Melbourne socialite and philanthropist Lillian Frank is being remembered for her contribution to the city’s life and culture, after her death aged 92.
Key points:
The Toorak hairdresser was a vibrant fixture of the city’s fashion scene
She also raised millions of dollars for charitable causes
Her daughter remembered her as “the most spectacular selfless human being”
Ms Frank’s daughter, Jackie Frank, announced the news on social media, saying her family had lost its “heart and soul” on Friday night.
“She lived life to the max, without any regrets and was forever grateful,” Ms Frank said.
“She used her flamboyant personality and social standing for good, raising millions and millions for charity.
“She had a very public life and I was often asked what’s it like growing up with Lillian Frank as your mum?
“My answer, to us she was mum, to my kids’ nani and the most spectacular selfless human being in the world with the biggest heart.”
Lillian Frank’s daughter says her mother lived life through “rose colored glasses” and always saw the good in people.(Instagram)
Lillian Frank was born in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), before her family fled during the Japanese invasion of World War II.
Her daughter wrote that despite the adversity she faced, “she saw the good in everyone and everything.”
Lillian Frank settled in Melbourne in the 1950s, establishing her Toorak hairdressing salon and becoming highly active in the city’s social scene.
She was the hair stylist for Jean Shrimpton when the English model famously wore a white mini-dress to the Melbourne races in 1965.
Lillian Frank styled the hair of Jean Shrimpton when the model broke with fashion conventions to wear a mini-dress to the Melbourne Spring Carnival in the 1960s.(fashion)
Ms Frank continued to sit as a judge for the Melbourne racing season’s fashion events for several years.
A philanthropist, Ms Frank was made a Member of the Order of Australia and a Member of the Order of the British Empire for her charity and community work.
‘A big loss to Melbourne’
Food critic and weekend ABC broadcaster Matt Preston recalled her “real lust for life” and adventure.
“[She was] such a feature of Melbourne when I started writing about food, she was a great person to sit with and eat with,” he said.
“It’s sad news and my thoughts go out to all the family and everyone who knew her.
“She’s a big loss to Melbourne.”
Fashion designer Alex Perry was among those to pay tribute on social media, writing the late philanthropist would be “shining down” forever.
Fellow designer Toni Maticevski remembered her as a “bloody amazing woman” who brought “sparkle and smiles to everyone”.
Hamish Blake and Andy Lee share fears that they may be CANCELED over their problematic old podcast episodes: ‘It could finish our careers’
By Bridie Pearson-jones For Daily Mail Australia
Published: | Updated:
They’re one of Australia’s favorite comedy duos with nearly 20 years in the business.
But Hamish Blake and Andy Lee have admitted they’re scared their careers may end over politically incorrect things that they said on old podcast episodes.
Speaking to Nova’s Ben and Liam, Andy, 41, said he would be canceled for the jokes he made in the early noughties if he said them today.
Hamish Blake and Andy Lee have admitted they’re scared their careers may end over politically incorrect things that they said on old podcast episodes
‘There are so many things that would cancel Hamish and I,’ he admitted.
‘I promise you – because Hamish and I do another podcast called The Remembering Project where we listen back – there are things we listen back to and go “nah, we’re not going to say that in this day and age.”
‘Someone can trawl through and if they really want to, they can get their knives out and finish our careers.’
Speaking to Nova’s Ben and Liam , Andy, 41, said he would be canceled for the jokes he made in the early noughties if he said them today
Nova host Liam said he listened to an old episode from 2006 on the way to the studio ahead of the interview with Andy.
‘Hamish has been turkey slapped on the Hamish and Andy show!’ Andy can be heard laughing in the clip.
‘What are we doing!’ laughed Lee. ‘I can’t even remember doing it, I’ve blocked it out of my mind!’
‘The context here – that I think is important – is that you used a slice of turkey to slap him in the face,’ Liam said.
Hamish and Andy are one of Australia’s favorite comedy duos with nearly 20 years in the business
It comes as Andy Lee’s hit game show The Hundred returned for a third season this week.
