Going the extra $50m mile to recreate the Golden Mile

The gentrification of Kings Cross has had many unforeseen consequences: skyrocketing property prices and more imported carrara marble splashbacks per block than streetwalkers, drug dealers and strip club spruikers combined.

Australian actor Lincoln Younes has been cast to play John Ibrahim in an adaption of his autobiography, Last King of the Cross.Credit: Getty/Supplied

The sparkling Cross of 2022 has also created a dilemma for the makers of a new, mega-budget television series adaption of local stalwart John Ibrahim’s book The Last King Of The Cross.

A fair chunk of the $50 million budget for the new show, to be screened globally on the Paramount+ streaming platform, appears to have gone into reconstructing the grungy Kings Cross of the 1990s in all its garish glory out among the green fields of far western Sydney, 35km from the neon strip.

Kings Cross’ “Golden Mile” has been recreated in western Sydney.Credit: Media Mode

The production is the first big project from Sydney media executive Mark Fennessy’s Helium outfit and is billed as “an operatic story of two brothers, John (Lincoln Younes) and Sam Ibrahim (Claude Jabbour) who organise the street but lose each other in their ascent to power”.

The “epic” 10-part drama series spans Ibrahim’s formative decades from an impoverished childhood in Lebanon, through to the arrival of the family in Australia in the 1980s and his ultimate rise in Kings Cross.

The re-imagined “Golden Mile” of the old Kings Cross, replete with reincarnations of the now defunct Porky’s strip club and Pinocchio’s restaurant - both landmark venues which saw a younger Ibrahim spend many an hour - has been built in a car park.

The attention to detail is extraordinary, from of-the-time graffiti to the fleet of 1990s cars sourced for the series, which will also have scenes shot around the existing Kings Cross.

The new series has also shot a full recreation of war-torn Tripoli, Lebanon in the late 1970s, built in the Chullora railway yards.

The real Porky’s strip club on Darlinghurst Road switched off its famous neon lights five years ago after 30 years.

The attention to detail on the Kings Cross set includes everything down to the graffiti.Credit: Media Mode

Before lockout laws restricted late-night trading, John “King of the Cross” Ibrahim could often be seen standing outside the strip club with his bouncers in tow.

The real club also featured in Nine’s Underbelly: The Golden Mile and one graphic scene showed Ibrahim - played by Firass Dirani - being carried away by a bouncer after being stabbed.

It's over: Firass Dirani comes to grief in Underbelly: The Golden Mile.

But even when that series was made back in 2009, producers had to look beyond Kings Cross to shoot scenes.

Much of the show was shot on Longueville Road Lane Cove, which was transformed into the notorious Golden Mile in the leafy north shore.

The Longueville shops became The Love Machine, Porky’s and the Pink Pussycat. Longueville Road was a no-go zone and even Sydney buses were diverted around the film location.

According to locals, three times during one week, Longueville Road was dressed up to look like Kings Cross. Neon signs were put up and taken down each day, something the crew working on the set at western Sydney don’t have to bother about.

New chapter for fraudster

Well-connected Annabel Walker says she has turned her life around after becoming known as the socialite fraudster of the Southern Highlands tweed and pearls set after she was sentenced to prison in 2020 on a string of charges over various scams.

Annabel Walker appearing on SBS’s Insight program.Credit: SBS

And in two months’ time, she’s expecting her first baby, the start of a new chapter far from the unflattering headlines she previously generated.

But when she appeared on SBS’s Insight program recently, in an episode featuring both con artists and their victims - including Cecilie Fjelljoy who featured in the Netflix hit Tinder Swindler series - it was Walker’s comments about “paying every cent back” which had tongues wagging around the coffee shops of Bowral.

She claims to have paid her dues since walking out of prison, but those claims fell flat for her former boss, Aust Leisure Group director Hugh Clarke, who says he is yet to see “a cent of the money” she stole.

Walker had used her boss’ credit card to swindle more than $17,000.

“A few people called me up after seeing her on the television, but I have not seen any of that money returned, so I am not really sure what she was talking about. Yes, I would happily take the money back ... she knows exactly where to find me,” Clarke told PS.

