keira knightley

wedding last month

Here are two from Laura and Garrett's wedding last month. Hopefully this will hold them over for a few days! More to come...

Michelle, Luke and I had a great time running around Central Park last weekend. The weather was beautiful, I think the heat wave subsided especially for us. Michelle and Luke have actually made up a logo to go along with the theme for their wedding. They have coined themselves "Team Awesome" and have made shirts to match. I think it's a really cute idea BUT I won't embarrass them with some of the funnier pictures we took in them. We'll stick to the classics....

Katie and Matt

I've had several commissions in Delaware over the past year and having gone to school at the University of Delaware, I love having the opportunity to return for my clients. Katie and Matt live in a beautiful old mill which was converted into apartments. This park is a little hidden secret right in their backyard. They are so lucky to have this beautiful place all to themselves! It was incredibly easy to find grea

Luscious

If there's a perfect word for this bouquet, it's luscious. The divine crush of flowers is almost intoxicating, don't you agree? I think it's the perfect way to start this fresh week!

What are you looking forward to this week?

Bouquet by Denise Fasanello Floral Design, Photo by Kate Leigh Photography.

Artists, Exhibitionists and Underbelly Rediscover Sydney's Vicious Razor Gangs (CNN Go)

This article was commissioned by CNN Go and originally appeared at
Razorhurst | CNNGo.com http://www.cnngo.com/sydney/life/mums-word-razorhursts-female-gangsters-145199#ixzz1SQHq1gr0 (click blog post headline to go to the CNN original)

Mum's the word on 'Razorhurst's' female gangsters

A play is being staged in secret in former sly-grog shops and brothels around the inner city, as a book, TV series and exhibition see unprecedented interest in Sydney's sleazy days gone-by

By Benito Di Fonzo 3 June, 2011

The stylish East Village Hotel in Darlinghurst has gone up in the world since it opened in 1918 under the name that still adorns its façade, “The Tradesman's Arms.”

It was an underworld criminal capital in a time of partial prohibition. After the introduction of strict anti-gun laws, gangs fought for control of the sex, cocaine and sly-grog trades with cutthroat razors. Inner city Kings Cross, Woolloomooloo, Darlinghurst and Surry Hills were collectively termed “Razorhurst.”

It was a time when female gangsters, Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine, lorded it over their respective bootlegging and brothel empires.

The notorious 1920s and 1930s era is now receiving unprecedented, retrospective attention in Sydney.

A play, "Mum’s In: Stories from Razorhurst," is due to begin in the former sly-grog shops and sex dens around the inner city. True to its underworld content, Sydneysiders have to unravel the secret venue from the Internet and give a password to enter.

This year’s Underbelly TV series will be based on Larry Writer’s book, "Razor." A photographic exhibition from the era is touring and even an opera is rumoured.

The Six O’clock Swill
The Tradesman’s Arms was once, as Larry Writer records in "Razor": “A bloodhouse with sawdust on the floor to soak up the spit and vomit.” It was populated by “prostitutes, pimps, pickpockets, muggers, con men, SP (starting-price) bookies and drug dealers.”

At sunset, things grew ugly. Temperance movements, unable to achieve full prohibition like their American counterparts, had nonetheless convinced politicians to enforce a six o’clock closing rule -- resulting in the infamous "six o’clock swill."

“You could buy as many beers as you wanted before six o’clock,” explains playwright, performer, singer and songwriter Vashti Hughes, who performs in the upcoming "Mum’s In: Stories from Razorhurst." “At quarter to six you could say I want 10 schooners and they’d sell them to you, and then you’d have to try and skol them because they would kick you out and shut the doors at six.”

Anyone not content to follow church leaders’ suggestions and use early closing to spend more quality time with their families, or for those who didn’t have families, there was a huge hole in the market.

“People wanted someone to kick on to,” says Hughes.

The Female Gangsters

Notorious hooker Nellie Cameron, photographed by police on July 29, 1930.