Popular guests will include comedians Tom Gleeson, Tommy Little, Nazeem Hussain and Luke McGregor, Love Island host Sophie Monk, Hamish Blake, Nath Valvo, Susie Youseff, Lizzy Hoo and more.
They will all join Andy, 41, panelist Mike Goldstein and 100 everyday Aussies who Zoom in every week to share their thoughts.
It comes as Andy Lee’s hit game show The Hundred returned for a third season this week
‘I asked The Hundred whether they wanted another season of the show and it was a resounding “yes”. You have to trust the data,’ Andy said in a statement to TV Blackbox.
‘I also asked them whether they wanted Gold Logie winner Hamish Blake to replace me as host and I’ve decided to keep their answer confidential.
‘Some data you can’t trust. I’ll be back for season three.’
The show’s format centers around Lee posing questions to three guest panellists, who battle it out to determine who knows Australia best.
‘I asked The Hundred whether they wanted another season of the show and it was a resounding “yes”. You have to trust the data,’ Andy said in a statement to TV Blackbox
Michelle Branch has been arrested for domestic assault, the Nashville police department confirmed to Variety.
The arrest took place following the announcement that Branch, 39, was splitting from her husband of three years, The Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney.
TMZ first reported the arrest, adding that court documents revealed Branch had slapped Carney in the face “one to two times.” Branch’s bail was set at $1,000.
READMORE:Actress Anne Heche dies aged 53 after fiery car crash left her in a coma
Michelle Branch and Patrick Carney announced their split after three years of marriage. (Getty)
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Branch and Carney married in 2019. Branch said in a statement to TMZ while announcing the split: “To say that I am totally devastated doesn’t even come close to describing how I feel for myself and for my family.
“The rug has been completely pulled from underneath me and now I must figure out how to move forward. With such small children, I ask for privacy and kindness.”
Before announcing the split, Branch took to Twitter and accused Carney of cheating on her. The two musicians have two children together and lived in Nashville.
Branch rose to prominence in the early 2000s as a singer-songwriter thanks to her bestselling albums ‘The Spirit Room’ and ‘Hotel Paper.’
Branch accused Carney of cheating in a social media post. (instagram)
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The former album included her breakout single, ‘Everywhere,’ which just celebrated its 20th anniversary this year.
Branch won a Grammy Award for pop collaboration with vocals titled thanks to her 2022 duet with Santana ‘The Game of Love.’
Branch is currently gearing up to release her fourth studio album, ‘The Trouble with Fever,’ which is scheduled to be released on Sept. 16.
The musician has a planned tour with stops including New York City’s Webster Hall.
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Former Spice Girl Mel C splits from long-time partner
“In pre-Beatles British pop, the bosses were Australians,” Walker says. “I do n’t know how Gormley picked up on Olivia, but he took her in de ella, and then of course, when Pat Carroll and John Farrar went over there, Farrar formed a band with those Shadows guys [Welch, Hank Marvin, and Farrar].”
As a duo, Carroll and Newton-John made small waves on the UK TV and cabaret circuit but after Carroll returned to Australia, her husband Farrar became the key songwriter and producer in Newton-John’s story. It was he and Welch who arranged the traditional murder ballad Banks of the Ohioand produced her debut studio album in 1971.
Olivia Newton-John at the G’Day USA gala in Los Angeles in 2018. Credit:AP
“Farrar was guitar player and singer in the Melbourne band the Strangers,” explains Melbourne music historian Ian McFarlane, author of The Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop. “They were massive in the ’60s and they were the house band for The Go!! Show ” – the Channel 10 pop show hosted by Ian Turpie, a former boyfriend of Newton-John’s.
Bizarrely, it was a British shoe salesman named Lee Kramer – “he made millions of pounds importing cowboy boots into England,” Walker says – who managed her crucial leap to Los Angeles to capitalize on her deal with MCA Records in the early ’70s.
