Australian Story: Aug 22

In the second part of Australian Story‘s profile of Ita Buttrose, the journalist and publisher recounts the ‘ballistic’ consequences of leaving Kerry Packer’s empire to go to work for his great rival, Rupert Murdoch.

Suddenly there were tougher times, culminating in the failure of her own magazine Ita.

‘It was like her third baby and she lost it. It hurts’ says her brother Julian. ‘I licked my wounds for a few months… but you know not everything you do in life works. You’ve just got to accept that’ says Ita Buttrose.

From being the most admired woman in Australia, she suddenly found herself applying for jobs and receiving no response. ‘Society kind of spat her out and nobody came to her aid’ says former colleague and Cleo editor, Shelley Gare.

But when the smash hit drama series Paper Giants reignited interest in Ita Buttrose, she was poised and ready to embrace a wave of opportunities with undiminished vigour and determination.

According to Trevor Kennedy, former Packer right hand man, ‘Ita’s always had a major eye for the main chance’.

This week she talks candidly about men, dating, loneliness, family, media ethics and grabbing life by the throat, at any age…

8pm Monday on ABC1.