Sydney’s 30 most intriguing couples: From Buddy Franklin and Jesinta Campbell to Gai and Robbie Waterhouse
THE likes of Jesinta and Buddy, David Warner and Candice Falzon, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban and Chloe Bryce and Bill Shorten have made our shortlist.
Chloe Bryce and Bill Shorten
THEIR relationship started with headlines about broken relationships, but Federal Opposition Leader Shorten and Chloe Bryce, daughter of former Governor-General Quentin Bryce, have made short work of transforming themselves into a thoroughly ordinary meat-and-three-veg couple. A year after their September 2008 reveal and their respective divorces, Shorten and Bryce married and welcomed their first child together, daughter Clementine. Suddenly Shorten, was a father to three — Georgette and Rupert, Bryce’s children with Parkin, filling his back seat of his ministerial car.
Judy Davis and Colin Friels
VOLATILE and passionate are the words frequently used to describe the enduring relationship between actor’s actor Judy Davis and her husband, actor Colin Friels.
Notoriously private, the couple — who have worked together on projects including 1981’s Hoodwinked, 1986’s Kangaroo and 1987’s High Tide — have been married for 30 years, live in Birchgrove and are parents to Jack and Charlotte.
It’s a relationship that has not been without controversy. In 2002 Friels ended up in court with an AVO after he smashed a glass coffee table at their Birchgrove home. He subsequently complied with the six month order and the pair stuck it out.
Miranda Otto and Peter O’Brien
THEIR New Year’s Day 2003 wedding took many by surprise but The Lord of The Rings star fell quickly for divorcee O’Brien after meeting on the stage in 2002.
The pair fell in love while performing in the Sydney Theatre Company production, A Doll’s House, but Otto made him wait until the show’s run was finished. She would later say: “I knew we were right for each other.” Eight months later they were married. O’Brien said: “It was an attraction that grew out of respect and that’s not undermining any physical attraction.” The Sydney-based couple have one daughter together, Darcey, aged nine.
Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton
Many have puzzled at the attraction between the glamorous Oscar-winning actor and her unkempt playwright husband but Blanchett has explained it thus: “He thought I was aloof and I thought he was arrogant ... But once he kissed me that was that.”
The couple met in 1996 while she was starring in Chekov’s The Seagull at Belvoir Street. They married the following year although she has admitted it was a bit of a punt.
“Getting married is insanity; I mean it’s a risk — who knows if you’re going to be together forever? But you both say ’we’re going to take this chance.”
The couple now calls Hunter’s Hill home. They have three sons together, Dashiel, 12, Roman, 10, and Ignatius, six.
Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull
IT was nigh on love at first sight for Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife Lucy, when they met when Turnbull, then a 23-year-old journalist working for The Bulletin, turned up at the office of her father, former politician Tom Hughes QC, to conduct an interview.
The 19-year-old first year law student was impressed with the self-made young man. She later recalled Turnbull as: “ ... very dashing and extremely attractive ... He always had a very kind of strong energy kind of life-force about him.”
Within a few years they were married and soon after welcomed children Alexander and Daisy.
As ambitious as her husband, Lucy established herself became the first female Lord Mayor of Sydney.
Teddy Tahu Rhodes and Lisa McCune
THEY have steadfastly refused to comment on the relationship that flourished two years ago when they were rehearsing for the Rogers and Hammerstein musical, South Pacific, but the question lingers — how did towering New Zealand opera star Teddy Tahu Rhodes win the heart of Australian married TV girl-next-door, Lisa McCune?
While McCune is believed to still be married to Tim Disney, father of her three children, sources maintain she and two-time divorcee Rhodes, who has a young son, Teo, to second-wife US mezzosoprano Isabel Leonard, are a still romantically involved.
Having been photographed getting hot and heavy across Sydney in 2012, to date she has only said only: “Nobody knows what’s going on, outside me and my family.”
Paul Howes with Olivia Wirth.Manly LSC's Candice Falzon teaches fiance David Warner how to paddle board. Picture: Archive News LtdPaul Howes and Olivia Wirth
THE relationship between union leader Paul Howes and Qantas executive Olivia Wirth created headaches for Qantas after the couple went public with their relationship at Melbourne’s Spring Racing Carnival last year.
Coalition MPs were said to be “unhappy” that the woman charged with the task of representing Qantas in government relations, had fallen in love with the head of the Australian Worker’s Union. Both have denied a conflict of interests and this year Qantas moved Wirth, 37, to a new and less controversial post in marketing and corporate communications. Meanwhile the couple have been planning a wedding this month.
David Warner and Candice Falzon
WITH separate scandals to their names — hers from an encounter with league star Sonny Bill Williams in a toilet cubicle at the Clovelly Hotel in 2007 — his for a month-long cricket suspension — many have wondered if this relationship has staying power.
