Life Sentences Podcast

Caroline Hodgson took the name Madame Brussels to become the ‘flash madam’ of Melbourne in the post Gold Rush era. Her business sense for buying real estate and flair for style and comfort attracted the big end of town, as well as the attention of the press. As well as running a brothel, she was a wife and a mother, a fascinating character who showed care and consideration for her employees. Her biographer Barbara Minchinton uncovers her story through a mix of archaeology, a photo album and the sleuthing skills of a feminist historian.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Caroline Baum interviewed Fleet Street veteran royal correspondent Robert Jobson about his new, very favourable biography of Katherine, Princess of Wales, the conversation did not go as planned.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For decades, Kitty Kelley has held the reputation as the queen of celebrity biography in the US, writing juicy and revealing accounts of the lives of Jackie Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, The Bush family, Nancy Reagan etc. Now in her eighties, she reflects on how she got started as a journalist in Washington DC, and reveals some of the tricks and techniques that she used to get reliable sources to talk to her while avoiding prosecution from her powerful subjects. In this candid and revealing conversation she talks about the rewards and downsides of a unique career as the world’s bestselling biographer.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Donald Horne was Australia’s leading public intellectual in the sixties and seventies and coined the phrase The Lucky Country in his bestselling book of the same title. The phrase has entered the Australian vernacular, and is often misused and interpreted as a sign of national complacency.   Before he became an author, Horne had tried on many hats: as a journalist, ad man, and editor; later he became an academic and a bureaucrat. The big story in his life was his political shift from the conservative right to the progressive left, thanks to his enthusiasm for Gough Whitlam’s vision of Australia’s potential.   Famous for his love of a long lunch (especially when he was the editor of the Bulletin), he was indeed lucky to find in his second wife Myfanwy a partner who was a true collaborator in all his ideas.   Ryan Cropp’s energetic debut biography captures the paradoxes and many-faceted ambitions of the man and his times.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.