Kate Leigh escaped to Sydney from her abusive family in Dubbo at the age of 10. Tilly Devine was a London prostitute by the age of 12 before emigrating "Down Under" with a Digger who claimed to own a kangaroo station.

The women became two of the wealthiest, powerful and most ruthless people in Australia.

Kate Leigh operated a score of illegal "sly-grog shops" during the 1920s and 1930s across “Razorhurst.” Tilly Devine became a brothel matriarch.

"Mum’s In." (That’s the password)

Vashti Hughes (and only Vashti Hughes) stars in "Mum's In: Stories from Razorhurst."

Leigh and Devine are two of several characters Hughes will bring back to life in her one-women show "Mum’s In: Stories from Razorhurst."

Hughes will embody in monologues and songs (co-written with partner Ross Johnston) the lives of Sydney criminals. Sly-grog queen Kate Leigh, brothel matriarch Tilly Devine, Sydney’s most sought-after prostitute Nellie Cameron, as well as the equally ruthless Frank Green and leader of the Darlinghurst Push razor gang, Guido Caletti.

Hughes will be staging her show amidst Tilly’s former brothels and Leigh’s sly-grog shops. In keeping with the underground nature of the original venues, audiences will have to find the location via a website (www.mumsin.com.au)

Upon reaching the door they will have to give the traditional password, "Mum’s in" before being allowed entry and sipping their first jam jar of sly-grog.

Hughes won’t be shying away from that violence either.

“It is comedy cabaret,” says Hughes, “but it’s got a lot of grotesque violence in it. Comic grotesque violence, with songs.”

Those who turn up in 1920s and 1930s clothing will receive a discount, which is appropriate given that both Tilly and Kate were seen as exotically glamorous in their time. In fact when Kate Leigh was arrested at the Melbourne Cup, her rich furs and jewels received as much attention as her crimes, and Tilly Devine was reported to wear twice as many rings as she had fingers.

Razor

Hughes is not the only artist pouring life back into the anti-heroes of depression-era Sydney. Australian TV screens will soon be awash with "Underbelly: Razor," the Nine Network’s adaptation of Larry Writer’s non-fiction "Razor," first published in 2001.

“To have two women crime bosses who were so tough and so ruthless ... They clawed their way up to the top in a hard man’s milieu,” says Larry Writer in "Razor," “They had to be tougher, smarter and nastier than the male of the species.”

Writer puts this renewed interest down to the death of the cultural cringe concerning our criminals.

“For so long,” says Writer, “there has been a feeling that our criminals and our heroes could not be as interesting as those overseas. All of a sudden there’s a realisation that in Tilly Divine and Kate Leigh and Guido and Frank we have some really wonderful characters."

"You can walk down Palmer Street, you can walk around Kings Cross, and though a lot of it’s changed, a lot of it hasn’t.”

Femme Fatale: The Female Criminal

Nerida Campbell, curator of the Justice & Police Museum’s nationally touring exhibition, "Femme Fatale: The Female Criminal," feels Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine may be perceived as being crueler because of their sex.

“I think society’s expectations of them were so much higher because they were women. They were expected to be feminine [but] these women were ruthless and violent.”

A journey into Sydney's sleazy foundations

“Mum’s In: Stories from Razorhurst,” 8 p.m., June 8–11 and June 16–18. Contact "Mum" at www.mumsin.com.au for secret Darlinghurst location. $30/$20 for those in 1930s attire –- cash only at the door (just like the old days).

Pan Macmillan will publish the “Underbelly” tie-in rerelease of Larry Writer’s “Razor” in July.

“Underbelly: Razor” is scheduled to air on Channel 9 in September.

“Femme Fatale: The Female Criminal” is touring nationally until June 2012. See www.hht.net.au for locations.

Darlinghurst Blog: People: Larry Writer

Larry Writer (above) is a Woollahra-based journalist, author and publisher who is set to become a household name when the new Underbelly television series, based on his 2001 book, Razor, begins airing on the Nine Network on August 21.