Falzon reached out to Warner via Twitter after his suspension and after he returned home from the English tour, the pair hooked up in September.
Now they are pregnant and planning a wedding and while the relationship has its critics, Warner’s family aren’t among them, crediting Falzon with giving their boy the focus he needed to return to form on the field.
John Symond and Amber Keating
HE is one of the city’s richest men and she is the woman who in 2002 married the son of former prime minister Paul Keating at St Mary’s Cathedral in the society wedding of the year.
But now that Amber Keating’s marriage to Patrick Keating is kaput after a decade together, she is the serious love interest in the life of John “Aussie John” Symond.
Divorcee Symond, whose net worth put at around $500 million, may be quarter of a century older than his new love at 66, but it seems not to have been an obstacle for the couple.
Keating now living with Symond at his $50 million Point Piper pile with her two young children, and he’s professing his love for the former model who initially “played very hard to get”.
Lisa Wilkinson and Peter Fitzsimons
THE immaculate star of breakfast television show Today Lisa Wilkinson has said she knew upon meeting the sartorially shambolic ex-Wallabies player Peter Fitzsimons that he was the one she’d been searching for.
The couple were introduced in 1991 by her great friend Liz Hayes, who had met best-selling novelist Fitzsimons on the set of Today, where he was a contributor. Nine months later they were married in the Wahroonga Uniting Church where his parents had married a generation earlier.
Today they are parents to 20-year-old Jake, 18-year-old Louis and 16-year-old Billi.
Wilkinson’s 3am starts are complimented by her husband’s writing work.
James Packer and Miranda Kerr
THE pair have refused to confirm their relationship, but Packer’s closest intimates maintain the serial model-dater and two-time divorcee fell head over heels with the dimpled Gunnedah mother-of-one last year.
Billionaire casino owner Packer separated from wife Erica midway through 2013 — and soon tongues were wagging about a hook-up with Kerr, who was going through her own marriage breakup with actor husband Orlando Bloom.
Sources maintain Packer is “nuts” about Kerr but worried about the distress it will cause his ex wife Erica, mother of his three young children, who now lives in the US.
Maintaining the line, Kerr told today’s Sunday Style she isn’t dating and that Packer has “been my friend for many years.”
Lance 'Buddy' Franklin and Jesinta Campbellat Bondi Beach.
Jesinta Campbell and Buddy Franklin
THE one-time Miss Universe Australia and the Hawthorne star managed to keep their romance under wraps for several months before he signed a $10 million contract with the Sydney Swans.
But once news broke that Franklin was headed to Sydney, the covers came off the romance.
Sydney-based Campbell was ever said to have sweetened the deal — with Franklin wanting to be closer to the beauty.
Marked as a bad boy, few expect 27-year-old Franklin to stay out of trouble’s way.
She on the other is talking babies in five years, has introduced him to mum and dad and says he’s “the one”.
Jodhi Meares and Jon Stevens:
THIS hook-up came as a surprise when the former Mrs James Packer, who was rumoured to have left the marriage with a $15 million settlement, announced her engagement to rock star Stevens, the one-time frontman of Noiseworks.
The pair announced their plans to marry last year but are yet to tie the knot. The 42-year-old former swimsuit model-turned-fashion designer is now sporting an appropriately rock‘n’roll engagement ring — a diamond-encrusted skull.
“It’s very us. Very rock’n’roll,” she says.
The pair divide their time between Sydney and Hawaii, where Meares has a house.
Paul Keating and Julianne Newbould
STAUNCHLY Catholic Keating is yet to confirm he is in a relationship with the divine and attractive actor Julianne Newbould, but it’s not for want of opportunities.
Fifteen years after first being spotted together, Keating and his constant companion continue to duck questions of a relationship — the closest Keating coming to a confirmation being that now legendary riposte: “Piss off and stop taking photos of me.”
Divorced from his wife Annita, mother of his four children, Keating and Newbould met, her publicist has hinted, through his sister Anne, a theatre boff.
The couple enjoy European vacations together and are accepted as a couple by their close circle and one day, we hope, might even confirm the match.
David Gyngell and Leila McKinnon
ONETIME eastern suburbs lad Gyngell, the son of television legend Bruce, married the Nine Network newsreader in a ceremony in Byron Bay in 2004.
In the decade that followed, Gyngell has cemented his reputation as one of the top television executives in the country and more importantly, a devoted husband and father.
His transformation from surf shop proprietor to media executive has been nothing short of amazing to behold. The arrival of adored son Ted in 2012 after five years of IVF treatment further transformed and seasoned the one-time indispensable sidekick of James Packer. The couple are awaiting the arrival of baby number two this month.
