Priscilla Is a Hit in New York (but not with the NY Times)

New York Social Diary

Priscilla Queen of The Desert has opened in New York with the following revues :

Manhattan's leading society bible New York Social Diary : "....the energy of the cast, the entire ensemble is unstoppable. You don’t even want an intermission; you just want them to keep going, like never leaving the dance floor. And when it was over, the audience was screaming, whistling, whooping, yelling, and of course, applauding "

 New York Magazine : "a well-above-average drag show with the pink afterimage of a plot, and three superbly sincere leads who fleetingly convince us we’re seeing an actual musical with a real emotional arc. This being drag, the illusion is enough." Swenson, "chief sustainer of this illusion," is characterized by Brown as "disciplined."
The New York Post : "it may look a bit ramshackle at times, but 'Priscilla' has a big, joyous heart."
The Salt Lake Tribune : "The stage version is a jukebox musical, loaded with disco classics (it opens with "It's Raining Men," and "I Will Survive" ends Act One) and wild costumes designed by the team -- Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner -- who won an Oscar for the movie's outlandish clothes."
Not so happy was the New York Times : " the "hyperactively splashy show wants so desperately to give audiences a gaudy good time that the results are oddly enervating."

The stage version of Priscilla has completely revived the fortunes of it's writer and the director of the 1994 movie Stephan Elliot.

Elliot's first film Frauds with Phil Collins and Hugo Weaving received praise at the '93 Cannes Film Festival.

He then teamed up with Fraud's producer, the Penfold's Wine heiress Rebel Penfold Russell and they  struck gold with Elliot's original story of Priscilla, the tale about 3 drag queens travelling in a bus to Alice Springs.

 Riding high on the Academy Award 's success for the film he was offered dozens of projects including  a James Bond film. Elliot found Hollywood hard to take and retreated to London 



Taylor in Woop Woop

  He returned to Australia and filmed the odd Welcome To Woop Woop with legendary actor Rod Taylor which was panned in his home country but praised again at Cannes. Woop Woop was inspired by Taylor's performance in the 1960 film The Time Machine.

 A thriller- Eye of The Beholder with Ashley Judd and Ewen McGregor was a financial success although critics hated it.



Elliot & Olivia at Tropfest

And just as he was to begin working on a film based on the failed nuptials in Venice between Qantas trolly dolly Prince Lorenzo Montesini and Melbourne heiress Primrose 'Pitty Pat' Dunlop ( Lorenzo eloped with the best man and left the bride at the altar) Elliot had a skiing accident which put him out of action for 6 years until his 2008 production Easy Virtue with Colin Firth brought success again.

With royalties flowing in from the stage version of Priscilla which is still playing in London's West End, Stephan Elliot is now able to choose his own projects.

Stephan  is currently in Sydney filming another story he has written-A Few Best Men with Olivia Newton John, English actor Kris Marshall and 'Twighlight' star Xavier Samuel due for release next year.

PI Monte Gives It All Away & Prince William Party Endorses Him

soon to be ex-Premier Keneally & Prince William

The famous private investigator Frank Monte who is standing for this Saturday's NSW State election has announced that if successful he will donate his yearly salary of $170,000 to a number of charities including Breast Cancer, St Vincent De Paul and an AIDs charity.

Monte says he has been  financially successful over the past few years and derives a comfortable income from a number of ventures so will not take his parliamentary salary.

With back room jockeying heating up Monte finds himself in the fortunate position of being courted by a number of independent candidates and parties anxious to do preference deals.

One-the NPMP, the No Parking Meter Party has already offered to direct preferences to Monte and this is when candidates often find themselves in the winning seat.

With the NPMP fielding 18 candidates our calculations show the PI could pick up over 30,000 preferences and may well take a seat in the Legislative Assembly.  He's also received an endorsement from the Monarchist League nicely timed to co-incide with HRH Prince William's successful tour of QLD.

