become the most successful Miss Universe ever, earning up to $5M a year in endorsements. She recently told tSS she has been offered a role in a US TV series. More about that soon.

Rose off to the Emmys

A week after attending the opening night of A Streetcar Named Desire to support her good pal Cate Blanchett, actress Rose Byrne  (left copyright the Shuttle ) jetted of to LA for the Emmy Awards due to be announced tomorrow.

Last night Byrne attended a BAFTA tea party at the residence of the LA Australian Consul General along with the 8 other Aussies up for Emmy awards.

Rose confided to The Shuttle at Streetcar that she had been petrified of auditioning for the role of a lawyer in the film Damages along with Glen Close :"she's a goddess of cinema and acting, I've never been so nervous " said Rose. She need not have worried. She scored the role and is a hot favourite to pick up the coveted award. Rose is looking forward to playing her next role as a pop star girlfriend of Russell Brand in  Get Him To The Greek. "I've been studying Posh for the role", says Rose. Which shouldn't involve too much effort.

Also at the tea-party and expected to win-star of TV series The Mentalist Simon Baker. The ever so nice Baker is yet another from that Ramsay Street soapie that has sent to many off to Hollywood for stardom and we love how the once short haired Simon's locks gets thicker and fluffier as he ages.Must be something in the Hollywood air.

## instant update: Toni Collette picked up the gong for best actress in the United Sates of Tara which describes the relationship the Shuttle has enjoyed with Toni since we've know her for 15 years. One day it's arms flung about us-the next it's a frozen stare which I guess is why she plays the role,of a psychologically disturbed housewife so well. 

But it's an award well deserved. Toni has transformed herself over the years from the frumpy role in Muriel's Wedding (little make-up or padding needed) into a superstar and a superb talent. There's still an Oscar waiting with her name on it.


Perhaps it's because we turned down the last offer to Toni's singing performance. Having seen a few in the past-well let's say we rather attend a Russell Crowe "Grunt's" stage show and that is out of pure politeness.


Rose Byrnes and Simon Baker still, have another 2 hours before they know if they are winners although Rupert Murdoch's flagship Aussie tabloid the Daily Terror online site points out the same in one sentence followed by the next claiming she has already lost. It's only to be expected for the Terror and we've long given up pointing out these errors to them as they instantly correct them with nary a polite thank you.


### Sadly Simon lost out as did Rose Byrnes but her co-star Glen Close won an Emmy. At least Simon Baker, gorgeous hair and all has been voted the sexiest man on TV by several US publications.