He’s a multi-multi-multi-millionaire who likes to come across as a man of the people, and today he was doing his best to prove that he is.

Renowned train spotter, public transport user and Prius driver Malcolm Turnbull was out in his electorate of Wentworth today physically removing his campaign posters from lamp posts with one other helper.

I spotted Turnbull striding along the streets with requisite equipment to remove the posters that were then dumped in the back of a rental ute driven by an assistant.

Man of the people and member for Wentworth, Malcolm Turnbull, in campaign mode

When asked if Turnbull was actually doing the hard yakka himself, the driver said “yes”, with a big grin.

After a short-lived dummy spit in which he announced he was quitting politics before quitting on quitting, Turnbull won almost a 10 percent swing and netted 60 percent of the vote, which explains why he looked like the cat that got the canary on Q&A on Monday night.

ALP rival Steven Lewis had almost the same percentage swing against him winning just 14,416 of the votes to Turnbull’s 41,688.

Turnbull’s leadership intentions indubitably will have been reignited by the unequivocal victory. But he will have to bide his time following Coalition leader Tony Abbott’s amazing resurrection of the party’s failing fortunes in the nine months since he beat the eastern suburbs silvertail to the top spot.

Tonight, the man from Point Piper is taking on regular rival Tanya Plibersek, the ALP’s member for Sydney, at a “politics in the pub” event at The Clock Hotel in Surry Hills.

Plibersek had a 4.62 percent swing against her and scored slightly more than 26,000 of the votes cast in the inner city electorate.

Should be feisty.

Because it’s election day, because this has been one of the wackiest, funniest, most insane, fun and entertaining Federal election campaigns in decades, because Mark Latham was rolled gold for all the wrong reasons, because PM Julia Gillard released doves (yes, she really did, and not a magician in sight), because former PM Kevin Rudd’s axing turned the ALP into a comic tragedy, and because Opposition leader Tony Abbott was armed with a Glock and stun gun, I bring you some funny highlights and observations of the day.

Whose bacon did you save?

Sydney butcher Victor Churchill getting into the 2010 Federal Election spirit

Let’s start with this brilliant window display in one of Australia’s best and most innovative butcher shops, Victor Churchill.

Two pigs – one wearing a red wig a la PMJG, the other in red Speedos like the LOTO wears and a sign: “Vote 1, whose bacon will you save?” Brilliant.

One shop assistant told me people asked if the pigs were real. She’s Irish. No beating around the bush. “It’s a butcher shop. What do they think?”

Well, there were a lot of people who bought the line about former President George W. Bush’s “plastic turkey” at Thanksgiving when visiting the troops in the Middle East.

Election window at Sydney butcher Victor Churchill

But back to the funnies: this from smart Tweeter @WogBlogger: “Overheard in polling queue in Wentworth: “Would you like a Greens how to vote card”? “No … second thoughts, I’ll take one. For comedy value.” Comedy gold.

Wentworth, of course, is the seat held by train spotter Malcolm Turnbull.

Style guru and social commentator @MelissaHoyer tweeted this: “Sad there r no sausages at Paddington St Francis of Assisi school. ‘It’s Paddington. They have sushi’, said one queue wag . .”

Another Tweeter, @marksmithers came up with this: “Outside polling station amusing myself by handing Australian Sex Party how to vote cards back to Family First campaigners #ausvotes”

And then there was this in The Australian by sharp election observer Samantha Maiden: “There was a touch of George W. Bush, a moment of Vladimir Putin, bare-chested, Old Spice-style—“I’m on a horse”—to the magic photographs of Tony Abbott let loose in a Campbelltown cop shop after midnight.”

The idea of Abbott as Old Spice man is too delicious for words and the rest of Maiden’s piece is a Must Read.

If you like your humour dripping with irony, how about former Labor hard-man and self-confessed Pinocchio, Graham Richardson who wrote in the same organ today: “I am confused…I am in utter despair”. Read Richo’s confession about Labor and PM JG’s woes.

Happy voting.

Hugh Jackman gets behind Humpty Dumpty children's charity

Not for nothing is Australian actor Hugh Jackman considered one of the nicest and most decent blokes in the entertainment industry.

The Sydney born and bred father of two, who has been married to the equally fabulous Deborra-Lee Furness for the past 14 years, has thrown his weight behind a Sydney children’s charity to celebrate the 10^th annual Balmoral Burn fun run.

