a film about Percy

Percy Savage

No party or fashion event is complete these days without the dreaded PR 'officer'. Apart from a few rare exceptions (and it's worldwide) they're usually rude and full of self importance and have done some useless "media " course at a technical school, tacking on a few initials after their names as they become instant door bitches armed with attitude,a clipboard and 'list'.

We've encountered them everywhere. In Sydney they have a turnover rate of about a year, after which one must explain one's impeccable press credentials all over again to a whole new clueless fool who thinks a scruffy paparazzi is of equal importance as the nation's top columnist. We've stood with astonishment at some doors where the offending dolt has muttered "your name is not on the list" as a troupe of Sydney's most infamous gate-crashers are waved through (and these liggers would be OK if they were personalities-which they ain't). In Melbourne they are marginally more polite.

But now comes a film about the legendary Percy Savage who died at age 81 in 2008. Percy was a Shuttle friend and favourite in London and invented modern fashion PR in the 1950's when he clad Elizabeth Taylor in a Lanvin gown for a red carpet premiere in Paris. The resulting pictures swept the world and the "red carpet' phenomena was born. Percy went on to become the greatest manipulator of 'press opportunities" for a host of celebrities like Jackie Onassis or Yves St Laurent.

  Savage in his Chelsea garden

Born just outside Brisbane, Savage travelled first to London in 1947 and then to Paris to escape Britain's post-war gloom. With little formal training he designed for Lanvin, Nina Ricci and Balenciaga amongst other famous fashion houses.And he hung out with Jean Cocteau.

  Back in London where he spent the rest of his life he promoted new younger designers like Mary Quant and Zandra Rhodes and made them famous. He specialised in seating arrangements for photo ops at runway shows, seating Liz Taylor with Mick & Bianca Jagger. Savage was a joy, a gentleman, flamboyant, elegant, grand and gracious but never a snob. And Dior named one of the world's most famous fragrances after him : Eau Sauvage!

Savage, A Life In Fashion is showing at the ACMI cinemas at Federation Square in Melbourne with Sydney dates to be announced. Don't miss it.

                           

Harry hits the headlines..

The UK's Sunday Express tabloid  has jumped on a few pages in Harry M.Miller's autobiography Confessions Of a Not So Secret Agent over his claims of a dinner party conversation with HRH Prince Charles.

  
According to Miller, Charles said in 1977 that the Royal family was past it's use by date and that Australia should be made a republic. Charle's was puzzled : “why Australia bothered with us – we are really yesterday’s news”. Miller also says Prince Charles "bedded" a number of local girls and was annoyed that the NSW Governor and Victoria Cross recipient Sir Roden Cutler (known to his friends as Rodent Cutlet ) interfered with Charles night-time plans by sitting up late for him at the rather magnificent if somewhat stuffy Government House perched high above the Opera House..


It tops a month of a brilliant publicity campaign by Harry, one of the best in the business that has seen the book flying off the shelves.  But is it true ?. There's a clue here and it concerns the late Governor. It's pretty common knowledge who Charles was really bedding and she wasn't the wife of a politician as Miller claims. But she was the wife of a VIP linked to Cutler whose career was nipped in the bud by the state Governor who was furious at the time. Nor can we quite see Sir Roden really giving the Royal heir a hard time-he was an avowed monarchist. It was Charlie's choice of partner who it's said he spent the entire visit to Australia with, that annoyed Cutler. Perhaps Harry is being kind with his confessions. The Prince's flame is still married to her husband who has since gone onto have a stellar career in other areas and become a pillar of the establishment. That career didn't however include his ambition-to follow in Sir Roden's footsteps.

Batty Lord Departs

British Joker

And so we bid a sad farewell to one of the most amusing visitors to this land in the last year, Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley.

The Shuttle was delighted to meet the charming peer at a small farewell drinks party recently where he illuminated us on the latest quest for world domination via the very dodgy proposition that the world's climate is rapidly about to turn upon man and seek revenge for our unthinking decimation of Mother Nature's natural recourses.

"It's all a plot" he says "and just the new face of the extreme left who have found a new way for world domination". 