With voters turning on the ruling Labor Party and with the Coalition expected to take power, voters often hedge their bets in the upper house where they may vote against the party they voted for in the lower house-the Legislative Council. Whoever rules NSW, they usually have to negotiate with a hostile upper house to pass legislation.

And if Monte finds himself a law maker in NSW where will that leave him in the infamous Versace trial where nearly ten years ago Donatella Versace claimed in the Aust Federal Court on oath that she had "never used drugs" while just a few years later gave an interview to Vogue Magazine saying that she had been "addicted to drugs before and after her brother Gianni's murder".

 Donatella and Santo Versace sued Monte over his book claim that the mafia had murdered Gianni Versace. Now the powerful Anti- Mafia Office in Rome have opened a case file on Gianni's murder and one person has already been arrested. The top US CBS show "48 Hours" recently contacted Monte and are preparing a special on the Versace empire which promises startling revelations.

This story is just beginning....

Priscilla's Debut In the Big Apple



Tony Sheldon



On Sunday evening the successful Australian musical Priscilla Queen of The Desert opens on Broadway at the Palace Theatre with a host of Aussie stars in attendance including Guy Pearce who starred in the original film, Jackie Weaver and the show's writer Stephan  Elliot who will accompany Olivia Newton John to the premiere.

The brilliant Tony Sheldon who wowed them in London, Canada and New Zealand takes the lead role again and Better Midler is co-producer of this production helping fine tune it for a US audience

By all accounts the New York production has been receiving an enthusiastic reception during the week of previews.

What of the girls who inspired the original story and film ?.

Simone Troy and Monique Kelly were the two stars of Les Girls, the Kings Cross all male review that packed out a theatre in Sydney during the 1960s and 70s. Every night of the week the two drag stars trod the boards on a tiny cramped stage and presented a gala performance to a wide-eyed audience of heterosexuals who couldn't quite believe the dozen sexy, leggy gals with hips and boobs before them were all men.

Simone and Monique tried several times to leave Les Girls but the theatre's owner, the Kings Cross crime king-pin Abe Saffron had them both beaten up.

Eventually the pair managed to set out on their own  as the novelty of Les Girls wore off and the show went into a decline in the early 1980s.

Simone had ambitious plans and financing his own show set off to London and the Wimbledon Theatre with 12 strapping Australian lads who transformed nightly into gorgeous leggy beauties.

Wimbledon Theatre

 The production was a sight to see as the Shuttle did on the opening night. With little cash left Simone was unable to promote the show and the audience consisted of about 200 local residents of nearby nursing homes bussed in with free tickets.

What they witnessed resembled a Busby Berkley musical with a tall and colourfully lit staircase down which the 12 beauties-Simone leading the charge-descended in a flurry of long legs, feathers and sequins. Half way down the staircase turned into a waterfall as the audience sat transfixed.

Let's hope the New York critics are kinder to Priscilla than the one London critic who attended Simone's Les Girls Wimbledon premiere and who slammed the production in an outrage that female impersonators-and colonial ones at that., were  gracing the hallowed boards of Wimbledon

On the up-side the British travel company Saga Holidays that specialised in pensioner vacations gave the show a raptuous write-up and organised day outings to the show.

Simone eventually retired to the Gold Coast in Queensland and Monique still lives in Kings Cross.

Armistead Maupin's Snub at Weird Restauarnt




Armistead Maupin & Christopher

 Famous American write Armistead Maupin who was in Sydney recently as a guest of the Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras has told of how his partner Christopher was refused entry to the men's room in an Alice Spring's restaurant by the name of Bojangles

Christopher had asked to use the gents and was told the restaurant didn't have one and after pointing out an obvious sign that said "MEN'S" not far away was told "that's for real men only".

The Shuttle met Armistead while he was in Sydney and if we had known he was heading for the interior we would have warned him. The Northern Territory and Alice Springs have a shocking record of racism against the Indigenous community who lived there for eon's before white men ever entered the scene and especially this hokey lot with it's embarrassing mock American diner named after an American street performer.