But according to Walker, she has paid around $20,000 through a Work Development Order (WDO) since leaving prison and working for a charitable organisation called Keeping Women Out Of Prison.

WDOs are a NSW initiative that allows vulnerable people to clear outstanding fines (penalty notices and court fines) with activities or treatment rather than money. WDOs are supervised by organisations or health practitioners called WDO sponsors.

“I am trying to do the right thing, I have turned my life around, I want to make amends,” she told PS, explaining she was unsure how the money was being returned, promising to send a copy of the order on Thursday, which had not arrived by Friday press-time.

The former student at the prestigious Frensham school in Mittagong had previously told the court she was in an “irrational” state of mind and acted on “pure adrenaline” describing it as an “out-of-body experience.”

The court previously heard she sent fake documents to police claiming she had checked into South Coast Private Hospital for mental health treatment to explain why she couldn’t report on two occasions as part of her then bail conditions.

During sentencing, magistrate Susan McIntyre told the court Walker’s “great deal” of dishonesty matters showed a “flagrant breach of trust”.

Party time in Paxos

It’s Australian film and television super-producer Bruna Papandrea’s Big Fat Greek Birthday in Paxos, marking her 50th birthday a year after the event when her original birthday bash was canned by COVID.

She’s certainly earned her right to celebrate, having produced a slew of global hits, she is the woman who brought the world Australian stories including Big Little Lies and Penguin Bloom.

This week she has been greeting a cast of her Aussie friends on the Greek resort island for celebrations, including fellow producer Emma Cooper, Naomi Watts, Asher Keddie and Mary Coustas. On Friday Nicole Kidman had joined the fun, which culminated in a Grecian Luxe themed dinner.

No word on whether fellow Australasian Neil Finn of Crowded House fame would be joining them, though he was also spotted on Paxos this week.

Raised by a single mother in a housing commission flat in Adelaide, Papandrea is set to mark her 51st birthday, no doubt a good time to reflect on her success after twice dropping out of college: once after starting a commerce law degree at Melbourne University and later bailing on an arts degree at Adelaide University.

Cupid’s arrow hits

High-profile Sydney architect Nick Tobias has confirmed he is dating Dana Lewis, a red carpet fixture who recently split with her wealthy husband David Lewis.

Architect Nick Tobias.Credit: James Brickwood

The Lewises were last in these pages a year ago after it emerged David’s uncle, 63-year-old London-based moneybags Michael Lewis, married the 31-year-old Lady Kitty Spencer, the daughter of Princess Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer.

In 2019 PS revealed Tobias’ marriage with wife Miranda Darling, a writer and former model, had come to an end.

Meanwhile, it was rich lister Sydney businessman Robert Whyte who was drawing attention onboard James Packer’s IJE last week on the Mediterranean. Whyte, 79, had been joined on the boat by Sydney single mother Alessandra Eddy, the marketing boss at the luxury Belinda fashion boutique, who told PS Whyte, 40 years her senior, was an old family friend.

Rich Lister Robert Whyte.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Bastille Day with glitter

The young burlesque artiste Gypsy Rose Lee once famously learned “Ya Gotta Have A Gimmick”, a lesson obviously understood by Melbourne performance artists The Huxleys, (made up of partners Will and Garrett Huxley, local icons around Melbourne) who were among the star attractions at French purveyors of beauty potions Lancome’s lavish Bastille Day dinner on Thursday night in Redfern.

Formidable Melbourne performance art duo the Huxleys.

Adorned in their kooky costumes, ruffles, towering post-modern beehive wigs and enough glitter to outsparkle a gob-smacked Kerri-Anne Kennerley, their rendition of Xanadu was certainly a sight to behold. Meanwhile, Jesinta Franklin was sticking to the “script”, revealing her secret to happiness is watching her children grow, and avoiding any mention of husband and star Swans player Buddy’s ongoing contract saga.

Sticking to the script: Jesinta Franklin.Credit: Studio La Tessa

And rounding out the evening was Jasmine Stefanovic with her stepdaughter Ava, who is also going by the name Willow. Jasmine told PS she was bracing herself for her first big flight with baby Harper as she and husband Today co-host Karl Stefanovic head to Europe for the summer.

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