60 Minutes: Nov 6

Dame Helen Mirren will be interviewed this Sunday for 60 Minutes by Liam Bartlett. Wonder if Joan Collins will be watching?

There’s also a report from Peter Overton on “empty nesters”, which is what you get when your Rafters kids have finally flown the coop. Also known as ‘spending the kids inheritance!’

A New Shot at Life
They call it “the long goodbye” and it’s the most heartbreaking journey imaginable. Alzheimer’s robs its victims of their memory and their dignity, erasing their personalities until all that is left is the shell of their bodies. Thirteen hundred Australians are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s every week, making it more common than cancer or even heart disease. And for those who get the news, it’s as good as a death sentence. Until now. Michael Usher visited a revolutionary clinic that’s offering real hope to sufferers and their families. The doctors there believe Alzheimer’s disease can be reversed and they have the results to prove it.
Reporter: Michael Usher
Producer: Jo Townsend

The Empty Nesters
It had to happen, eventually. That generation of stay-at-home kids has finally grown up and flown the coop. Peter Overton first met these coddled twenty and thirty-somethings five years ago. Back then, they were sleeping in their childhood bedrooms, letting their parents pay the bills and stashing away money for a future that never seemed to arrive. Well, it has now. And their Mums and Dads couldn’t be more pleased, most of them, anyway. They’re celebrating, happily spending their hard-earned savings on something completely different – themselves.
Reporter: Peter Overton
Producer: Sandra Cleary

Dame Helen
Sometimes, it’s the late starters who finish first but it’s a rule that doesn’t often apply to Hollywood. Dame Helen Mirren is a spectacular exception. Her career only took off when she was in her forties. And when it did, she managed to shatter another movie star myth, by proving an actress could combine beauty and brains. Along the way, she’s become a Dame of the British empire, and an international pin-up girl for ageing gracefully. But when Liam Bartlett was granted an audience with Dame Helen in Berlin, he soon found this Oscar-winning screen queen is not one for airs and graces.
Reporter: Liam Bartlett
Producers: Gareth Harvey, Sandra Cleary

7:30pm Sunday on Nine.