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But the gumnut mafia connections would continue. Farrar was Newton-John’s producer until 1989, teaming with Stigwood’s RSO to produce the grease phenomenon, and writing a string of No. 1 hits including Have You Never Been Mellow, You’re the One That I Want, Hopelessly Devoted to You and magic. It was Steve Kipner, a Bee Gees associate from way back, who co-wrote Physical in 1981. By that time, Newton-John was managed by Australian powerhouse Roger Davies, in the midst of his epic journey from Sherbet to Pink.
Still, great business connections can only explain so much in the rise of a fair dinkum global superstar. “I don’t know,” says Walker. “I don’t know how they marketed her, how they made it all work. I guess they had some good songs. I suppose it’s just that incredible breath of fresh air that she was.”
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Unlike what seems like most of Melbourne, I don’t have a selfie with Olivia Newton-John at the Coles in Richmond. I don’t have an anecdote like my mate Nicko about hanging with her on a balcony at the Xanadu dance contest at Chasers in 1980.
What I do have is memories of Olivia as the backing track to my early 1970s in the back of the Valiant as Mum dropped off Tupperware to eastern suburbs housewives. My brother Sammy and I were thrilled when You’re So Vain and Maggie May were followed on AM radio by ONJ’s Banks of the Ohio and If Not For You.
Olivia Newton-John (centre) with Didi Conn (right, in pink) singing Summer Lovin’ in Grease.Credit:Getty
Future generations had the Wiggles as their pre-school musical love. We had Liv. I’m not sure if I knew what she looked like then. count down wasn’t on yet but from her voice and lyrics about love (“please mister please, don’t play B17”) I rightly suspected she was stupendously chocolate box pretty.
Then she was replaced in my consciousness and record collection by the Bay City Rollers. Until August 1978, when suddenly Olivia was not only back but the leading lady in what was the cultural touchstone, the rite of passage, for anyone growing up at the time, grease.
Based on a stage musical – the brainchild of an art teacher and an advertising copywriter – which debuted in an old Chicago tram factory, grease was a game changer. Thanks to the songs, star-crossed romance, high school antics, frothy angst, it was the highest-grossing movie musical ever until its 2008 eclipse by Mama Mia!
At her heart, the serenity and apple cheeks of Olivia Newton-John.
Grease was a game-changer, a rite of passage for teenagers at the time.
Like 9/11 and Princess Di’s death, everyone knows where and when they first saw grease. My mate Margie was 14, queuing in “bad jeans, bad jumper, bad hair” outside the Bercy cinema at the top of Bourke St.
Olivia’s death at the age of 73 from the breast cancer she lived with for three decades made Margie tear up watching the TV tributes, packed with old clips of ONJ in her Xanadu roller-skating pomp, wide-eyed doing I Honestly Love You in ’74, duetting in a Camilla top and jeans with Farnesy on Two Strong Hearts in 2020.
Armed with a pawn shop camera, a cast of small town players and a heart bigger than Phar Lap, a Northern Territory director has proven you don’t need grants to shoot a feature film.
Or expensive equipment.
Or trained actors.
All director Phil O’Brien needed was a solid script and enough goodwill from a small northern township to see it through to a final cut.
“It was like climbing up Mount Everest in a pair of thongs,” said Mr O’Brien.
“Sometimes, every step you took it just got harder and harder.”
What finally emerged was an epic ode to a remote Australian coastal paradise, called The Boat With No Name, shot on location in East Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory.
A red carpet screening was held at the Gove Boat Club near the town of Nhulunbuy earlier this year, and garnered rave reviews from the locals – but the film nearly didn’t happen.
‘The Boat With No Name’ had its world premiere at the Gove Boat Club earlier this year.(Supplied: Rob Stewart)
Mr O’Brien, a fourth generation Territorian who is also an author, musician, former croc farmer and campfire raconteur, had his script ready to go, but no funding to back it up.
“I got knocked back by every grant body known to mankind,” he said.