Monkton put up finance for the popular film feature fantasy  The Great Global Warming Swindle. (the Great Rock' N' Roll Swindle with the Sex Pistols was more fun) and says US President Barack Obama plans to cede US sovereignty to a newly created world government.

Many of these pearls of wisdom were delivered on the most insane TV station in the world-Fox News in the USA via the wacky host Glenn Beck. (Even Fox boss Rupert Murdoch is expressing doubts about Beck's delivery but that is possibly more to do with advertisers fleeing from his show.) Needless to say, the venerable Lord found a willing listener at the home of Australia's radio king Alan Jones who has taken up the cause with gusto.

The Shuttle's probing inquiry to his Lordship never received a full answer-he was pulled away to meet other less troublesome guests. If, as he claims. global warming is part of a communist inspired plot to destroy manufacturing which they hate, how does he explain the USSR's extraordinary surge forward in the early part of the 20th century when Russia went from a feudal society to a mechanized miracle in a few short decades?. It's something we will need to ponder on our own. In the past Lord Monkton has announced that AIDs sufferers should be isolated on an island and that he, as adviser to PM Margaret Thatcher, helped win the Falklands War.

British Aussie joker

Still, as one comedian departs, we welcome the newest Aussie citizen to our shores-Ben Elton.

PS: Today, federal Climate Minister and proud lesbian Penny Wong MP has announced that airports and a few thousand houses in Sydney will be underwater within 50 years as seas rise. 

Now you know why Lachlan & Sarah Murdoch purchased the cities most expensive mansion on the tallest hill in the eastern suburbs.

we are the new media

So says film-maker and artist Bruno Grasswill the son of a noted French film director. Bruno was filming everything that moved and didn't, at the launch of top foodie Lyndey Milan's 4th book The Best Collection. Bruno is also married to top ABC TV producer Helen Grasswill, the driving force behind the hugely successful Australian Story (which featured the Shuttle once-we are biased) and Oz sections for the US series Entertainment Tonight.

Both were guests at the swell shindig given by Lyndey's merchant banker boyfriend in his magnificent duplex apartment in the Ikon building in Kings Cross. The Ikon is the home away from home (and the best kept secret until now) of Hollywood royalty and visiting film stars working at the near-by Fox Studios.With the most commanding views of the Sydney skyline from the harbor heads to the Opera House and beyond, it's hard to top these homes.

Lyndey presents food sections on the top morning show hosted by Kerri Anne Kennerley and is food editor on the Packer family pride and joy, the Woman's Weekly (which is published monthy to confuse readers). She is also a hostess with mostess-in every way. Bruno also painted a fab portrait of Lyndey for beau John and when our party gal saw it she immediately requested more cleavage should be added. Those who know the lovely Lyndey know this is par for the course. Delicious nibbles at the party came from Lyndey's recipes and were passed around by the handsome waiters from Mandy Foley-Quin's Stedmans (the French government is trying to lure this top caterer to Paris).
                                  


Food legend Margaret Fulton launched the book. At 85 , Scot's born Margaret has now sold millions of cookbooks and knows a great chef when she sees one.  In between glasses of champers and vintage wines from Lyndey's own cellar we forced down Bloody Mary shooters with oysters. And every time we tried to leave another crate of French champagne was wheeled out. Who are we to disappoint ?. No-one can actually re-call what time they left but the Shuttle woke up this morning clutching a bottle of wonderful Taittinger. Get the book now. For Christmas.

                       




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A darling of the new media Madame Arcati features a video on her blog by writer Duncan Fallowell. It's a superb piece titled  Andy Warhol in Church :



Check out Fallowell's books on his site. They are really very good. Put him on your reading list.Now.

drop your gear for Spencer

Nude artist Spencer Tunick is coming to the 2010 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras in March and is calling on all gays and lesbians to be prepared to take off their clothes for one of his mass nude snaps, on the Golden Gay Mile of Oxford Street.

The work will be called The Base and all body shapes, sexualities and preference are welcome. Will the legendary Dykes On Bikes participate ?. The once topless ladies on Harley's who lead the opening of the parade went all coy about 4 years ago when their topless snaps started appearing world-wide and on various porn websites.

