Ita
Buttrose ... Warned producers of miniseries 'Paper Giants: the Birth of Cleo'
storyline on ex-husband wrong before broadcast. Source:
The Daily Telegraph
Annette Sharp, The Daily Telegraph, reports
Publishing icon and former magazine editor Ita Buttrose says she informed the producers of Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo that the storyline concerning her ex husband was wrong before the mini-series was broadcast.
Speaking for the first time since the NSW Supreme Court ordered the ABC and production company Southern Star to offer Alisdair "Mac" Macdonald a full apology in April in response to a defamation action being brought by Macdonald, Buttrose, who had a minor consulting role on the mini-series, has distanced herself from the storyline that saw her former husband depicted as a man so threatened by his wife's success he abandoned his family.
The ABC settled out of court with Macdonald and ordered to withdraw DVD copies of the acclaimed drama from sale.
Buttrose, who is currently promoting a new edition of her autobiography 'A Passionate Life', told online media site Mumbrella that she warned producers the material was inaccurate.
"I told them it was incorrect - and that was before the show ever went to air. I couldn't persuade them to change it,'' she said.
"Overall I was pleased and thought it captured well the spirit of the seventies, but I was always concerned that the drama was a mixture of real people being portrayed as themselves with experiences that actually happened plus ones that didn't, being portrayed as fact rather than fiction.
"This turned out to be particularly true in the way my first husband was depicted. I was upset about this and sent Southern Star producer John Edwards an email on 6 March 2011 before the show went to air about my concerns. I also relayed them to scriptwriter Christopher Lee, who was sympathetic but told me you win some you lose some, Ita.''
In the mini-series Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo, Macdonald is portrayed walking out on a pregnant Buttrose and their young daughter Kate - leaving only a note after telling his wife he needed to leave the marriage to be "a free spirit''.
The couple's marriage in fact survived another three years after the couple's second child, a son Ben, was born.
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