“I got no money, no film crew, but I got the story, right?
“Any rational thinking person, at that stage, would’ve just given up and just gone and got a job somewhere. But that’s where I said, nup – the story has to be told.”
When he put the call out to get it funded, the East Arnhem community backed it in.
Community radio station Gove FM president “Rotten” Robbie Stewart is listed as co-producer in the credits, among the local businesses who helped bankroll the troppo production to the tune of around $10,000.
“I just felt that the legacy of this film would be such a wonderful investment into the community,” Mr Stewart said.
“Once it’s developed, it’s in the can, it’s history, and it will live long… it’s a time capsule.”
Co-producer Robbie Stewart says there were some challenging — and comical — moments on set.(ABC News: Michael Franchi)
The film stars what appears to be about a third of Nhulunbuy’s population, from the pool lifeguard to the print shop owner.
“The brilliance of this is the very fact that it’s all local,” said Mr Stewart.
“Luckily there was a lot of us that were just happy to pimp ourselves out for next to nothing, apart from the glory of seeing our name next to a picture on a movie.”
The film follows the exploits of a well-meaning ragamuffin named Slate, played by Mr O’Brien, who tries to use a hand-me-down boat to start up a fledgling tourism company.
Robbie Stewart, amateur actor Mike Rogers and Phil O’Brien, aboard the boat used in the film.(ABC News: Michael Franchi)
Despite its low budget, The Boat With No Name makes use of its stunning surrounds, and captures the ethos of the East Arnhem region: Indigenous and non-Indigenous people (Yolngu and balanda) working together to create something new.
“I wanted to do two things in this film,” said Mr O’Brien.
“I wanted to show black and white people just living together, having fun and taking on the journey of life together.
“And the second thing was to show a window into this fantastic area – the scenery, the characters … because not many Australians ever come here.”
Milminyina ‘Valarie’ Dhamarrandji, a Yolngu lady from the community of Gunyangara, said she acted in the film to leave a legacy for her great-grandchildren.
“This is the 21st century, and we should all be united, Yolngu and balanda,” Ms Dhamarrandji said.
Milminyina Dhamarrandji and Phil O’Brien wanted to showcase the strength of community in East Arnhem Land.(ABC News: Michael Franchi)
Another actor in the film, Mike Rogers, who plays a comedian who always laughs at his own jokes, said backing a project like Mr O’Brien’s was a natural for the East Arnhem region.
“The beauty of this community is everyone does get involved. Everyone’s got everyone’s back,” he said.
“It’s how we are. And take note of where we live – it’s a beautiful part of the world.”
Actor Anne Heche is brain dead, her spokesperson said Friday, a week after she crashed her car into a home in Los Angeles.
“While Anne is legally dead according to California law, her heart is still beating, and she has not been taken off life support so that One Legacy can see if she is a match for organ donation,” Heche’s spokesperson said in a statement to NBC News.
“We have lost a bright light, a kind and most joyful soul, a loving mother, and a loyal friend,” a statement on behalf of Heche’s family and friends said Friday.
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“Anne will be deeply missed but she lives on through her beautiful sons, her iconic body of work, and her passionate advocacy. Her bravery of her for always standing in her truth of her, spreading her message of love and acceptance, will continue to have a lasting impact.
On Monday, Heche, 53, was in a coma and in “extreme” condition after suffering an anoxic brain injury, her representative said.
Anne Heche has been declared legally dead after the crash. Credit: AP
Anoxic injuries occur when the brain is cut off from oxygen, causing cell death. Heche was in the Grossman Burn Center at West Hills Hospital.
He careened into a home in the Mar Vista community of Los Angeles last Friday. The home sustained damage from the “heavy fire” sparked by the collision, said Brian Humphrey, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Footage of smoke rising from the house after Anne Heche’s car crashed into it. Credit: NBC Los Angeles
She had drugs in her system, and she was being investigated for possibly driving under the influence, police said Thursday.