 Maupin wrote the series of novels Tales Of The City set in San Francisco which were turned into a successful television series. The TV series was way ahead of it's time and precursor to hit shows like Queer As Folk.

He is regarded as one of the great American writers.
But what was he doing in Bojangles ?. One look at it's website shows what a ghastly place it is crammed with idiotic pseudo American West decor with pictures of motorbikes, real guns and silly half-saloon type doors.

It even insults the memory of a real outlaw who bucked the system-Ned Kelly ( it has long been rumoured that when the bodies of the Kelly Gang were recovered from the Glenrowan shoot-out they were dressed in female clothing)

One can also buy stylish souvenirs like a stubby holder, t-shirt or jacket emblazoned with the Bojangles logo although the Shuttle has always been perplexed why anyone buys a garment that advertises a business. Surely they should pay you to wear it ?

And hopefully a sick bag comes with the menu which features Camel, Crocodile, Kangaroo, Emu  and  presumably for "the real men" (read- big fat truck drivers and overweight tourists ) : " For the serious meat lovers there are six steaks available including "The Big Bugger", a 600gm T-Bone steak and Bo's famous Beef Ribs." There is a delicious irony in the fact  a restaurant that insults a gay man also proudly features a dish named The Big Bugger !

A stomach pump costs extra and take your Medicare card in case of that inevitable heart attack after shovelling that much meat down your throat !

Versace Mafia Murder Claim Heats Up

News comes that there may be some startling revelations about the mighty Versace fashion empire soon.

Earlier we reported on the new book "Metastasi" by respected Italian investigative reporter Gianluigi Nuzzi in which he said that the feared and  notorious Italian Calabrian mafia N'Drangheta had murdered the fashion house creator and designer Gianni Versace. The book has become a huge best-seller in Europe and the Anti-Mafia office in Rome immediately announced an investigation. Nuzzi's source was a good one- a former mafia godfather turned whistle-blower who a Rome mafia investigator said had always provided true and solid evidence which had helped convict dozens of mafia criminals.

Nuzzi's claims were similar to those made many years before by the Australian private eye Frank Monte who worked for Gianni in New York investigating employees who Versace thought was on the fiddle. Monte published an auto-biography The Spying Game which included the mafia murder tale and all hell broke loose.

He soon found himself in the Australian Federal Court being sued by Santo and Donatella Versace in a bizarre case where they spent millions of dollars to have Monte's book pulped. Ironically when Monte re-published his book without the mafia murder claims the publicity from the trial helped it become a best seller in Europe.

As we exclusively reported- Donatella while replying under oath via satelite and surrounded by lawyers- to questions from Monte's barrister Clive Evatt QC said she had "never used drugs" yet just a few years later she said in an interview in Italian Vogue which was reprinted throughout the world that she had been addicted to illicit drugs long before and after her brother's murder and that friends like Sir Elton John had helped her go to a clinic to recover.

At home Monte had been pilloried by the local media who hung off every word from the two Versaces seemingly bedazzled by their celebrity status.

 Not one of those who then wrote so forcefully of how Monte had allegedly defamed the good Versace name bothered to follow up on how Donatella appears to have thumbed her nose at Australia's highest court. Either she lied in court or she lied to Vogue. Santo Versace said he would sue anyone who repeated Gianluigi Nuzzi's claims. A spokesperson for Nuzzi's office says no lawsuit has been forthcoming.

The Shuttle can now exclusively report that an associate of the Versace company has been arrested in Italy and another high profile one is under investigation.

To be continued....

Partying at Swifts, Babs & Frank Sinatra

To Swifts-the spledifourous folly of a mansion in Darling Point.

Nearby Wolesley Road in Point Point  may well be the  "9th most expensive street in the world"  but Swifts is the most valuable private home on the continent.

It was for sale about 10 years ago for $40M with no takers. It's valued at around $85M today, clipping home loan's boss John Symonds recently built Point Piper house that cost a whopping $70M.