Filming of the series only wrapped up a couple of weeks ago and as a treat for My Darling Darlinghurst readers, Writer took some time off set to answer some questions and to provide an insight into the creation of the new Underbelly: Razor, as well as to share his favourite Darlinghurst places and secrets.

If you haven't already read Razor, you better chop-chop and pop off to the library or Ariel and grab yourself a copy because it is the authoritative book on 1920s and 30s Darlinghurst, a period which saw the birth of organised crime in Australia.

Scene from Underbelly:Razor

Writer's most recent book, Bumper: The Life and Legend of Frank 'Bumper' Farrell, published late last year, is also set in Darlinghurst and traces the career of a "rough as bags" cauliflower-eared policeman who patrolled the streets of Kings Cross, Darlinghurst, East Sydney, Woolloomooloo and Surry Hills from 1940 to 1976.

Bumper Farrell appears in Razor too, which follows the lives of sly-grogger Kate Leigh, brothel madam Tilly Devine and the crooks, crims, cops and prostitutes around them, and brings the mean streets of historical Darlinghurst to life in meticulously researched detail.

In 2002, Razor was the joint winner, with Mike Richards's The Hanged Man, of the Ned Kelly Award for Best True Crime.

It would be fair to describe Razor as a seminal work and with the impending television series, it is likely to experience increased popularity. Victorian-based authors Andrew Rule and John Silvester watched their Underbelly series of true crime books hit the bestsellers list and surpass the 1.5million sales mark following the first television series about Melbourne's gangland wars.

I look forward to seeing Razor and Writer enjoy the same successes.

And now, over to Writer:

Tilly Devine (Chelsie Preston-Crayford) takes her dogs for a stroll.

''After the negotiations were completed for Screentime, makers of Underbelly, to use Razor as the basis for the new series, I was invited to come on board as a consultant.

"I’d heard horror stories of film-makers turning books into train wrecks, but from the first, I was delighted to find that the producers, scriptwriters, researchers, actors and directors’s respect and affection for the people and places in Razor matched my own.

"I read all the scripts as they were written and attended conferences, and there and on the phone I was asked all kinds of questions: What were the common expressions used in that era? What did the Tradesman’s Arms look like then? What is 'gingering'? What would a Darlinghurst street look like in 1928? Where did the gangsters access their cocaine? What brand beer, wine and spirits did Kate Leigh sell? What did Snowy Prendergast do before he became a gangster in Darlinghurst? What are the lyrics of Tilly Devine’s favourite song, 'The Marquis of Camberwell Green'? Whatever happened to the survivors of the razor gang wars?"

"The actors wanted to know their character’s back stories, how they spoke, what they wore, any other idiosyncrasies that could help them make their character real.

"The production designers moved heaven and earth to find authentic period clothing, razors and guns, furniture, props and cars.

"They also invited me to play a 'wealthy businessman' in a nightclub. I hope I don’t end up on the cutting room floor!"

Two razor-gangers are taken aback when north shore schoolgirl Nellie Cameron (Anna McGahan) proposes a career as a prostitute.

Violet: Are you happy with the finished product?

Writer: ''I’m delighted. It rocks! It’s very Underbelly in that it’s fast and racy and assaults the senses, but the acting, direction and design is wonderful, and it’s true to the spirit of my book, and more importantly to the people and the places of Darlinghurst in the 1920s and 30s.''

Kate (Danielle Cormack) or Tilly? – who is your favourite and why?

"I am very fond of them both, but I think Tilly is a little closer to my heart.

"They are both brilliant mixes of good and bad, kindness and cruelty, greed and altruism, but I’m intrigued by the way Tilly fought her way up from abject poverty to be so successful, despite her husband Big Jim Devine, her treacherous gang, her own demons.

"Somehow, and against much of the evidence, she seems more vulnerable.

"I like too that she was always singing and knew how to party . . . even if those parties often ended in mayhem. I’m very glad that she was never my neighbour."

What would Kate and Tilly think about the television series?

"They’d be sitting on their lounge surrounded by their henchmen and women and loving every moment. Both had a keen sense of self-promotion. I reckon Tilly would be griping though that the actress who plays her, Chelsie Preston Crayford, is not nearly as beautiful as her."

