Miss Daisy's Cousin

Saturday night saw the opening of Driving Miss Daisy at the Theatre Royal. The play stars Hollywood greats Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones. The pair are joined on stage by Broadway actor Boyd Gaines.

And at the opening night party as our exclusive pic shows it was a chance for Angela to meet her famous Australian cousin, Parliamentarian Malcolm Turnbull MP. Incidentally, Malcolm and wife Lucy's daughter is named Daisy.
 Malcolm's mother was  radio actor, writer and academic Carol Lansbury although he was brought up by his father when his parents separated.

Stage Heavyweights attend Awards

                                       The winners of the 2012 Sydney Theatre Awards have been announced with around 300 members of the Sydney theatre community attending the auditorium at Paddington RSL to cheer on their fellow thespians.
 International stage royalty presented awards including Angela Lansbury, James Earl Jones and Barry Humphries.
Best Mainstage Production went to Belvoir Street's Medea while Best Actor in a Leading Role of a Mainstage Production was won by Josh McConville for Griffin’s The Boys.

Angela Lansbury

Lucy Durack

James Earl Jones & wife Cecilia Hart

 Caroline Brazier won Best Actress in a Leading Role in an Independent Production for I Want To Sleep With Tom Stoppard, while James Lugton won Best Actor in a Leading Role in an Independent Production for The Taming of the Shrew.
 South Pacific was awarded Best Production of a Musical, while Lucy Durack won the Judith Johnson Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical for Legally Blonde, and Ben Lewis was awarded the Judith Johnson Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical for Love Never Dies.


 Wacky Hairstyle of The Month

David Lynch.  New York Social Diary

Pictured : filmmaker David Lynch with his magnificent cockatoo parrot inspired thatch at a recent fundraiser in New York for the David Lynch Foundation. Fab!

Meet Darth Vadar

 To the Langham Hotel in The Rocks to meet the stars of the play Driving Miss Daisy on the first day of rehearsals.
 Hollywood greats Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones are in town to reprise their Broadway hit of the original play by Alfred Uhry.

Angela with Boyd Gaines

 The 1987 movie version won Australian director Bruce Beresford a few Oscars and took around $300M at the box office.


  Angela has been here once befiore- in 1959 where she lived for 4 months in Point Piper while she filmed Summer of The Seventeenth Doll with Earnest Borgnine, Ann Baxter and her pal John Mills. At the time she hired a car and drove around NSW with her children exploring the state.
 On this visit she and James Earl Jones, who was famously the voice of Darth Vadar in the Star Wars flicks will be touring for 5 months visiting Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide.

James was here ten years ago as a tourist and it's the first visit for 4 times Tony Award winner Boyd Gaines who completes the cast. With tickets selling like hotcakes it's another winner for producer John Frost- known as Frostie on Broadway but Mr Frost in London's West End.

The Shuttle caused a minor commotion when James Earl Jones asked which was the most 'right wing newspaper' in town. "They all are " replied the Shuttle accurately which went down well with the other media attending with one even apologising to the actors for gifting the world Rupert Murdoch.

And the big question of the morning for which we received no answer : just what was that monkey doing in the mural on the wall behind our esteemed thespians ?. Had a mischievous interior designer been inspired by Richard Nevile and the School Kid's Oz magazine ala Rupert Bear?
Below is a video we have uncovered of James Earl Jones channeling Justin Beiber.