“In preliminary testing, the blood draw revealed the presence of drugs,” Los Angeles police said in a statement.
Police could not “comment right now on the presence of cocaine, fentanyl or alcohol at this time,” they said Thursday. “That will be determined by the second test.”
“The case is being investigated as a felony DUI traffic collision,” the statement said.
Anne Heche’s car after the ‘horrific’ crash. Credit: NBC Los Angeles
She landed her first notable role on the soap opera “Another World,” portraying Vicky Hudson and Marley Love into the early 1990s.
Later that decade, films such as Donnie Brasco, Volcano and I Know What You Did Last Summer helped propel her fame inside Hollywood and beyond.
Her television credits included Chicago PD and Men in Trees.
She met talk show host Ellen DeGeneres in 1997, when Vince Vaughn, her co-star in Return to Paradise, introduced them at a Los Angeles-area restaurant.
Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche in 1997. Credit: Brian K Diggs/AP
Heche and DeGeneres became romantically involved in a relationship that Heche said was groundbreaking for the time because of the global attention they received as Hollywood stars in a same-sex romance.
“My story is a story that created change in the world, moved the needle for equal rights forward, when I fell in love with Ellen DeGeneres,” she said in a taped segment that year for the show Dancing With the Stars.
Actress Anne Heche is legally dead after a traffic accident in Los Angeles. Credit: AP
When their three-year relationship ended in 2000, Heche was hospitalized after she was found wandering in a rural area of Fresno County, California, acting disoriented and confused, authorities said.
He described her struggles with her mental health in her 2001 memoir, Call Me Crazy.
“I wanted to beat everybody else to the punch,” she said about the book in an interview that year with Larry King. “I certainly know what’s been written about me in the press. I, although I was never diagnosed as being crazy, I went crazy.”
Heche also wrote about her relationship with DeGeneres. She said it was groundbreaking as a high-profile, same-sex romance but that it cost her career dearly.
Heche said she could not get hired for a role by a major studio for nearly a decade.
Later, she married Coley Laffoon, and the couple had a son before they divorced. She had another son in 2009 with actor James Tupper, her co-star in Men in Trees; they separated.
In a family statement earlier in the week, Heche was described as having a “huge heart” and as someone who “touched everyone she met with her generous spirit.”
“More than her extraordinary talent, she saw spreading kindness and joy as her life’s work — especially moving the needle for acceptance of who you love,” the statement said. “She will be remembered for her courageous honesty from her and dearly missed for her light from her.”
– With Tim Stelloh and Dennis Romero NBC
Watch: Vanessa Amorosi learns about the death of Olivia Newton-John
Watch: Vanessa Amorosi learns about the death of Olivia Newton-John
If you walk into a playground and start to sing “There’s a bear in there”, chances are someone else at that playground will join you with “and a chair as well”.
For 56 years, Play School has taught Australian children and their families games, stories, songs and craft ideas.
To mark 90 years of broadcasting, the ABC has been asking Australians to share what the organization has meant to them over the years through Your ABC Story.
A common story has emerged of how Play School has made generations of Australians feel safe, happy and educated.
Benita Collings and John Waters appear in a Play School episode during the 1960s. (ABC: Archives)
“As a young child, my first television experience was being allowed to watch ABC, Play School being one of the shows I adored,” Jade said in her submission to Your ABC Story.
“When my younger brother was born in 2001, my love for Play School was reignited and I loved watching the show with him. This is when we would bond, watching hosts such as Jay, Rhys and Georgie.
“I now have had a daughter of my own and cannot wait to share with her this incredible show.”
Play School was first broadcast by the ABC on July 18, 1966, as a copy of the BBC’s Play School program, and it is the second-longest-running kids TV show in the world.
The presenters change but the toys are like familiar friends for many children.(abc kids)
While the program has changed over the years to reflect Australian society, key aspects have remained the same.
Liz Giuffre, senior lecturer in communications at the University of Technology Sydney, says this is part of the program’s ongoing appeal.