Simon Baker and Rebecca Rigg
THE Mentalist star Simon Baker and his wife Rebecca Rigg have one of the most successful unions in the industry. Rigg, an actor who first made her name as a teenage rebel in TV drama A Country Practice, married Baker in 1998 after first meeting on a blind date in 1991. After 24 years together, the couple, who live in LA but divide their time between there and a home in Sydney’s north, remain devoted to each other and their three children, daughter Stella, 20, and sons Claude, 15, and Harry, 12.
The couple are part of the original Gumnut Mafia — a band of ambitious Aussie actors who headed to LA in the late 1980s and early 1990s seeking fame,
Gerry Harvey and Katie Page-Harvey
He loves horses. She loves rugby league. He thinks charity is a “waste”. She wants to give back. He loves making money and building empires. She loves a great idea.
On the surface of it, retail tycoon Gerry Harvey, 74, and his second wife Katie Page, 57, don’t look like they’re made for each other, and yet they compliment each other beautifully.
Having started out a vacuum salesman in the 1950s, Harvey has amassed a fortune worth $1.2 billion. Wife Katie, his likely successor and CEO of Harvey Norman, fell in love with Harvey after coming to work for him in the 1980s. They married in 1988 and have two children.
Lara Bingle and Sam Worthington
Avatar actor Sam Worthington is a bit of an enigma when it comes to romance.
Previous girlfriends have included Australian actor Maeve Dermody, with whom he was in a relationship for three years, Australian fashion stylist Natalie Mark and American barmaid Crystal Humphries, with whom he lived in Hawaii.
But after a messy breakup, the actor decided Aussie girls were more his style and after a quickie fling with radio host Sophie Monk he started dating Lara Bingle.
Bingle is now glued to Wortho’s side. He clearly likes sunny, pretty women. She likes successful men
Andrew Denton and Jennifer Byrne
He looks like the quintessential bookish nerd. She looks like a dynamic woman with a voracious appetite for life, and learning and naughtiness.
Nearly everyone was surprised when television news woman Jennifer Byrne embarked on a relationship with radio writer-turned-talk show-host-turned producer Denton.
Yet she has said the diminutive Denton is one of the smartest men she has ever met and therefore one of the sexiest. “Ï love his big brain. … and he makes me laugh.”
The couple, who never married, have one son, Connor, who was born in 1994.
Megan Gale and Shaun Hampson
The beautiful model and Foxtel TV personality stunned the nation when she split with funnyman Andy Lee — one half of Hamish and Amndy — and took up with Hampson, a young AFL player in late 2010. The age difference — 13 years — was most surprising of all, the Tigers‘ ruckman was just 22 and she was 35, but none could fault her eye for a “hunk”.
The couple are now expecting their first child together, due later this month.
Now 38, Gale has said she is “not bothered” by the age gap.
Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman:
“HE didn’t love me at first sight,” Oscar-winning actor Kidman has admitted of Queensland country music star Keith Urban, who she met at a G’Day USA Australian promotion in January 2005. But after four months he did get around to asking her out.
The pair were married the following year at Manly.
Following relationships with Americans Tom Cruise and the model Niki Taylor, the pair were happy to have found love with a fellow Australian.
They now have two young daughters together, Sunday, 5, and Faith, 3, and live in Nashville.
Although career commitments keep them in perpetual motion, the pair work hard to spend no more than a couple of weeks apart at any time.
Gai and Robbie Waterhouse
F the rumours are true, horse trainer Gai Waterhouse spoils her husband rotten — cooking for him and treating him to the kind of domestic niceties a woman of her position and wealth could afford to dispense with.
When Gai Smith married Robbie in 1981 it was regarded as a marriage between two of the nation’s horseracing dynasties — Gai was daughter of legendary trainer tommy Smith, while Robbie was the son of big bookmaker Bill Waterhouse.
To say it was a match made heaven is not quite true — the father of the bride was said to have been a little suspicious of the groom. Yet it has proved an enduring relationship through the odd racing scandal and two picture-perfect children.
Gai says her husband is a good influence on her and when she met him she found him: “…different to anyone I’d met, very intelligent and funny. I just thought he was very attractive.
Sandilands and Imogen Anthony:
SHE is 20 years his junior, yet radio shock jock Sandilands credits former promotional model and self-described grease-monkey Anthony with making him calmer, more relaxed and happier.
He feels that in the 22-year-old blonde he has found something akin to a soulmate. Since starting to see Anthony in 2011, his home is no longer a “debauched, disgusting sex pit”, as he once described it.
Anthony has brought stability to his world.
They believe they will one day start a family.