There's a sort of schizophrenic attitude here.

Once a year normally reserved people let their hair down, fling open the wardrobe door and burst out in gleeful abandonment, screeching slogans about gay rights before heading off to the mass party of thousands that usually ends up in a drugged seething mass grope in the underground facilities.Come Monday they retreat back to their day jobs as chartered accountants, school teachers etc. Or in my case with the 6' horrendous drag queen in a vintage YSL ball gown who slapped me on the back half-way up Oxford Street with a maniacal look in his eyes-the bench at Downing Street Courts where he presides as a very sober magistrate,

The Shuttle experienced this mini Sodom & Gomorrah (without participating) at the last G & L Mardi Gras we attended when we accompanied 'movie star" Rupert Everett who was the special guest in 2007. Unless one swallows huge quantities of drugs (and most do) it's the most tiresome night of the year. Hours spent in the VIP room peering down on the seething mass of people circling the cavernous dance floor swaying in time to whatever DJ Boy George says goes. And just to catch a glimpse of the star act like Kylie Minouge lip syncing at 4am. Maybe we are just past it. Getting bitter as we age.

Apparently getting your gear of with a few hundred others is liberating. But is art ?. Whatever turns you on.

If the idea turns you on-sign up here : www.mardigras.org.au/tunick

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Only 2 weeks after his successful exhibition at the National Trust, artist Martin Sharp and the art world is in shock with the brutal murder yesterday of Sharp's curator, the respected art figure Antony Waterlow OAM whose body was found along with his slain daughter, the popular food writer and publicist Chloe Waterlow in her Randwick house. Chloe's young daughter is clinging to life after her throat was slashed and her 2 young sons who escaped unscathed are being cared for by family members as husband Ben Heuston rushes back from London.

Sharp attended a party at the University of NSW Roundhouse onSaturday night with Waterlow . Police have one suspect- a family member who was seen near the home shortly after the murders.
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The awful tragedy that has struck the Waterlow family is having far reaching effects in many areas. Australia's most renowned painter Margaret Olley has spoken affectionately of the gentle Waterlow who she housed when he first arrived from the UK 40 years ago.

Police have only one suspect-a family member who suffers from schizophrenia. Over 15 years ago the state government in a rash move closed the many excellent hospitals that dealt with mental illness on the claim that patients should be housed in the community.

The battles that have ensured since over the valuable land where these hospitals were located-some by the harbour, have been long and bitter. Sadly, the then government minister who oversaw this action has gone on record proclaiming his mistake after both his sons committed suicide while they were suffering from depression.

tabloid fantasies..

A devastating tale in the Murdoch tabloid, the Daily Telegraph of the sale of the late Johnny Baker's Edgecliff apartment.

It reports : "Now, with the passing of the legendary society "walker", Baker's executor has listed his small but fashionably located flat with expectations of $700,000 plus. Its online listing with Century 21's Tony Moses has brought an outpouring of tales."

Oh really ?. Why would a slew of society maidens-all who live in lavish Eastern Suburb's mansions give a toss about Bake's apartment being flogged ?.

The fact that Century 21 are huge advertisers with News Ltd is entirely co-incidental. Spoting free plugs for the Teles' advertisers is like looking for the endless mentions of Murdoch's cable TV channel Foxtel. Too easy.

Lady Sonia McMahon and the late Bakes.

this man should see a doctor..

Now it's Geoffrey The Movie..

For those who can't wait for the autobiography of former top sport's broadcaster Rob Astbury who devotes a few pages to the life of the flamboyant Dr Geoffrey Edelsten-now comes the movie.

And it has some top stars including Seinfeld's Jason Alexander and Fran Drescher from The Nanny.

