Season 17

A recent and near fatal incident involving an elephant handler at Sydney's Taronga Zoo has been a reminder of the hazards faced by people working with large animals. Zelie Bullen is based on Queensland's Gold Coast but she is recognised around the world as an animal trainer. Australian Story first met her a year ago when she'd been working with Steven Spielberg on his Oscar nominated movie, War Horse. Since then her life has continued to unfold in interesting directions.

This week's program revisits the life and work of a woman who defied all the stereotypes. Diane Cilento grew up in Brisbane as the beautiful daughter of distinguished parents. She became 'the most envied woman in the world' as the wife of the original James Bond, Sean Connery. But she was an acclaimed Oscar nominated actor in her own right and she co-starred alongside a number of legendary leading men. She turned her back on all that and in the end her most enduring love was a theatre she created in the middle of the North Queensland rainforest. As we reveal in this updated edition, the drama and the passions that characterised her life continued to the last.

The days of collecting the morning paper from the front lawn are ending. News of all kinds is available anytime on dazzling digital platforms. For some it's a new world of boundless opportunity; for others, the end of a proud tradition. Australia's oldest media outlet, the Fairfax owned Sydney Morning Herald, is facing the most turbulent period in its near 200 year history. Amidst financial upheaval and serious job losses a new business model is emerging. This week's episode goes inside the Sydney Morning Herald as staff wait for the white redundancy envelopes which will reveal who is staying and who's out the door. Caught at the centre is veteran reporter Malcolm Brown, a man who has covered some of the biggest stories of the last four decades, but now finds himself somewhat out of step with the times.

This week's Australian Story is about two film-makers who've suddenly hit the big time in Hollywood. Ben Lewin and Judi Levine made a number of successful films in Australia and Europe before moving to Los Angeles seventeen years ago. But their rise to the top was not easy and for many years they struggled, taking on other jobs just to make ends meet. Now, backed by family and friends, they have put together a low budget movie and attracted some major marquee names to appear in it. Called 'The Sessions', it's already received considerable acclaim and is now being tipped as an Academy Awards contender. 'The Year of Living Famously' reveals the story behind the surprise hit of the Oscars season...

Part two follows Laver through his marriage to an older American divorcee, raising children, battling a near catastrophic stroke and his return to Australia in circumstances he describes as the supreme highlight of his life.

In this fiftieth anniversary year of Rod Laver's first tennis Grand Slam, Australian Story revisits a golden era in the sport when Australia ruled the courts, manners mattered and Rod Laver was king of them all. Laver, the 'Rockhampton Rocket' remains the player most revered by today's top professionals. World Number One Roger Federer was overcome with public tears when he received a trophy from Laver. Laver's record of winning the Grand Slam TWICE (all four major singles titles in one year) remains unsurpassed. There is consensus that it will be impossible for any player to ever emulate that feat. With access to family and friends - here and in the USA - plus interviews with some of the biggest names in tennis, and unseen archival and behind the scenes footage, Australian Story profiles his extraordinary life.

This week Australian Story tracks Li Cunxin - once one of the world's best known dancers - as he embarks on a high stakes return to the ballet world after 15 years as a stockbroker. Li Cunxin is known as 'Mao's Last Dancer' through the best selling book and movie of the same name. At the age of 11 he was plucked from an impoverished family in rural China to become one of the most acclaimed dancers in the world. He ultimately settled in Australia with his dancer wife Mary McKendry and took on an new career in stockbroking to better support his family. Now, he's back in a new job as Artistic Director of the Queensland Ballet. It's seen as a gamble because he has no track record as a choreographer. Australian Story cameras have been filming behind the scenes in the lead up to Li Cunxins first big test - the launch of the new season...

When the film Puberty Blues came out 30 years ago, parents were mortified, but kids loved it. The story seems to have lost none of its relevance over the decades and it is now being celebrated by a new generation of teenagers. The two young girls who starred in the original Bruce Beresford version of Puberty Blues found fame and celebrity and looked set for big careers on screen. But real life didn't follow any predictable script line. This week's program uncovers the bitter sweet story of Nell Schofield and her co-star, Jad Capelja.