 It comes with several acres of park lands and a  mansion that has it's own ballroom with a Juliet balcony. Swifts is owned by the Moran family who have a nursing home empire. Doug and Greta Moran paid a lazy $12M for the property in 1997 and spent another ten restoring the derelict house.

 Our spy disguised as a potted aspidistra tells us the house has been divided into 4 apartments with the feuding family members living in the different quarters. The Morans have had their family disputes but at least they have a nice pad and the kids haven't left home.

Swifts was built in 1841 by the Eton educated Sir Robert Tooth who made his fortune from brewing beer in the colonies. He wanted a bigger ballroom than the NSW Governor and he got one. Sir Robert eventually retired to London where King George V created the Tooth baronetcy in honour of the families charitable works. Tooth was also one of the first to give his employees paid holidays, sickness pay and a whole range of benefits. 

The wonderful hand-painted on glass adverts for Tooth's beer that adorned hundreds of pubs (above) were mostly destroyed during the 1970's-the few remaining ones are worth a fortune.

Edmund Resch,an Austrian born brewer purchased the property from Sir Robert but never quite enjoyed the social cache of the Tooths. Edmund was considered rough and common.  It eventually became the home of the Catholic Archbishop before falling into ruin and being rescued by the Morans.



singer Wes Carr & Charlotte Gregg

On Friday the Cornucopia Committee held their annual charity garden party at Swifts. These 'society' charities are often given a rough time in the media but they really do good works. Everything is donated- from services to food, alcohol (Pommery champagne) and the committee ladies work really hard raising hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to go towards child protection.

The wonderful opera singer Mark Vincent sang (as did Maria Venuti) racing identity Angela Belle McSweeney MC'd and Texan born designer Charlie Brown organised a fashion show. A rain shower failed to dampen spirits although the ballroom furniture supplanted around the garden was hastily brought inside.



a sun shower

Nor was there a faux pas like the one in 1994 when the Cornucopia's honorary international ambassador Barbara Sinatra was presented to an audience on a boat cruise.

Babs was in town with her husband Frank Sinatra when she agreed to speak on a summer day cruise around the harbour. She was well known for her charity work in the USA and Australia especially for raising funds to help abused and neglected kids.

As she sat at the head table on the boat the time came for Mrs Sinatra to give her speech. The MC, a rather dotty lady got up to announce her and after shushing the audience said :

"I would now like to introduce Mrs Barbara Sinatra. Barbara and Frank Sinatra have been heavily involved in child abuse all their lives "!!



Distant Cousins ? # 4



John Galliano- fashionazi



Emily Pankhurst-feminazi



The Wit & Wisdom of Rupert Murdoch !

 An Occasional Series:

2004 : Speaking to shock jock Alan Jones on Radio 2GB Sydney :

 "The Iraq war is going swimmingly. I expect oil to be half the price by next year "

Oil price: 2004 : approx $40 a barrel
               2005: approx $70 a barrel
               2011:  approx $98 a barrel

2010 : Speaking at an Australian Smart Business series of lectures after being introduced as "one of the most successful Australian businessmen ever"


"in a few years it will be possible to have all the energy we want from economic cheap nuclear plants..it will be safe..there will not be an energy waste problem..we don't have to rush into a lot of mad schemes fouling up the country..windmills and other crackpot ideas...."

2011 : Headline in The Sun newspaper- flagship News Corp publication (prop: R.Murdoch)

"Nuke meltdown threat amid 2nd blast warning"

Maria Reveals Even More Than Usual

She's not the shyest gal in town- Italian Australian singer Maria Venuti, she of the colourful outfits and the ginormous bosom.

Maria has hit 70 years of age and she's happy to tell everyone about it with a tell-all book : A Whole Load Of Front.

She told the Shuttle on Friday that she had an affair with the late American entertainer Don Lane.

It was an affair she had forgotten about as it happened in the 70's when she kept detailed diaries written in shorthand. Maria had forgotten how to read shorthand over the past 30 years and recently had them translated while researching her book and the memories came flooding back.