Narrated by Alexander, it's the love story of how Edelsten, 66 and his fiancee, 26 year Las Vegas fitness worker Brynne Gordon met in Hollywood. It's also an action thriller-Geoffrey clambering in and out of limos and expensive autos-shopping at Gucci, Cartier,Ralph Lauren, Hermes- in fact the whole of Rodeo Drive gets a look-in. Geoffrey on his yacht. Geoffrey entering the Beverley Wiltshire Hotel. Geoffrey emerging from the Beverley Wiltshire Hotel. Geoffrey racing down the street in his fleet of cars- a Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, a Bentley. a block long Hummer in which he collects his future bride. Geoff in black helicopter..Lear Jet. You get the idea

 Alexander asks us : "what do Barbara Streisand, Shia LaBeouf, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sean Penn, Adam Sandler, Michael Douglas and Geoffrey have in common ?" "why there all Jewish of course". Fame by association !. Edelsten's career has included a stint as a nightclub owner, rock manager and the boss of dozens of medical clinics. He once owned a football team, The Swans. He also did a stint inside for attempting to hire the disappeared  hit man Christopher Dale Flannery to deal with a troubesome patient. He got struck off. None of this gets featured in the flick. It's a feel good film.                                 

                                                                        

  The movie's a prelude to his planned sumptuous wedding to Brynne in a few weeks at the Crown Casino in Melbourne. Fran Dresher will officiate at the wedding which some say is financed by a $5M mortgage. We don't know if Geoffrey's film has a release date. Ain't Love grand ?.

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great master at work..

His works don't hang in the more sedate galleries but he was a surprise guest at television producer Mike Goldman's 37th birthday at the Sahria Restaurant at Bondi Beach on Saturday night. Goldman has been host an numerous radio shows and did the voice-overs for Big Brother and the terrifying British show filmed in Northern NSW-"I'm A Celebrity Get me Out Of Here".

Looking a bit like a young Rod Stewart, we present portrait artist Pricasso. Pricasso has a unique act-he dips his foreskin in paint and whips up a portrait of a guest in around 20 minutes. He does it nude.With a strategically placed palette. Pricsso's pretty popular at Sexpos and erotic fairs in far flung places like Johannseburg , Sao Paulo and Mexico City. He traces his pedigree back to 1550 and is descended from a long line of noted British surgeons named Patch.

Quite what they would think of their descendant Timothy Patch and his penis paintings is anyone's guess. At least he still continues the family's interest in physiology. Pricasso produces his own paints-we didn't dare ask how, and needs a week or 2 off between appearances because of "wear and tear".

here is the prick artist at work :

Coals to Newcastle..

Local cops reckon he is a major figure in organised crime but the ever so charming nightclub entrepreneur John Ibrahim is credited with re-inventing the Kings Cross nightclub scene with an interest in 20 venues. Now help is on hand for the ailing Golden Gay Mile of Sydney's Oxford  Street which has fallen on hard times.

One of America's most famous transexuals Amanda Lapore, a young hybrid version of the older Amanda Lear and Joyce Wilderstein will open the new club Nevermind tonight. For 15 years Oxford Street has boomed as young hetero-sexual kids flocked to numerous discos and bars, oblivious to sexual labels. Now most straight kids are flooding to the Cross with it's amazing revival in top spots like Hugos, Candy's Apartment, Kit'n'Kaboodle, Lady Lux and the Mandalay Room.

  Lepore, model, fashion icon, nightlife hostess and performer has been the advertising face for Mac cosmetics and a variety of fashion labels and had her sex-change operation at 15 courtesy of then boyfriend, a plastic surgeon. She's been under the knife ever since refining various body parts.

But how will she fare in a street blessed with more drag queens and trannies per square mile than any on earth and which makes the legendary Singapore's Boogie Street (now demolished) look like it was a Sunday school picnic?

Sydney cocks in frocks are known for their cutting tongues and often, bruising upper-cuts. Word is out that some of the town's more high profile drag-queens are a somewhat miffed at this ring-in being invited to launch the new nightclub. She could always call upon Ibrahim's bouncers for help if needed. They  also guard the gay strip's nightspots. We'll see tonight at the launch party-billed as Saturday Fucking Night-whether there is a stiletto stand-off between Amanda and her local contemporaries.

Henson re-emerges..