“There’s something very familiar about Play School. Of course the presenters change… but you do have the old staples of Big Ted and Little Ted,” Dr Giuffre said.
The different shaped windows, an early introduction to the show, was an original element that the British version didn’t have.(ABC: Archives)
For many parents, watching Play School with their kids can make them feel more connected, as they are sharing something they loved from their childhood.
“I grew up with the ABC watching Play School and felt a sense of pride when my son was watching it when he was little,” Michael wrote for Your ABC Story.
“I just love that I watched Play School as a child and am reliving all the fun games, songs and characters again with my daughter. So many generations have gained so much from this fabulous show,” Rebecca wrote.
The familiarity of the program format brings “dual comfort”, says Dr Giuffre, as parents know the program is comforting for the kids with familiar faces and activities, and it can also bring back memories of happy times for the parents.
For Tara, Play School was her “safe place.”
“Watching Play School as a child helped me to escape, particularly during story time,” Tara wrote.
“For half an hour a day, I could see what kind and safe adults were like.
“It was an experience of comfort in an otherwise very chaotic childhood.”
George Spartels (holding Hamble) and Benita Collings (with Meeka) on the Play School set in the late 1980s. (ABC: Play School)
Dr Giuffre said this comfort factor was why Play School was so important during lockdowns, as a place to bring familiarity and reassurance to children and their parents.
And while Play School does not usually mention what’s going on in the world at the time, because wars and politics are “problems for the adults”, Dr Giuffre said she was pleased to see them make the Handwashing Song special segment at the start on the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Something like COVID, it did affect those children… it did change what they were able to do, and [Play School presenters] had roles to play,” she said.
“We’ve never had something that has hit us all so immediately and for so long. There was nobody who wasn’t affected.
“I was so grateful that [Play School and the Wiggles] they were there because it felt like we could work together with them.”
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.
Play School’s Wash Your Hands song
Teaching little kids and their parents
Play School is an educational program at its core and many Australians have been helped to learn their numbers, colours, and days of the week by watching Play School.
“Play School gave me hours of entertainment and the clock segment taught me how to tell time on an analogue clock!” Tayla wrote to Your ABC Story.
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The program has also helped many, both young and old, with learning English.
“I was eight years old and didn’t know a word of English,” Steph wrote about moving to Australia as a child.
“I watched Play School for one year to learn the days of the week and much more.
“I came home crying most days because of the language barrier, but Play School was always there to cheer me up.”
“My French husband arrived in Australia in 1990 with barely a word of English,” Meredith wrote.
“He would hurry home from his language classes in time to watch Play School. The simple and repetitive language helped him learn not only English, but Australian.”
While Play School is written by people with expertise in early childhood education, the presenters are actors, musicians and comedians who usually do not have an educator background.
Alanna wrote that she grew up watching Play School when it was in black and white.
When she was studying to become a teacher, Alanna worked on an assignment comparing early childhood TV programs.
“One of the differences being that Play School was shot in one take. Minimal room for error,” she wrote.
“All the presenters brought their own style and personality to the table.”
The joys of being a presenter
John Hamblin and Noni Hazelhurst with some old favorite toys on Play School.(ABC: Archives)
Many of the Play School presenters have gone on to have successful careers outside of the program, but there are a few favorites from over the years that are mostly known for their Play School roles.
Benita Collings was the longest-running presenter, appearing in 401 episodes over 30 years, with John Hamblin in second place with 357 episodes and 29 years.
“It’s one thing that I’d love to go back to now if they had great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers on,” Mr Hamblin told the ABC’s Overnights program in 2016 to mark Play School’s 50th year.
“As soon as I walked into the studio where we were doing the auditions, there were all these colored blocks and toys and things and I thought, ‘This is great’.
“They’re going to pay me to do this. I really enjoyed the whole thing.
“It’s the one job that really meant something to me…because it was doing some good.”