Twenty-seven year old John Cantor, the son of a psychiatrist and a teacher, has devoted the past six years to trying to complete one of the toughest solo expeditions on earth. The Brooks Range is not for the faint-hearted. Spanning northern Alaska the mountains are a mecca for trekkers and kayakers. Many attempt the 1600 kilometre trip but only a handful succeed and some have died in the attempt. Accessible only during summer, the traverse demands fitness and sophisticated survival skills. Bears, drowning, climbing accidents, a lack of food and extreme weather are just some of the dangers. John Cantor's first three attempts ended in catastrophic failure but much to the horror of friends and family he wouldn't surrender. Join Australian Story as John prepares for his final journey and charts his progress in a video blog. Will he succeed at last, or disappear into the wilderness?

It's forty years since a 15 year old Shane Gould created a sporting sensation by winning three individual gold medals at the Munich Olympics. Now 55 Gould is continuing to reinvent herself in surprising ways. She has returned to the swimming world after a long lay off, moved to coastal Tasmania, and found new love with American swim coach Milt Nelms, now her husband. Together they are exploring new approaches to help elite swimmers. As Monday's program reveals their approach delivered notable success with one high profile gold medal winner in London. Now a grandmother, Shane Gould has recently completed a second Masters Degree at the University of Tasmania. In this episode, Gould, her children, her long time coach Forbes Carlisle and others look back on a life that continues to develop in unexpected directions...

Ben Quilty is an Archibald prize winning artist with a lifelong interest in concepts of masculinity - from youthful excesses with drugs, alcohol and fast cars to soldiers on the front line. Going to war has always been Quilty's 'greatest fear' so it was with some apprehension that he accepted an invitation to work as the nation's official war artist in Afghanistan. Getting to know the soldiers, including elite special operations troops, revealed to Ben Quilty a level of intelligence and a depth of emotional distress that he says shocked him to his core. It forced him to reconsider his own 'anti-war' sentiments. The painting sessions with soldiers have continued back in Australia and Quilty says he now has a dozen new lifetime friends. He says he now feels a huge respect and a huge responsibility to help them tell their own powerful stories.

This week on Australian Story the politician who took on 'big tobacco' and won. A recent High Court ruling all but ended the branding of cigarette packets in Australia. The decision and the woman behind it, Federal-Attorney General Nicola Roxon, have generated news headlines around the world. Whilst many health campaigners have lauded Nicola Roxon as a visionary, others accuse her of promoting a nanny state. The program offers exclusive behind the scenes access to Australia's first female Attorney-General as she learns of the High Court victory and explores the personal story behind her own family's experience with tobacco.

Torah Bright has lived in the United States since she was fifteen years old when she turned professional as a snowboarder. Since then, she's flown under the radar of many Australians. Her specialty is the half pipe - a winter Olympic event with a huge international following. It's a dangerous and sometimes deadly sport and not for the faint hearted. Torah Bright competed in the 2010 Winter Olympics and went on to win a gold medal. But she did so whilst recovering from head injuries sustained during training. Since then, events have led her to reconsider the risks of her career and wonder if a less accident prone life might be more attractive. This is her story.

Tanya Pearson has shaped the careers of hundreds of aspiring Australian dancers and at 75 continues to teach classical ballet full time. But it wasn't until recently, when her daughter began delving into her mother's history, that the personal story behind Mrs Pearson's success emerged. Nicole Sharp discovered a miraculous story of survival that began when her mother, then known as Tatiana, entered a Russian orphanage at the age of two. As a child she escaped the war torn Ukraine and survived a massacre in post-war Germany before emigrating to Australia and a new life. In a moving tribute, Nicole Sharp and choreographer Paul Boyd transformed these experiences into a memorable ballet production of her mother's life which was performed to hundreds of friends and former students last weekend.

This week's program documents one woman's unlikely pathway from the fine art auction rooms of inner Sydney to whale conservation in the Kimberley. Annabelle Sandes first featured on Australian Story ten years ago. She was, unmarried, in her thirties, living alone with her cat and feeling stuck in a rut. Then she joined her parents on a holiday in the Kimberley. From that point the life of Annabelle Sandes assumed undreamed of new dimensions...

Last month, the Federal government ended its sometimes controversial intercountry adoption program with Ethiopia, dashing the hopes of waiting couples. More than 600 children - mostly orphans - from the impoverished nation have found new lives in Australia. Most notably, cyclist Cadell Evans and his wife adopted an Ethiopian baby last year via an overseas program. In 2001 Ian and Sandy Johnson from Queensland's Sunshine Coast set off to Ethiopia to collect an orphaned little girl, and then later, her newly discovered five year old brother. Australian Story tracked the Johnsons' difficult journey into parenthood. Now with the children 12 and 15, we return to find out how it's all worked out.