La Venuti is a regular in the clubs around the country and has a big fan base in Italy, Greece and Dubai where she is regularly flown to by Emirates Airlines.

Maria was also entertaining at the Cornucopia Committee's charity day at Swifts. She just started her set as the Shuttle left to the sounds of Volare screaming over the treetops of genteel Darling Point. Windows were being shut furiously.

Here's a treat for you-Maria singing All That Jazz !

Liberal Senator In A Tizz Over David Hicks

Just days after we reported that David Hicks who spent nearly 6 years banged up in Guantanamo Bay, attended a party for the Wayside Chapel at Boomerang (and the Daily Telegraph said he was "partying with the jet-set), Liberal Senator George Brandis (left) has accused the ruling Labor government of not moving quickly to recover the profits from David Hicks's memoirs under the "proceeds of crime" laws because it "fears a backlash from the political left."

Oh really ?



Brandis was one of the chief cheerleaders of former PM John Howard who solemnly intoned in Parliament in 2003 that Iraq was awash with WMD and described in detail the non existent "human shredding machines" that Saddam Hussein was prone to use on his subjects.



David Hicks



Howard later indicated that Australian SAS troops had already entered Iraq weeks before a decision to go to war had been made- one he himself decided he had the power to make without a Parliamentary vote unlike our allies the UK & USA - and soon we were participating in a war that has seen a million Iraqis displaced and hundreds of thousands killed on a slew of falsehoods.

Does George Brandis honestly want a case to be pursued against Hicks over the  profits from his 'crime' ?.

 Most except the most pedantic accept that the reason Hicks pleaded guilty was  to get out of the hell-hole in Cuba where he faced year upon year of incarceration without trial.

The US chief Army prosecutor at Gitmo who resigned (one of at least 7) over the disgraceful legal tactics  there has said Hicks should never have been charged and his case was riddled with political interference from both Howard and George W.Bush.

The charges labelled against Hicks were a bizarre mish mash of gobbedlly gook that accused him of being an 'enemy combatant' in a 'war' which was, and wasn't declared and therefore after some Olympian leaps of logic the Geneva Conventions didn't apply to those captured.

A case against Hicks in an Australian court to recover any profits made from his book would surely bring out the most learned legal minds just itching to examine the role of a whole host of US & Australian politicians. The repercussions could be most unpleasant especially for George Brandis' (an intelligent barrister who parrots absurdities that he surely cannot believe) beloved John Howard. ( According to rumour Brandis once referred to John Howard as "that lying rodent Howard".He's never denied it)

Brandis may well find that what he wishes for may just happen. The outcome may not be what he desires.



Ben Ferencz



To read the Alice in Wonderland type case that was mounted against Hicks his Wikipedia entry is most illuminating.

## Now 90 years old the legendary legal mind Ben Ferencz was the US Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes trials and he sent several Nazis to the their execution after WW2. He eventually went to work for the International Criminal Court and has been an outspoken advocate for the rule of law during his distinguished career as well as a critic of various government's  illicit activities.

Ferencz gave a speech on the 8th March  titled :

"My Government Today Prepared to Do Something for Which We Hanged Germans"

### In a response to the Daily Telegraph's question as to why Hicks had been invited to the Boomerang party, a Wayside Chapel spokesman said "we were honored to have David Hicks as a guest as we were honoured by all who attended"

In Which We Are Put In Our Place

A missive arrives from Dr Ingrid van Beek who was the first Director of Sydney's Medically Supervised Injecting Centre which opened in 2001 and who wrote a book- In the Eye of the Needle: Diary of a Medically Supervised Injecting Centre  about her 5 year efforts to get the centre off the ground while facing an extraordinary campaign of opposition.




tall tales-Malcolm Duncan

Sadly the late Malcolm Duncan, barrister of note and colourful Kings Cross character did not attend the launch of her book as we reported.

Well we think he should have been invited but that's beside the point.