18 months after the controversy swirled around the removal of his photographs of naked adolescents, photographic artist Bill Henson appeared at the Art Gallery of NSW to launch a book by one of his greatest supporters, gallery director Edmund Capon

Capon's I Blame Duchamp is a series of art essays and is the last offering before Capon's imminent retirement after 30 years of building the state gallery into one of the world's great cultural institutions.

As an assistant director of the Far Eastern Section at the world's greatest museum of art and design, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Capon was a relative unknown when hired to head the NSW Art Gallery for an interim period. He never left and has exhibited an amazing ability to schmooze politicians suffering from cultural cringe and wealthy benefactors alike, whilst enthusing an often apathetic public. Today, exhibitions draw capacity crowds and the legendary portrait contest, The Archibald creates endless controversy and has become an annual public favourite

Edmund has no plans for when he retires soon except to "travel back to London and tour Europe". "But I'll be back here to live" says Capon.

As for Henson who has exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum  in New York and at the Venice Bienalle, he went into a public hiatus when the chic Ros Oxley Gallery in Paddington was raided by police in May 2008 and 2 huge portraits of naked 13 year old youths were removed. He remains unfazed by the media frenzy that engulfed the nation and brought condemnation from the Prime Minister downwards as public figures lined up on opposing sides during the very public battle with claims of "kiddie porn". He revealed that many of his former youthful models had come forward as adults to lend him support. Ironically, the shock jock driven scandal sent prices of his work sky-high.

Alan's cumming...

Quite literally, apparently.

Alan Cumming is cumming. “I’m standing naked, masturbating,” Alan tells me over the phone when I ask where in the world he is, “where are you?” I tell him I’m standing in our interview booth and, unfortunately, I’m not masturbating. I clarify the question. “Oh, I see what you mean. I’m in New York,” says the Scottish-born performer.

Alan is also ‘cumming’ to Australia. Performing his popular show, I Bought A Blue Car Today, “but a slightly different version.” Alan explains that it will be the same show he performed during Mardi Gras in February, but “this time it’s only going to be me and a piano and a cello. Some of the songs have changed and stuff. It’s always kind of evolving,” says the cheeky interviewee.

Unfortunately, I can’t take the credit for the pun. Alan uses it himself, regularly. Most notably, and to good effect, for his fragrance and body care range – Cumming, a range that includes such sensuous items as: Cumming All Over, Cumming In A Bar, and Cumming Clean. Which will all leave you, ‘of course, smelling lightly of Cumming,’ according to the product website.

You can read more of Alan's interview at the Oz gay & lesbian website Same Same.

'Teflon John' lunches

It was a day to celebrate. The Melbourne Cup lunch at the uber-chic Ottos at Woolloomooloo Wharf.

Charlotte Dawson, John Ibrahim, Chelsea Mitchell (c)

For John  Ibrhaim, the handsome sun-tanned Kings Cross nightclub identity, he had another reason apart from the million dollar horse race-brother Fadi had been finally released on $1M bail surety after spending 6 weeks banged up on an alleged murder plot charge. Sadly for family patriarch John a condition of Fadi's bail was that he isn't to associate with his brothers. Amongst the group of glamorous blonds with Ibrahim was Australia's Next Top Model judge Charlotte Dawson.

Hosting a group of guests in one corner was retired radio king John Laws with wife 'Princess' Caroline. Society gynecologist Malcolm Coppleson , gossip writer William Petley and Jane Douglas lunched with Laws.

At another table sat Los Angeles based private eye Frank Monte. Monte announced his engagement to marketing manager Sharon Sargent right after Shocking won the Melbourne Cup at 3pm. Monte who has offices in Denver and New York also has a security company providing bodyguards for Hollywood stars and Arab royalty. Perhaps it will bring him a step closer to his long term project-a film based upon his best-seller The Spying Game in which Monte tells of his experiences searching the New Guinea jungle for lost American heir Micheal Rockefeller Jnr who vanished while traveling up the Sepik River , and guarding the Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.

The day ended slightly badly for Teflon John when another Ibrahim brother was arrested for allegedly damaging a TV newsman's camera.

Just another sunny spring day in glorious Sydney.