How enjoyable was the writing process of Razor?

"I became obsessed with the people and the era during the three and a half years when I was researching and writing Razor. I enjoyed every moment, and it was such a pleasure.

"I had a fulltime job so I’d be up at 3am before I went to my day job, and then again till late at night. Most of my weekend was occupied on the project.

"I was in such a zone I didn’t realise I was working terribly long hours. When I finished I fell in a heap. My family was very glad to have me back from living in the 1920s."

You lived at Hensley Hall for a time. Have you lived at any other houses in the area?

"Hensley Hall was the only place I lived in Darlinghurst, though when I was in my teens and 20s I lived in many share terraces in Paddington and Kings Cross. Now I live in Woollahra with my family.

"In 1958, when I was eight, I lived with my Aunt Dolly in Hensley Hall. I remember sword fighting my brother with copper sticks from the laundry, and him spitting toothpaste out of our first floor window onto a passerby who banged on the front door.

"Often, before I set off to Darlinghurst Primary School or to the movies, my aunt told me if I saw them coming I should steer clear of Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh."

What is your favourite thing about Darlinghurst?

"I like the places that figured in Razor that are still there to see and experience: The Strand Hotel (above) where Frankie Green shot Barney Dalton and Wally Tomlinson; the Tradesman’s Arms pub (now the East Village), Charlotte Lane where Norman Bruhn was assassinated, Tilly’s former brothel and home at 191 Palmer St, the little lanes around Palmer St, (Chapel, Berwick, Woods, Palmer) which are beautiful and peaceful today but were once Tilly’s kingdom; even the empty space where 104 Riley Street used to be beguiles me – that’s where Kate Leigh lived and sold sly grog and shot Snowy Prendergast dead."

What's your favourite restaurant in the area?

"It’s just closed down but the Bayswater Brasserie was a great haunt in my younger, single days . . . Arthur’s night club too. I enjoy the schnitzel at Una’s.

"Billy Kwong’s (above) serves superb food but I don’t go often, because I don’t enjoy queuing for a table and then being hustled out the moment I’m finished so the people standing outside in the street in the cold with their noses pressed to the front window eyeing my table can be seated."

What's your favourite pub in the area?

"The Dolphin in Crown Street . . . Yes, I know I’m a dinosaur, but I like it not for what it is today, but for what it was, a wild and crazy Irish sports pub, where Bumper Farrell would go to drink Guinness and sing Irish ballads (very badly but enthusiastically)."

What's your favourite secret in the area?

"I have to say the Razor hangouts. How many times do we go past the East Village pub, or the Chard Building on William Street (above) without even thinking that the Tradesman’s Arms was the most notorious pub in town, and the Chard Building was once the site of the Fifty Fifty Club, Phil “The Jew” Jeff’s temple of cocaine, prostitution, illegal alcohol and gambling, where Tilly and Kate and Nellie Cameron and Guido Calletti and Frank Green and Big Jim Devine and the other gangsters mingled with Premiers, sports stars, business leaders and celebrities."

What's your favourite Darlinghurst building?

"The old Darlinghurst Police Station (above). With its ageless sandstone and pointy round roof it reminds me of a castle in a fairy tale, and in many ways it was.

"This is where the baddies were locked up, where Bumper Farrell ruled, where those fabulous mug shots that have been published in Peter Doyle’s magnificent books City of Shadows and Crooks Like Us were taken, and where Lance Hoban, an old time cop who I interviewed for Razor, found a cache of Guido Calletti’s razors that had been confiscated when he was arrested."

Inspector William Mackay (Craig Hall) patrols the dangerous streets of Darlinghurst.

''Darlinghurst is my heartland in many ways, and I adore it. It retains the dangerous and gloriously seedy miasma of earlier times, and it continues to resist change and fads better than many Sydney suburbs.

''I hope it never becomes too cool, and I hope they never demolish Hensley Hall.

''Oh . . . and it’s lucky to have a chronicler like you, Violet.''