In a coup for the Humpty Dumpty Foundation (which puts kids back together again) Jackman has offered the chance for two people to spend a day on the set of his next film, Real Steel, in a bid to raise money at the charity’s upcoming fund-raising event.

Jackman decided to support the  charity’s Balmoral Burn when he discovered that the community fun run – which is the brainchild of Wallaby rugby legend Phil Kearns – was turning 10 years old.

It’s a world-first for the charity and founder and chairman Paul Francis, OAM, couldn’t be happier or more proud. “He’s a bloke from Sydney’s north shore and a father of two beautiful children. What could be a more perfect fit than that? After all, the north shore is where Humpty’s story began, and children are what the charity is all about.”

The Burn has so far raised more than $8 million, which has been spent on buying more than 600 pieces of medical equipment used to save the lives of thousands of sick and injured children across Australia and in East Timor.

Jackman’s once-in-a-lifetime auction package will take two people behind-the-scenes of a Hollywood film and give them the opportunity to hang out on the set and meet the actor who has been voted the “sexiest man alive” by celebrity magazine, People.

Hugh's the sexiest, says People magazine

Having spent time with Jackman on the set of Baz Luhrmann’s epic Australia, I know what fun it will be. Jackman is an absolute champ, a decent bloke with zero airs and graces. What you see is what  you get.

Real Steel is a futuristic action/drama and will be shot in Michigan during the northern hemisphere summer.

Co-starring Lost’s Kevin Durand, it will be produced by Academy Award winning director Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, and directed by Shawn Levy, who helmed the successful box office the Night At The Museum series, The Pink Panther, Big Fat Liar and Date Night.

The Jackman auction package will be up for auction at the Balmoral Burn Sponsor’s Dinner on Friday 28 May. Bids can be made by phone on the night through prior arrangement with Humpty.

The proceeds of the package will help Humpty buy more medical equipment for children’s hospitals. For more information call +61 2 9439 0511 or go to Humpty’s website.

Sandra Bullock and her new baby, Louis

It’s no wonder the talented Sandra Bullock has been keeping a low profile in the aftermath of her husband’s despicable cheating – she’s been bonding with a new man.

The Oscar winner adopted a son, Louis, in January and has been doing her best to keep the baby away from the prying paparazzi which has been desperate to snap her in her post-separation pre-divorce blues.

But the 45-year-old had a great secret – she was actually focused on something more important than herself, the baby who was born in New Orleans.

Bullock spilled the beans to American celebrity Bible, People magazine, and is featured on the cover of the latest edition holding the darling little boy aloft, looking every bit the infatuated and devoted mother.

According to the People mag website: “Bullock, 45, and husband Jesse James, 41, began the adoption process four years ago and brought Louis home in January but decided to keep the news to themselves until after the Oscars. Their close friends and family – including James’s children Sunny, 6, Jesse Jr., 12, and Chandler, 15 – were essential in keeping the adoption a secret.”

Despite Bullock and her estranged husband beginning the adoption together, Bullock is now a new and proud single mother. “It’s like he’s always been a part of our lives,” she tells People.

Congratulations to the lucky new mum – she deserves this happiness and baby Louis is lucky to have her – and she him.

]]> http://www.sandralee.com.au/2010/04/people-magazine-reveal-sandra-bullock-adopts-a-baby-and-files-for-divorce/feed/ 0 http://www.sandralee.com.au/2010/04/is-brendan-cowell-australias-newest-busiest-star/ http://www.sandralee.com.au/2010/04/is-brendan-cowell-australias-newest-busiest-star/#comments Tue, 27 Apr 2010 02:22:09 +0000 Sandra Lee http://www.sandralee.com.au/?p=930

Critically acclaimed writer and actor Brendan Cowell photographed by Rodger Cummins for The Age newspaper

Crticially acclaimed Australian actor Brendan Cowell sure is a busy man. Currently starring in two Australian films – the brilliant Beneath Hill 60 and I Love You Too – he is also working on the final draft of his first novel.

Cowell, back in Australia for the premiere of I Love You Too in Sydney tonight, is racing against the clock to finish the book, which he told me recently was a dark, coming of age story about male friendship.

“Or, a little bit of a love letter to my upbringing in Cronulla,” he said, adding that for the last few months he was “basically being a writer guy” in Los Angeles where he is presently based.

