Illuminated In Prague

Sun Herald

Sunday July 18, 2004

WILLIAM PETLEY

FILM publicist Emma Cooper, in Prague working on Everything Is Illuminated, attended the premiere of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind at the 39th Karlovy Vary Film Festival with actor Elijah Wood. There, she despaired over the lack of security as 1000 fans screamed "Frodo" at The Lord Of The Rings star. (He also gets "Spider-Man", since he's often confused with Tobey Maguire.) Wood, who doesn't miss a beat, loves music he has eight guitars but has never learnt to play and wants to start a record label. Part of Everything Is Illuminated was shot at a former military air base, which Cooper describes as "spooky": huge mounds of grass with massive iron doors where planes were hidden. Hitler built the Prague film studio. How's that for a Cooper Czech-up?

Gold Coast high life

ANYONE who lives life high as a kite will be over the moon with next Wednesday's final release of space in Sunland's Q1 the world's tallest residential building on the Gold Coast. (Ian Thorpe, who with that mondo blondo hairdo resembles a taller Amanda Keller, has an apartment there.) Stage 3 of George Street's World Tower apartments will be completed on August 31 and the 48 storeys of the unfortunately named Lumiere at Regent Place, on the site of the unfortunately demolished Regent Theatre, will be finished in 2007. A replica of the Atlas clock at Tiffany & Co's 5th Avenue HQ has been installed over the door of their new Castlereagh Street store, opening on August 4.

Pianists hit right note

THE world's foremost authority on piano competitions, Gerrit Glaner, in town from Hamburg, Germany, for the Sydney International Piano Competition of Australia, attended Steinway's drinks at the Wentworth Sofitel on Monday. Piano people getting hammered included: Theme and Variations' Ara Vartoukian; SIPCA's artistic director Warren Thomson, who, judging by his speech, knows the correct notes to hit; Vahe Sarmazian; and president of the Friends of the Competition Senator Bronwyn Bishop. Competition founder Claire Dan AM, OBE, was supposed to be there but apparently she's as sick as a dog. Don't all send flowers at once.

Resin to celebrate

THE connotations involving "threesomes" are best refuted by the relationship enjoyed by Dinosaur Designs' Steve Ormandy, Louise Olsen and Liane Rossler. The Ormandy-Olsens are presently in New York, celebrating their second year operating Dinosaur Designs, 250 Mott Street, Nolita. (Rossler remained at the resin-face here.) The US demand for DDNY is such the cover of Women's Wear Daily and Gourmet and editorial in Harper's Bazaar, US Vogue and The New York Times that they've taken an apartment upstairs as a press office. Carolina Herrera loves the jewellery and Elizabeth Arden used DD in its latest ad campaign. All this from a clip around the ear. (And a necklace or bangle here and there.)

Using the grey matter

TOMORROW, the Australian British Chamber of Commerce will host a lunch with Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield at the Four Seasons Hotel. (Phone Cate on 9247 6271.) Greenfield is known internationally for her analysis of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, is a senior research fellow at Oxford, author of The Human Brain: A Guided Tour, a director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, member of the Blair peerage and currently Thinker in Residence in Adelaide. RSVPs: Ainsley Carson, the seldom-seen Lady Pagan, Kathryn Greiner and Dame Leonie Kramer. Presumably there'll be no Sue Ellen Ewing-like ladies-who-lunch there.

Lulu's desert marathon

INTERNATIONAL tax lawyer Louise McBride determined that she needed to prepare for her return to corporate life after a "year out". Being a committed sort, McBride teamed up with Morgan Stanley's Alisdair Morrison, and a few other masochists, to complete the six-day crossing of Chile's Atacama Desert the globe's highest, driest and coldest ending, appropriately, in the Valle de la Muerte (Espanol for Death Valley). Suitably svelte from the experience she came first in her category McBride attended Morrison's wedding to Mary Gadams at St Paul's, Valparaiso, on Wednesday. McBride's husband, Greg Daniel, said of her adventure: "That Lulu; there she goes again." Daniel, with the couple's children Unity and Hunter, was fishing in Port Douglas.

Turnbulls to a tree

ON Thursday, in anticipation of National Tree Day 2004 next Sunday, Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull planted several Banksia serrata at Dover Heights Rodney Reserve. The planting of these small, thick shrubs will create a habitat for native birds such as the New Holland honeyeater and fairy wrens. "I've planted a few trees in my time," the spade-wielding Turnbull said. Planet Ark and Toyota, which have been committed to the campaign since 2000, are hoping others will follow the example of the Turnbulls. Since National Tree Day began, more than 6 million native trees have been planted. (Not all, of course, by the Turnbulls.)