Play School continues to be broadcast on ABC TV and across digital platforms such as iview and the ABC Kids App, and as long as it keeps kids and their parents feeling safe and entertained, there is no reason why Play School won’t be here in another 50 years’ time.
Brazilian daughter ‘cons her mother out of £48million painting by using a fake psychic to convince her that it was “cursed”‘
Sabine Coll Boghici allegedly swindled mother, 82, out of art worth £116million
Celebrated painting Sol Poente (1949) by Tarsila do Amaral is worth nearly £50m
Two-year scam saw psychic tell Genevieve Boghici that her daughter would die
Psychics used personal information provided by daughter to spook mother: cops
By Adam Solomons For Mailonline
Published: | Updated:
A woman has been arrested on suspicion of swindling a painting worth nearly £50million from her 82-year-old mother by hiring a psychic to claim it was ‘cursed’.
Sabine Coll Boghici, 48, allegedly tricked Genevieve Boghici, whose late husband was an art collector, into handing over Sol Poente (1949) by Tarsila do Amaral.
The celebrated artwork worth £48million was previously exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
It is part of a haul of cash, art and jewelery worth 724million reais (£116.3 million) allegedly defrauded by Sabine.
Her arrest has exposed a disturbing web of fraud that police say lasted years.
It even involved alleged psychics to swindle artwork by some of Brazil’s most emblematic painters, cops claim.
Police officers pose with Sol Poente by Tarsila do Amaral, which is worth £48million alone. Its owner, Genevieve Boghici, 82, was ‘swindled out of the painting’ by her daughter de ella and psychics
Four people were arrested when officers in Brazil raided the home of a psychic. They were allegedly hired by the owner’s daughter to say the paintings were ‘cursed’
Four other people were also arrested and two others, Diana Rosa Aparecida Stanesco Vuletic and Slavko Vuletic, are on the run.
The scam began in 2020 when Genevieve was approached by a supposed psychic with prophecies of her daughter’s imminent death.
The victim was then taken to several more psychics, who police say used personal information provided by her daughter to scam her distraught mother into transferring money to pay for ‘spiritual treatment.’
In the months that followed, police allege the suspects physically threatened Genevieve and that she was kept at home for months by her daughter.
Sabine Coll Boghici was filmed being led out of her home during her arrest earlier this week
The iconic Brazilian artwork was exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2018
Sabine and an accomplice posing as a psychic ‘began to take the artwork from the (mother’s) house, claiming that the painting was cursed with something negative, with negative energy that needed to be prayed over,’ said Rio de Janeiro police officer Gilberto Ribeiro .
After almost a year of being mistreated by Sabine and her accomplices, the victim decided to go to the police.
Police say 16 paintings were stolen, including works by renowned Brazilian artists like Cicero Dias, Rubens Gerchman and Alberto Guignard.
Three pieces from iconic modernist painter Tarsila do Amaral – O Sono, Sol Poente and Pont Neuf – were also stolen, which together police appraised at a value of 700 million reais (£111.4million).
Amaral’s Sol Poente was among 11 paintings recovered Wednesday in a Rio de Janeiro police raid on one of the psychic’s homes.
Authorities have also recovered three paintings in São Paulo. Two were sold to a museum in Buenos Aires but have not yet been recovered.
Police say seven people are suspected of involvement in the years-long crime, facing charges of embezzlement, robbery, extortion, false imprisonment and criminal association.
Yon late 2021, a series of videos started circulating social media: a gifted singer belting out R&B and hip-hop tunes with a uniquely New Zealand take. The songs were stripped back to their bare guitar basics, peppered with Māori words and New Zealand in-jokes. Behind the renditions, there was something deeply, immediately recognizable: a guitar sound musicians call the “Māori strum”.
It is perhaps New Zealand’s most distinctive and enduring musical sound, strummed on guitars across the country and often nicknamed jing-a-jikor rakuraku, after the cadence it produces. It is a strum heard not only at marae (meeting houses), family gatherings and competitive kapa haka (action dance) performances, but in some of the country’s most beloved hits, including OMC’s How Bizarre and Crowded House’s Don’t Dream It’s Over.