Bryan Brown and Rachel Ward
Brown and Ward’s relationship is the stuff of romantic legend in this country.
The icon Aussie actor met the aristocratic English beauty while filming TV miniseries The Thorn Birds in the US 31 years ago and fell madly in love.
After extricating themselves from other romantic entanglements, they married that same year and settled in Australia.
Some believed it would fail but the pair, who live in Sydney’s Birchgrove near Davis and Friels, remain deeply committed to filmmaking and their family.
They are parents to Matilda, Rosie and Joe.
Richard Roxburgh and Silvia Colloca
ROXBURGH, 52, and the Italian-born actor met on the set of 2004’s film Van Helsing, in which she played one of Dracula’s brides and he, the devilish Count.
The couple married in 2004 and live between homes in Sydney and Milan, the opera-trained mezzosoprano Colloca’s hometown.
The 37-year-old actor, who describes herself as “passionate, uncoordinated and friendly”, continues to work on both continents and has appeared alongside Roxburgh in local TV series Rake. She is also a talented cook and has published a cookbook, Silvia’s Cucina.
The actor, describes his family as his “greatest pleasure in life”.
The couple have two sons, Raphael Jack, 7, and Miro Gianni, 3.
Governor Marie Bashir and Sir Nicholas Shehadie
In 1957, while studying medicine at Sydney University, the Nerrandera-born Bashir met and fell in love with a handsome Rugby union star, Shehadie, who, like her, had Lebanese heritage.
Shehadie, a Wallabies hero from 1947 to 1958, went on to work in and later set up manufacturing businesses before moving into politics. After serving as an alderman on the City of Sydney Council throughout the 1960s, he rose to Lord Mayor of Sydney in 1973. In 1976, he was knighted.
Meanwhile Bashir set up her own medical practice but later returned to her studies after determining more could be done for psychiatric patients. This gave rise to a broader interest in public service — a passion she shared with her husband. Despite similarly demanding work, along the way, the couple somehow managed to raise a family of three — in 1971, Bashir was named Australian Mother of the Year. In 2001, she was appointed the first female Governor of NSW.
Juanita Phillips and Greg Combet
ABC newsreader Juanita Phillips was recovering from a bad marriage when she fell in love, in 2012, with the then Climate Change Minister, Greg Combet.
It was the relationship no one saw coming with the glamorous Phillips renowned for her taste in handsome, dashing men and the two-time divorced Combet known for his trade union achievements.
After his latest relationship ended in 2012, the two — who had met five years earlier when she interviewed him for The Bulletin — reconnected.
The relationship has attracted some criticism — with mother-of-two Phillips accused of tagging along at the taxpayer’s expense on first class international government trips to Europe and taken off air by the ABC in 2012 rather than have her present a story relating to her new partner.
Combet has since given up his government career for private enterprise which should hopefully make things a bit easier for the couple in future.
Christine Forster and Virginia Edwards:
PRIME minister Tony Abbott’s sister Christine Foster has perhaps unwittingly become the nation’s premier lobbyist for gay marriage.
The City of Sydney Liberal Party councillor, who last year became engaged to her partner Virginia Edwards, does not necessarily see eye-to-eye with her Christian conservative brother on the subject, yet the conversation continues.
In 2008, Forster left her husband and their comfortable north shore home to move in with Edwards, whom she says she hopes to marry under a federal marriage act. The women have six children from their two respective marriages.
Lane Beachley and Kirk Pengilly
THE world champion surfer and the world-renowned rocker have admitted they believed they had little in common during their disastrous first date, set up by rocker Jon Stevens.
Pengilly, INXS’s saxophonist and guitarist, didn’t have a clue who the seven-time women’s world surf champion was.
“We were literally yawning in each other’s face. There was no connection, we didn’t want to be there,” she recalled, of their first date, at the Dee Why RSL.
But their differences soon drew them to each other — he admitted later it took him aback when attending surf competitions as her plus one, to find no one recognised him, and that she was the “nobody” in the sand where she was revered.
They were married — his second (he was once married to singer Deni Hines) and her first — in 2010 as Pengilly’s rural property and enjoy a shared love for travel and adventure.
Alan Joyce and Shane Lloyd
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce is one of the highest paid executives in the country on a salary of $5 million, something that is fully disclosed. But to date he has remained shy about revealing the identity of his partner, Shane Lloyd, one-time David Jones men's wear salesman and works for the children’s charity, Starlight Foundation. The couple, both openly gay, have been in a long-term relationship since 1999.
They frequent Sydney parties together but try to avoid the mainstream press as a rule — New Zealand-born Lloyd is said to prefer keeping their private life, well, private.
The couple have made their home in the Irish-influenced The Rocks.
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