Profile: Marta Dusseldorp

Dutch looks: “It hasn’t always been an easy face to sell,” says Dusseldorp. Picture: Ellis Parrinder              

 

By: Megan Lehmann

From: The Weekend Australian Magazine

November 29, 2014

TAKING a long run-up from the kitchen, Marta Dusseldorp executes a faultless slide to the front door of her 19th century terrace in ­Paddington, Sydney.

“Come in, come in,” she says, flashing a dimpled grin and clicking open the latch. As the 41-year-old star of television dramas Crownies, A Place to Call Home and Janet King heads to the kitchen to make tea, the secret to her crackerjack floor skate can be seen peeking out from below the knife-edge crease of her trousers: fluffy bed socks.

Full story here:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/marta-dusseldorp-tvs-leading-lady-finds-a-place-to-call-home/story-e6frg8h6-1227137410328

Profile: Alex Gunning

Talent plus hard work: Alex Gunning. Picture: Julian Kingma             

By: Megan Lehmann

From: The Weekend Australian Magazine

October 18, 2014

ALEX Gunning is not very good at the trumpet.

He glances cheerfully at the offending instrument, propped in a sunlit corner of the room fronting this inner-Melbourne home, as his three younger sisters and step-mum Katherine, a music teacher, subject him to a good-­natured ribbing. “It’s because he never practises,” says Katherine, quietly chiding three-year-old Genevieve for bouncing around on the piano stool and scattering biscuit crumbs all over a floral-patterned rug. “In our family it’s like, ‘Do music or else!’ ” chimes in violin-­playing Cathy, 12, while 10-year-old Victoria (clarinet, cello and recorder) nods vigorously.

Full story here:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/inside-the-mind-of-teenage-maths-genius-alex-gunning/story-e6frg8h6-1227092735512

Profile: Cosentino

The magician and his props. Picture: James Geer             

                          
By: Megan Lehmann
From: The Weekend Australian Magazine
September 27, 2014

IN a black, unmarked building on Melbourne’s outskirts, where the air is spiked with the allure of mystery and the spirit of Harry Houdini casts shadows on the walls, the man who would succeed him is showing me a trick.         
      It’s called The Ambitious Card and it’s famous for having snookered Houdini, still considered the greatest magician of all time. “I’ll run my thumb down the pack; you call stop and pick a random card,” says Cosentino, his long fingers nimbly palming a deck that’s always to hand. I choose the six of hearts — a very ­ambitious card, it seems, for however the deck is tumbled and shuffled and rearranged, it ­continues to sneak its way to the top.
Cosentino is enjoying himself hugely, my bafflement urging him on. Then he goes for the clincher: I crease my chosen card, push it deep into the middle of the pack. He clicks his fingers sharply and my heart skips a beat: the card on top is the four of hearts, not the six. Oh no, he’s blown it. Composing my features, I look up to see the young magician grinning like a Cheshire cat, the six of hearts between his teeth.

Full story here:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/cosentino-is-the-great-pretender/story-e6frg8h6-1227069405998

Profile: Danielle Cormack

Wild streak: Danielle Cormack. Picture: Hugh Stewart Source: News Corp Australia

By Megan Lehmann

The Weekend Australian Magazine

February 07, 2015

   
YOU hear her before she arrives, this wild, wild woman, this warrior queen.

The customised exhaust system on her big, bad Yamaha produces a snarl that all but peels up the bitumen on Parramatta Road in Sydney’s inner west. That declarative roar peters out on a cough as she kicks down the stand and strides into Deus Ex Machina, ground zero for Sydney’s motorcycle community and one of the few cafes where a swaggerific woman in full leathers doesn’t look out of place.
Danielle Cormack likes to move and she finds she gets there fastest on a motorcycle. She bought her custom 400cc cruiser seven months ago and drove it up from Melbourne, 15 hours straight, thundering through the night. “I had to get it here somehow,” she shrugs.

Full story here:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/wentworth-star-danielle-cormack-loves-the-thrill-of-the-ride/story-e6frg8h6-1227207845922

Surviving Separation

THERE’S a little girl in Brisbane, she’s five: cascades of brown hair, huge blue eyes, all cuteness. Speech therapy once a fortnight and a special education program are bringing her up to speed and, hopefully, she’ll be able to go to school this year.            
She’s struggling, though. Her development stalled two years ago when her parents split in an ugly eruption of rage, resentment and false accusations. Her mother fled with her in the night amid claims of domestic violence and it would take eight months of police investigations, psychiatric assessments and court proceedings before she was back home with her father, a 33-year-old mechanic named David* whose daughter is the centre of his world. He was devastated to see how she’d grown.
She was at least 4cm taller. Sweet rolls of baby fat, gone. Not to have been there for those incremental changes hurt. Worse – at an age when the little girl should have been babbling like a brook, labelling the world and her place in it, she was able to speak only three words. They were: Mum, Dad and Sorry.

Full story here:
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/headed-for-divorce-find-a-way-to-love-your-kids-more-than-you-hate-your-ex/story-fnihsrf2-1227182490872