Cowell scored an advance for the unfinished manuscript on the back of his other prolific and successful career as a writer, which includes eight plays (Rabbit and Bed have both won awards), a critically acclaimed television series (Love My Way) and a movie (Ten Empty).

“I got a publishing deal a couple of years ago and I’ve been climbing the enormous mountain since,” he told me during an interview for a story I wrote recently for sunday magazine on his I Love You Too co-star Yvonne Strahovski.

Yvonne Strahovski, the Sydney-born co-star of I Love You Too

BTW: the charming Aussie rom-com is the brainchild of former Rove sidekick, Pete Helliar, who also stars in the flick with American actor Peter Dinklage (remember him from the brilliant Death at a Funeral?) It is a lovely story and a great first effort by Helliar with good performances by the lead actors.

But back to Cowell and his writing, which he says began as a youngster when he developed a love of books.

“I read a novel every week and I’m obsessed with books and I always have been. I was brought up with books and my mother was really into literature and I’ve always read and I’ve always seen it as the highest literary form, and the use of language.”

The 34-year-old actor hopes to have the book published at the end of the year by Pan Macmillan.

“The notes that I got [back from the editor after the first draft] were actually longer than the novel itself,” he said with a self-deprecating laugh. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I’m battling away.”

Meanwhile, Cowell will be back in Sydney later in the year to star in a Sydney Theatre Company production of the Sam Shepard play, True West.

Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, who has already helmed one play for the prestigious company and acted in the same play on Broadway, will direct the piece co-starring Cowell and Wayne Blair.

Tiger Woods in the new Nike ad

Here’s why Nike’s new 30-second advertisement featuring a robotic-looking Tiger Woods and the voice of his late father, Earl, is wrong on so many levels.

Here’s what the late Earl says:

“Tiger, I am more prone to be inquisitive to promote discussion. I want to find out what your thinking was. I want to find out what your feelings are, and did you learn anything?”

And here’s why I think Nike have totally missed the point. The advertisement cements Woods’s reputation as a cold-hearted, self-centered man. It’s not cutting edge. It is pure exploitation.

Sure, Woods has generated hundreds of millions of dollars for Nike since the sporting goods company signed the golfer as a name years ago, but this is no way to resurrect his thoroughly (self) ruined reputation.

It is impossible to ignore what Woods has done. Golf nuts and men have tried to ignore it, but women and all sports fan with a moral compass pointing north can’t. And already the ad has been called creepy. I agree.

Here’s why.

1)            Nike and Woods are usng Woods’s dead father. Ewww. Woods clearly has given his OK to use his late father’s voice. Double ewwww.

2)            Tiger says nothing in the ad. He merely stares into the camera. The ad reveals nothing and answers none of the questions his late father asks. Tiger Woods doesn’t discuss; he doesn’t say what he was thinking; he doesn’t express his feelings, nor does he reveal if he’s learned a thing. He simply stares – like a cold-hearted robot. Like the cold-hearted millionaire who tipped cheap on his black AmEx card. He lets his dead father do the talking, and that’s cheap, that’s easy, that’s a major cop out.

Tiger Woods with his wife Elin, children and two dogs - the picture perfect family - or is it?

3)            Woods has been exposed as a) cheap, b) dirty, c) someone who engages is unprotected sex with many women other than his wife, d) a liar, e) an egoist who continues to play by his own rules even when in rehab – remember the individual cabin? and f) a manipulator – the latest woman to come forward says they had a one-night-stand when she was his teenaged neighbour.

And where did he get up to this behaviour? In the family car and in his office next to the baby’s crib. Eww. Eww. Ewww.

Tiger Woods might be good at golf, and he might prove it at the Masters in Augusta this weekend, but he’s bad at everything else, and he’s already proved that.

Ben Cousins on a recent cover of leading men's magazine GQ

Controversial Australian Rules Footballer Ben Cousins and his long-time manager Ricky Nixon have parted company.

Nixon, who has looked after various business affairs and sponsorship deals for Cousins for more than a decade, told me today that he and the champion Richmond midfielder severed their professional relationship two weeks ago.

He refused to comment on the reasons behind the split and said Cousins was now being represented by the Richmond Football Club.

When asked why, Nixon replied: “I’m not going to make a public comment about it”.