Musician and actor Maaka Pohatu’s TikTok series, lengthily titled “00’s club bangas if they were Māori style garage party guitar jams (songs in the key of Māori)”, were an instant hit – racking up hundreds of thousands of views.
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At is most basic, the Māori strum uses three to four chords and a light upward strum matched with a heavy downward strum on the second and fourth beat, to produce a rich combination of bass and treble, delivered with swinging percussion.
“It is a way of interpreting really technical songs… and breaking it down into its most basic components,” Pohatu says.
The beauty of the strum, which has been fine-tuned at garage parties across the nation, is its simplicity and familiarity.
“The garage party is all about the whole room singing along,” Pohatu says. “Even if you’re not a great singer it doesn’t matter, it’s about the inclusivity. We have a saying: if a song makes it to a Māori garage party, then it is an anthem.”
Pohatu first came across the idea for the Māori strum-R&B medleys while touring overseas in 2009. He joined a jam circle with award-winning pop musician Rob Ruha and Rawiri Waititi, now the co-leader of the Māori party.
“They were doing the Māori strum and put together a medley of love songs, including Low by T-Pain,” he says. As each verse came to an end, it was up to the next singer to keep the medley going, in friendly competition. Pohatu’s TikTok versions also became collaborative affairs – some artists added duets to his songs by him, others dance actions in the style of kapa haka.
The videos were made during New Zealand’s long Covid lockdowns. “In a way, TikTok was fulfilling [the garage party] – if I couldn’t go to a mate’s house, then I would try to bring the vibe to TikTok.”
Once you look for the strum, it shows up everywhere in New Zealand pop. Neil Finn credits it with forming the spine of a number of Crowded House songs.
“That influence has always been there,” Finn said in a 1995 Sunday Star-Times interview. “It’s deep as hell from childhood because that’s the way that we learned how to play guitar and heard people play guitars around us.”
“I don’t remember the first time I heard it, but I know I was very young,” says New Zealand singer-songwriter Marlon Williams, who recently joined Lorde on her European tour. The strum echoed through his early memories of Kohanga Reo – Māori preschool – and the sound of waiata (song).
Its distinctiveness is hard to pinpoint, but Williams believes it is recognizable through its “use of muting and its feathery, dull percussion.”
A few years ago, Williams started playing his “own little variations on the strum, just from sitting around and jamming.”
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My Boy, a single from his new record, was one of the fruits of that time: the song blends that full-hearted, rhythmic strum with a disco-pop hook. “I do think of it as a Māori strum,” he says of the song. “It uses the mute, it’s played without a pick, but mostly it’s in the way the vocal phrasing skates over the guitar.”
But for a musical tradition with such a strong imprint on the country’s culture, little is known of its exact origins. Recordings of it appear around the time of the second world war, when touring Māori soldiers had their performances committed to tape. It later proliferated throughout the 60s alongside the rise of pop music.
Dr Michael Brown, the music curator at the Alexander Turnbull Library, captured some of its history in his doctoral thesis.
“I encountered many versions of the Māori strum style; every player seemed to have their own slightly different, vernacular approach,” Brown writes. “The strum’s full chords and percussive accents operate as a versatile accompaniment that can be adapted to suit almost any song.”
As New Zealanders increasingly embrace the Māori language, Williams says, its musicality also starts to feed into pop, and the musical sound.
“The musicality of waiata Māori is implicit in the sound, grammar and cadence of the reo. As more and more of the country start experiencing it as a living language, we won’t be able to help but let whakaaro Māori (Māori ideas) penetrate the flavor of our music.”
Pohatu points to musicians like Williams and Rob Ruha as the torchbearers for an ever-evolving, and distinctive, style of Māori music.
“They really are incorporating the entire history of Māori music, kapa haka, Māori show bands with all of today’s fancy bells and whistles and super crisp production … It’s quite a beautiful thing.”
