By Abbir Dib, Jon Pierik and Scott Spits
Australian businessman Geoffrey Edelsten has been found dead in his Melbourne home.
Victoria Police confirmed that the body of a man in his late 70s was discovered in a St Kilda Road apartment on Friday afternoon.
Geoffrey Edelsten with his then fiancee Brynne Gordon at Bondi Beach in 2009.Credit: Sasha Woolley
Mr Edelsten’s death is not being treated as suspicious and a coroner’s report is being prepared.
Mr Edelsten, 78, was best known as the flamboyantly dressed former owner of the Sydney Swans football club.
After finishing university in 1966, Mr Edelsten practised as a resident medical office at Royal Melbourne Hospital before working as a general practitioner in country NSW and Queensland.
He made his first fortune in 1984 when he opened a pioneering 24-hour medical clinic in Sydney.
His revolutionary empire of medical centres were lavishly equipped with ivory-coloured grand pianos, velvety carpets and enormous chandeliers; his clinics were the first to bulk bill patients to Medicare.
“I think it changed the way doctors treat their patients,” Mr Edelsten told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2011, “with more respect and certainly making sure that they are more comfortable.”
In 2011, he cashed out of the medical industry, selling his Allied Medical Group chain of 21 clinics in a deal said to have been worth up to $200 million.
Mr Edelsten had a musical streak and in 1966 was given a co-writing credit on the Last Straws debut single I Can’t Stop Loving You Baby. He also owned Melbourne record company Hit Productions.
He was also one of the-then VFL’s characters of the 1980s and seemed to have it all when, living a flashy lifestyle, boasting a string of medical clinics and with young blonde wife Leanne in tow, he became the first private owner of the Swans in 1985.
He famously bought her a pink sports car, a De Tomaso, but denied what became a legendary tale that he also had a pink helicopter, insisting to The Age in 2011 that it had been a blue-and-white chopper “which I used to fly to Liverpool Hospital to deliver babies”.
Photographs from the time show he did indeed own a helicopter.
After buying the Swans, he launched an audacious recruiting raid, securing coach Tom Hafey and the blue-chip talent of the likes of Greg Williams, Gerard Healy and Merv Neagle to play alongside the high-flying Warwick Capper, ensuring the league’s ugly ducklings became an instant success.
Former Sydney Swans player Greg Williams told 3AW Radio he’s shocked by the news of Mr Edelsten’s death.
“He was a great guy, he had a great heart, and he loved the Swans. He obviously barracked for Carlton but he loved football. And he couldn’t look after me any better than he did,” Williams said.
“People had an opinion of him, but he was a lot different than the actual opinion.”
“I don’t think he was an expert on footy, but he knew what players he wanted, he went and got me.”
He reportedly even offered to buy a school for Essendon ruckman Simon Madden, a schoolteacher, to entice him north, but denied this to The Age.
“This is a sore point. It’s absolute nonsense he was offered a school,” he said.
Madden was offered a $1 million contract to be paid over 10 years, with the intention he would become an assistant coach when he retired.
Despite bringing the glitz and glamour to the club, including the introduction of the dancing girls dubbed The Swanettes, Mr Edelsten was gone by July 1986 when he was sacked as chairman.
He remained a life-long Carlton supporter, although in 2014 he told The Age he feared for his life from irate supporters, having owed the club $150,000 as part of a $1 million donation.
Geoffrey Edelsten and Gabi Grecko at Tom Hafey’s funeral in 2014.Credit: Wayne Taylor
The Blues’ aquatic centre and cafe was named after him at the time.
Mr Edelsten did not shy away from the red carpet and in 2009 married young American socialite Brynne Gordon. In 2015, he married Gabi Grecko, who was 46 years his junior.
A spokesman for Ms Gordon said she was “deeply saddened and shocked” about her former husband’s death and she remained grateful for the good time they had shared together.
“Brynne and Geoffrey enjoyed some truly beautiful moments, including their wedding which saw Brynne call Australia home since their wedding back in 2009,” the spokesman said.
At the Melbourne Cup one year earlier the then-71-year-old arrived in the Melbourne Cup Birdcage with the sole intention of stealing the show.
Geoffrey Edelsten and then fiancee Gabi Grecko at the 2014 Melbourne Cup.Credit: Jesse Marlow
Down on one knee in front of the bedazzled 25-year-old Ms Grecko, he pulled out a sparkly ring outside the Emirates Marque and, before a swelling press pack, popped the question. Ms Grecko murmured a sedate “yes”, before the two were whisked inside the marquee.
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.