Popular Country singer Beccy Cole makes a dramatic personal revelation on Monday night's program. Beccy Cole has won 9 Golden Guitar awards and twice been voted Entertainer of the Year by the country music industry. "She's always felt like she's holding something back from everyone," says Kasey Chambers, her best friend since they were teenagers in South Australia. Now Beccy Cole has decided she is ready to tell audiences about a personal dilemma which has dogged her for more than ten years. "It's definitely uncomfortable if you've got a big part of yourself, if such an important part of yourself is a secret and kept inside," she told Australian Story. "In the darkness of an evening, sometimes that has been a difficult thing for me to cope with over the years."

This week's program tells the story of a young woman unsettling her middle class Melbourne family by going out on a limb to 'adopt' a fourteen year old Afghan asylum seeker. Jaffar Ali arrived in Australia two years ago after escaping from Indonesia in a leaky boat subsequently intercepted near Christmas Island. It wasn't Jessie Taylor's first such intervention. In 2008 she dramatically 'rescued' an asylum seeking Afghan soccer team during Melbourne's Homeless World Cup. Jessie Taylor is a human rights barrister who grew up in a comfortable 'right wing' middle class Melbourne family. Her mother Jillian was opposed to asylum seekers who she saw as queue jumpers. But when Jessie spots fourteen year old Jaffar Ali, unaccompanied and behind bars in an Indonesian detention centre, she offers him her phone number in case he ever makes it to Australia. What then unfolds changes the lives and attitudes of everyone in unexpected ways.

It's a time of unprecedented crisis in the newspaper industry. But this week's Australian Story is about a former big city journalist who's bucking the trend. James Clark had been living the dream in Paris when he decided to put his future, his relationship and the family sheep station on the line to chase his dream of running a little local newspaper in outback Cunnamulla. The paper is called the Warrego Watchman and it has even developed a fan following in the big smoke where Kevin Rudd is a regular reader. Clark ruffles many feathers. His take no prisoners tabloid reporting style gets the locals offside. Even his own father is moved to write a scolding 'letter to the editor'. And his brother is worrying that the family's 60,000 acre sheep property 'Pabra' is being neglected. Meanwhile, back in Paris, the love of Clark's life, actor Josephine Birch is deciding whether to throw it all in and join Clark in his remote corner of the Outback...

This week, the conclusion to our story about Diana Bliss whose death earlier this year was reported around the world. Diana Bliss was a successful international theatre producer. She married controversial businessman Alan Bond 17 years ago knowing that he was likely to be jailed for Australia's biggest corporate fraud. Ms Bliss's body was found at the home in Perth that she shared with Mr Bond. In interviews for Australian Story Ms Bliss's friends described her as 'luminous' and full of life. Actor and friend Carmen Duncan says: 'She was mesmerising; everyone who met Di fell in love with her'. But in the last year or two she succumbed to a serious depressive illness. In this week's program friends and family reveal the private torment behind the seemingly glamorous lifestyle and the lessons that can be drawn.

It's now five months since the sudden death of Diana Bliss created headlines around the world. It was a tragic and unexpected end for a woman who appeared to be living a glamorous and successful life. Diana Bliss had achieved acclaim as a Tony Award nominated international theatre producer. She was married to her long time love, the controversial businessman Alan Bond. She lived through the highs of the America's Cup victory and the disgrace of his imprisonment for fraud. It was a long way from the quiet country parsonage where she grew up. Her long time friend Johanna Johns says Diana was 'just a simple girl and she led a very very complicated life'. In a two part special, her family and friends tell her story and reveal the extent of the private torment behind the glittering existence.

In the early hours of Sunday June 24 tens of thousands of Australians are expected to set their alarms to watch a horse race in England. The unbeaten Black Caviar will take on Europe's best at Royal Ascot, in front of the Queen. It's a success story in which many have played a part. That becomes clear when you go back to how it all started. Monday night's Australian Story has the fascinating inside story of the making of Black Caviar, stretching back across the generations.

Gurrumul Yunupingu's haunting voice has captivated global audiences, most recently in London for Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Yet despite the accolades and awards, Gurrumul's continued preference is to refuse media interviews. Instead, in 2010 he consented to Australian Story accessing footage shot by filmmaker Naina Sen, who had travelled with Gurrumul over an extended period of time. The result was an intimate profile that ended with the musician at a turning point in relation to his health and musical future. In this update to our original program, his producer and friend Michael Hohnen reveals that Gurrumul nearly died from a complex set of medical ailments in 2011 but that after receiving treatment he's now a 'changed person'.