Nixon, who runs the Flying Start sports management company, stood beside Cousins when he was booted from the West Coast Eagles for drug abuse and deregistered from the AFL for “bringing the game into disrepute”. He was instrumental in getting the 31-year-old Brownlow medallist back into the game for the 2009 season at Richmond.

As reported elsewhere, it is believed Cousins’s upcoming documentary and book deal are part of the reasons for the split.

Cousins has had several problems during his long and successful career. He was busted for fleeing a booze bus in 2006, and suspended from the Eagles in mid-2007 while he underwent rehab for drug abuse the United States, before being brought back into the fold until his comeback was cut short by injury.

Ben Cousins with police after his arrest

Finally, though, he was sacked from the club after being arrested, shirtless with his “such is life” tattoo fully exposed, for drug possession at the end of 2007. The charge was later dropped but he was banished from the league for a year.

He is set to return to the field when the season kicks off in March.

Russell Crowe - to star in A Star Is Born?

It’s true. Russell Crowe has been approached to star in the remake of A Star is Born with multi-Grammy winner Beyonce.

“Having a casual chat about it; nothing definite,” Crowe told me in a email on Friday. “Very casual conversation at producer Billy Gerber’s request.”

The Los Angeles Times reported this week that Warners Bros resurrected the project after Beyonce restated her interest in the movie the studio previously released in 1976. The ’70s version starred Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.

Beyonce to star in the remake of A Star is (re)Born

Gerber produced the 2008 gritty drama Gran Torino, which starred Clint Eastwood as a disgruntled war veteran intent on cleaning up his neighbourhood.

Crowe, a three-time Best Actor nominee at the Academy Awards and one-time Oscar winner, is currently in Sydney between films. He recently completed the thriller, The Next Three Days, a remake of the 2008 French film Pour Elle. Crowe plays a husband who breaks his wife out of jail after she has been sentenced for a murder she didn’t commit in the film directed by Paul Haggis.

But before that hits the big screen, fans can see Crowe as a broody, rugged Robin Hood in the as-yet untitled film that re-teamed him with director Ridley Scott, who directed Crowe to a Best Actor Oscar in the brilliant Gladiator. Hood is due to be released in May.

Russell Crowe as Robin Hood

The remake of Star would be a perfect fit for Beyonce, who hasn’t exactly set the world on fire in her previous cinematic outings. The natural born singer, who picked up several awards at the 2010 Grammys, has reportedly been interested in the film for some time.

In the film, a movie star (possibly Crowe if talks with Gerber result in him signing on the dotted line) helps a young singer/actress find fame, even as age and alcoholism start to disrupt his own career.

Meanwhile, in other news from the Crowe household, the actor’s wife Danielle Spencer’s second album, Calling All Magicians will be released within days and is already garnering great press in the United Kingdom as well as Australia.

Her producer Tony Visconti (he’s worked with Bowie and Morrissey) said he got on board with the petite performer after hearing her voice. “This is the best album I’ve worked on in years,” he told reporters. Her first single, Just a Thought, is “too beautiful for words,” he said.

Now that’s a compliment.

Kerri-Anne Kennerley, host of her own Monday-Friday morning show on Channel 9

While Channel 10 has lost 9am With David and Kim with the exits of co-hosts David Reyne and Kim Wilkins, the carpet strollers over at Channel Nine are working on extending Kerri-Anne Kennerley’s morning show.

Word from inside the Nine corridors is that Tom Malone, the wunderkind executive producer of Today and Mornings with Kerri-Anne, will find an hour-long time-slot for a “best of” show to be broadcast on Saturdays in 2010.

The decision is based on demand from advertisers and given that the indefatigable KAK is a cash-cow for the network – generating several millions from commercials and infomercials each year – Malone would be crazy to ignore the potential for extra revenue for the station.

Kennerley will choose her five or six favourite interviews or stories from the week which will be stitched together with taped promos and introductions filmed by KAK at the end of her Friday show.

In other changes to Mornings, Kennerley, one of the broadcast industries strongest survivors, will broadcast live Monday to Friday next year instead of pre-taping a couple of shows each week as she did in 2009.

As well, the program will move into the Today studio as soon as it’s vacated by Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson – who has single-handedly improved the breakfast show ratings this year, challenging the dominance of rival Channel Seven show, Sunrise . That means a lightning-speed turnaround from one show to another.

Stay tuned.