 One of Malcolm's endearing traits was the art of embellishment (he was a barrister) and tales often took on a life of their own. He collared the Shuttle one afternoon on Darlinghurst Road and invited us for a cleansing ale in a nearby pub and thus began one of those afternoons in which Malcolm described the book launch proceedings as they unfolded. Perhaps the story of the event was how Malcolm would have liked it to have been.

Mind you he did warn us that he and well known local photographer had just come by a bottle of excellent vintage Moet and polished it off.

When the highly successfully injecting centre opened the uproar was deafening. Local businesses proclaimed there would be doom and gloom and all hell would break loose. One even installed a camera to monitor those who would walk through the centre's doors perhaps in the hopes of embarrassing them. Fortunately the camera was soon removed.

Certainly the medical profession, most of the more sensible local politicians and the police we speak to on the beat, believe the centre has been an unqualified success in providing a clean centre for addicts to inject as well as monitoring the ever present fear of an accidental overdose.

 As to the thousands of visitors to Kings Cross who pass by it every day, it's doubtful they would even know where or what the anonymous looking building was or care what went on behind it's doors.

ABC broadcaster Richard Fidler interviewed Dr van Beek for his excellent series Conversations With Richard Fidler and it's well worth a listen. You can listen to the interview here or download a podcast.

To read a review of In the Eye of the Needle: Diary of a Medically Supervised Injecting Centre by a medical journalist go here.


To buy a copy of the book go to Amazon.com.
For more information on the medically supervised injecting centre go to their website here.

Clover : Do As I say-Not As I Do

She's been the darling of the Inner City set now for years-Clover Moore, the dog collar wearing Sydney Lord Mayor and Independent State Member of Parliament for Sydney.
Moore wields considerable power occupying the two seats of power but her crown has been slipping of late.

A determination to drive through a plethora of separated bike lanes around  much of Sydney's congested and narrow streets has riled  local businesses and residents who previously supported her. The loss of hundreds of car parking spots and the wishful thinking that Sydney will transform into an Amsterdam style city with thousands of cyclists has gone down like a lead balloon-not unlike Clover herself when she took to a bike to demonstrate the safety of riding and promptly crashed to the ground breaking her wrist.

Her actions over the burgeoning city nightlife  has her constituents fuming.

Moore  pushed through early closing times for licensed premises-2am, away from the 6am closing time. It was a disaster resulting in tens of thousands of revellers surging onto the streets ready to continue partying but no-where to go. The laws were soon repealed.

Everyone is only too well aware of Clover's army of wardens that cruise the city raising millions of dollars in fines for parking and a myriad of other offenses . Patrons of establishments who may wander onto the footpath with drink in hand are soon pounced upon not unlike the frozen yogurt seller at Taylor's Square who received fines for thousands of dollars for allowing customers to linger on stools ten minutes after closing time. 

Fortunately for the esteemed Lord Mayor, her trusty rangers were nowhere to be seen a fortnight ago when she attended as an honoured guest, the Harbour City Bears Mardi Gras art exhibition at the tiny Monstrosity Gallery in Bourke Street where a lavish and little used bike lane forces cars travelling in the opposite direction to slow to a snail's pace.

The stresses of office probably explain why Clover Moore happily chatted away on the footpath to art patrons whilst sipping a glass of excellent chilled ----- perhaps unaware of her own Alcohol Free Zone signs hovering in the background.

editor's note: our source contacts us in a great flurry of regret fearful of recriminations from the city burghers or even worse-the Harbour City Bears will wipe him/her from their guest list. We can never know what liquid was in the glass clutched by the esteemed Lord Mayor.

The ever vigilant city rangers did however strike a blow for law and order at another small art gallery not far from the Monstrocity in previous weeks and papered it with fines for several thousands of dollars for a similar infraction -allowing patrons to spill onto the footpath.

A newspaper of note-City Hub carries a similar tale to ours and says the drink was in fact, Chardonnay ( Hunter Valley we hope).