At just 35, actress and playwright Kate Mulvany has experienced more than most people do in a lifetime. As a young child she battled an illness that confined her to hospital for long periods, an experience she describes as 'exploding my imagination'. This early interest in writing (she experimented with changing the endings of her Little Golden Books to 'make them more interesting') led to an arts drama degree and the opportunity to hone her writing skills with acclaimed author Elizabeth Jolley. A career as a successful playwright and actor was interrupted by the death of her partner, All Saints actor Mark Priestley. In this episode of Australian Story, Kate Mulvany speaks candidly about life's many challenges and explains how she found the energy and determination to return to the public spotlight. As friend Jacki Weaver notes, 'she's one of the most courageous people I know.'

This week's program is about a dynamic young indigenous man who's emerged as one of Australia's youngest CEOs. He's Jack Manning Bancroft and he is as comfortable in a hoodie as he is in a suit. As a seventeen year old Manning Bancroft won a scholarship to prestigious Paul's College at Sydney University. He says he was initially angered by the levels of privilege that he witnessed there. So he conceived the idea of starting a mentoring program to pair university students with disadvantaged kids for their mutual benefit. It became AIME, the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience and it's credited with helping hundreds of disadvantaged kids finish school and go on to university. It's attracted support and interest from some heavy hitters, including swim legend Ian Thorpe who managed to obtain support from some major corporate players.

This week's program is about a new designer who's reinvented herself in a spectacular way. In her teens, Tovah Cottle became an internationally successful model... She was prescribed opiates for migraines at fourteen and later fell into heroin addiction, eventually crashing to earth in a series of tabloid headlines. She spent just over two years in jail and there, as part of her rehabilitation, she learned to sew. Now she's re-emerged as a promising new fashion designer with some high profile fans.

Updated encore screening It's over fifty years since Sir Jack Brabham became the first Australian to win a Formula One World Championship. Not only did he drive cars, he built them as well. He's still the only driver to win a world title in a car of his own construction. Now in his mid eighties, Sir Jack remains a modest hero who is finally starting to receive proper recognition in his own country. Earlier this year he won a 'National Living Treasure' award from the National Trust and he continues to be an inspiration for younger racers, including his own grandson.

This week's program is about a man who defies easy definition. Clive Palmer has been described as generous, a national treasure and a major political force. He's also been labelled a billionaire mining magnate who has never mined, a human headline and a skilled manipulator of the media. He first burst into national consciousness via the mining tax debate, public stoushes with other business and political heavyweights, and his role in Queensland Labor's crushing election defeat. Now he wants to run against Wayne Swan in the Treasurer's seat of Lilley. So who is Clive Palmer, what is his personal history and does his past provide clues to his future? In exclusive interviews, his wife Anna, close friends and employees shed new light on a man often described as larger than life. Business and political commentators also have their say.

Earlier this year we brought you the story of a young couple and their battle to save historic Wooleen Station in the Murchison Ranges district of WA. Against conventional wisdom, they took the radical step of destocking Wooleen's half a million acres to give the landscape a chance to regenerate. The story of David Pollock and Frances Jones drew a warm response. And though their struggles are far from over, their efforts have brought support from unexpected quarters... including someone well known to Australian Story viewers...

In a complex modern world, there aren't too many people who can galvanize the nation on a single issue. Lyn White is one such person. She first featured on Australian Story ten years ago. Back then she was a former South Australian police officer embarking on a new career as an advocate for animals. No one could have guessed the drama and the headlines that would follow. Going where most fear to tread, armed only with a small camera, Lyn White has ignited a fiery debate.

This is a story of rags-to-riches and back again, introduced by actor Heather Graham. From a working class upbringing in Adelaide, Scott Neeson built a career as a top Hollywood movie executive, promoting blockbusters such as Titanic, Braveheart, Independence Day, and X-Men. It was a glamorous lifestyle, walking red carpets, partying with celebrities and dating models. But after a holiday in Cambodia, Neeson made a deliberate choice to give it all up. Gone are the slick designer suits, traded instead for the cargo pants and hiking boots required to navigate the rubbish dumps of Phnom Penh. He now owns 'nothing' but says he couldn't be happier as he works to help some of Cambodia's poorest children.