C.D.B. Bryan's first non-fiction book, Friendly Fire

The literary world lost a true legend this week with the death of critically acclaimed author and journalist, Courtlandt Dixon Barnes Bryan, the author of Friendly Fire, one of the most seminal books about the Vietnam War.

Better known as C.D.B Bryan, the author died at his home in Connecticut on the east coast of the United States on Tuesday with his adored wife, Mairi Bryan, by his side.

Bryan, who has two children from his first marriage and one from his second, had been battling cancer. He was 73.

His loss is enormous both professionally and personally.

Courtlandt was a mentor to many younger authors – including myself. He generously offered incredible support, encouragement and wisdom particularly to first-time writers.

When I began work on my first book, Beyond Bad, The Life and Crimes of Katherine Knight, I visited Bryan at his home in Guilford, CT, and asked the obvious: how do you do it?

I’ll never forget what he said, in his fabulous east-coast accent that would have been at home in Fitzgerald’s Gatsby. “Simple, shoulders forward, eyes down, type. Oh, and if you get stuck, a martini at midday helps.”

Months later we corresponded about the art of writing; about structure, tone, intent and narrative.

“The book you write is never the book your first draft turns out to be,” he wrote to me. “Just get the words down and worry about polishing later.  The art is in the artlessness, in making it look easy and inevitable and, as Salinger said, ‘You just sit down and write the book you would most like to read yourself.  Dare to do it. Trust your heart,’ etc.”

Harper Prize winning book, P.S. Wilkinson, written by the late C.D.B. Bryan

He spoke from the experience of having written at least 10 books and scores of magazine articles.

Despite his impressive body of work, it is Friendly Fire for which he is best known. Compelling and insightful, it has been repeatedly cited in professional military studies.

Bryan, who had served in the US Army in the peacetime occupation of Korea from 1958-1960, and again in the Berlin Crisis of 1961, focused on the death of Corporal Michael Mullen in Vietnam in 1970 and the subsequent radicalisation of his all-American farmer parents, Gene and Peg, who became vociferous anti-war protestors in their home state of Iowa.

Corporal Mullen was a draftee and killed by American artillery shelling, aka friendly fire, which is anything but.

The book is an aching report about the loss of a child that could have been avoided and the impact of his death on his parents, both of whom lose their faith in their country and it’s leaders and don’t believe their son’s death was accidental.

Friendly Fire began as a feature article for The New Yorker magazine, then under the editorship of legendary William Shawn, but by the time Bryan had finished interviewing the Mullen family and many of Michael Mullen’s fellow soldiers – including the yet-to-be famous General (Stormin’) Norman Schwarzkopf, he decided to extend the single article into a three-part series and finally a book.

The best-selling book was critically acclaimed and turned into an award-winning television film starring Carol Burnett and Ned Beatty as Mullens’ parents, and Sam Waterston (from Law and Order fame) as Bryan. Not for nothing did it win six Emmy Awards.

Actor Sam Waterston from Law and Order fame, who played C.D.B. Bryan in the telemovie based on his book, Friendly Fire

Bryan, a Yale University graduate and the stepson of writer John O’Hara, was also an accomplished novelist and his first fictional work, P.S. Wilkinson, won the prestigious Harper Prize in 1965. A later novel, Beautiful Women; Ugly Scenes is one of the most astute – and painful – books about a marriage that is failing only to end in a bitter divorce.

A skilled writer, he could turn his hand to any subject – fictional and non-fiction. He wrote Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: Alien Abduction, UFOs and the Conference at M.I.T; The National Air and Space Museum and The National Geographic Society: 100 Years of Adventure and Discovery. As well, he wrote for various magazines.

Cover of Beautiful Women, Ugly Scenes by author C.D.B. Bryan

And there was so much more to Bryan beyond the pages.

A bon vivant of the highest order, he had wit, charm and effortless style. He was a native storyteller and brilliant raconteur who used satire and wit in equal measure and like his wife, Mairi, could be counted on to be an engaging dinner companion.

I last saw Courtlandt on New Year’s day two years ago after the Bryans threw another of their renowned parties to welcome the arrival of 2007. He smoked, drank and cursed in equal abandon and, despite not being in great health, was in great spirits.

I’m told he was drinking his beloved martini shortly before he died.

He will be sorely missed, and always remembered.

Vale, Courtlandt Dixon Barnes Bryan.

My sincere condolences to Mairi and family.