Ric Richardson is an inventor who took on the might of Microsoft and scored a remarkable victory.

Another look at the 1997 classic story on Australia's richest person, Gina Rinehart.

This week's episode tells the story of actor and director John Polson and features some of the biggest names in Hollywood's Gumleaf Mafia. The A Listers, including Geoffrey Rush, Nicole Kidman and Cate Blanchett were all together in Sydney recently for Polson's 'Tropfest' event which has risen from unlikely origins in a corner cafe to become the biggest short film festival in the world. Polson reveals that his teenage years were marked by delinquency, expulsions from school and several brushes with the law. But he caught the attention of a casting agent and suddenly emerged as a successful young actor, going on to direct some of the world's best known TV dramas and becoming an all round influence broker - a man of whom it is said 'Everybody knows him, or wants to know him'.

This week's program is about an exceptional woman who grew up just down the road from the Victorian High Country. Her father would have preferred a son and he raised Leigh Woodgate to be tougher than all her male contemporaries. Leigh Woodgate became a renowned and fearless horsewoman who excelled at bush racing. She soon graduated to the hazardous sport of steeplechasing or 'jumps racing' and became something of a celebrity. But when disaster struck, she stunned the racing establishment with courage and determination of quite epic proportions, unfolding over two decades.

This week's program tells the story of a young boy whose passion for endangered animals unexpectedly thrust him into the political spotlight. He's Daniel Clarke and at the age of ten, inspired by the late Steve Irwin, he set out to raise funds to conserve habitat for orangutans in Indonesia. But when some of the country's leading politicians suddenly became involved, Daniel found himself centre stage. It was a crash course in what can happen when youthful idealism clashes with hard ball politics. Daniel Clarke and his family have weathered it all and they're now making a real difference to their beloved orangutans.

This week's program is an epic story of droughts and flooding rains and a young pastoralist's dream to restore his beloved landscape. David Pollock was just twenty-seven when his father chose him ahead of his older brother to take over the family's pastoral lease in outback Western Australia. Originally the size of a small town, Wooleen station, like many other stations in the southern rangelands, had fallen on hard times as over-grazing and drought decimated the landscape. David's radical plans to remove all the stock from the property shocked his neighbours. The project may well have failed but for the unexpected arrival of a young woman in her gap year from Melbourne. This is the story of Frances Jones and David Pollock and their property Wooleen.

This week's Australian Story is about a man credited with taking a small, troubled circus company and transforming it into a world beater. It's a case of 'move over Cirque du Soleil' with sell out performances and rave reviews around the world. The company is called 'Circa'. It was founded by Yaron Lifschitz. Against the hopes and expectations of his Jewish parents who wanted him to become a doctor or a lawyer, he went to drama school, and then into the 'dangerous and dirty' world of trapeze and acrobatics. Now, Circa has burst onto the international stage - this year alone, performing 400 shows in 13 countries, even opening the famous International Circus Arts Festival in Montreal, 'circus city' and home to Cirque du Soleil. But as this week's program reveals, behind all the professional success there is a story of personal adversity and of an unusual and richly varied extended family supporting each other through often tough times.

This week's program is about a grandmother whose recovery from terminal illness became central to the declaration of Australia's first saint. Kath Evans was diagnosed with lung cancer that had spread to her brain and given only weeks to live. She attributes her sudden, extraordinary recovery to the then Blessed Mary MacKillop and the event was accepted by the Vatican as a miracle. Whether you are a believer or non-believer - and Kath Evans has been both - there is no question she has travelled a remarkable path. This week, for the first time, she is telling her full story. The oncologists involved in her case are speaking out as well.

This week more unfolding drama in our story about a woman taking on the big end of town and changing the face of justice in her home state. She's Di Gilcrist. Eight years ago her husband went out for a bike ride and never returned. He was struck by a four wheel drive driven by a prominent lawyer called Eugene McGee. Mr McGee failed to stop. He admitted he'd been drinking but he was never tested for blood alcohol. The case has already galvanized public opinion in South Australia. Now the rest of the country is talking about it too.

This week's season opener is about a woman taking on some of the most powerful institutions in her home state - and changing the way things are done. It started when her husband went out for a bike ride and never returned. Since then, Di Gilcrist has helped instigate two criminal trials, a royal commission and a legal conduct hearing, earning praise for her determination and courage. But she still hasn't achieved the one thing she wants most. She's telling her story for the first time.