Cowell was seeing the early evidence of Packer’s ability to soak in opinion and information, feeding the gut instinct that first found its voice in Cleo, and would later make Channel Nine into the powerhouse of television.
‘Cleo was his,’ Cowell says. ‘He created it, he gave the people who created it the room to breathe. It was, “If you think it’s a good idea, go for it.”’
‘It was a time when it was all changing really quickly, it was really exciting. Photography was changing dramatically, people were starting to use a lot more colour. Up till then, if you were really lucky, you might have one-third of a magazine in colour; Cleo was 50/50.’
Cartoonist Patrick Cook was another early contributor to Cleo. He, too, recalls an electric atmosphere where, in the months after Cleo’s zeroine-to-heroine ascendancy, anything seemed possible.
‘I can’t think of anything that was mentioned to me that Kerry had rejected as an idea—the centrefold, the sealed sections. It was very bold for its time. I think he was more prepared to take a chance and see if it sold. And when it sold, that did it.’
Ita Buttrose, speaking to George Negus in 2004 on ABC TV’s George Negus Tonight, recalled that Kerry Packer wasn’t always entirely fearless. ‘The only time I ever remember Kerry looking a bit pale was in the very early days of Cleo, when we were putting in a story about how female masturbation could help overcome frigidity …’
Still, Kerry Packer was prepared to try anything that would tickle Cleo’s readers, for every circulation gain meant another finger-salute at Sir Frank.
Packer wandered over to Cowell one day for the customary smoke, greeting the art director with: ‘Son, you look like shit. You need a break. Why don’t you go and have a look at what’s happening in other publishing companies around the world? Go to America, go to Europe.’
Cowell says he wasn’t quite sure what this meant. But he mentioned it to Buttrose and—in the way that things worked when Kerry Packer wanted something done—a wad of plane tickets and traveller’s cheques was soon lobbed wordlessly on Cowell’s desk.
Cowell’s trip lasted three weeks, most of that time spent in his native London, with a few days’ stopover on the way home to visit printers in Hong Kong. Cowell gorged himself on the smorgasbord of European magazines available in London. It was one of these—a German magazine—that gave Cleo its titillating sealed section, and Cowell one of his most treasured ‘cigarette-break moments’.
On his return Cowell presented the German magazine to the Cleo printers, who stood there, shaking their heads. The sealed section, they said, was too complicated to produce.
‘That’s when Kerry came in, grabbed a cigarette—“And what are you guys talking about?” And these two guys obviously thought, “Oh shit.” I said, “Oh, we’re just trying to do this, but apparently it’s really complex …” I thought they were telling me the truth, to be honest. I was sure the Germans were the only ones who could do it.
‘Kerry said: “Bullshit! All you’ve got to do is move the turning arm so it doesn’t fold short, then it will only trim off that length.”’
Cowell was gobsmacked by his boss’s knowledge of printing and binding, though he shouldn’t have been, given Packer’s hard, grinding apprenticeship. The two printers, caught bang to rights, snivelled: ‘Yes, yes, we’ll investigate that method, Mr Packer.’
‘Don’t investigate it. It will fucking work.’
Cleo was a tearaway success.
Two years later, Cowell had relocated to London, floating around the magazine scene. In early-1979, he got a call from Ita Buttrose, asking if he’d consider returning to Sydney. Two nights later, Packer called two night later and made an offer. Cowell remembers it along the lines of ‘get your arse back here’. By the time Cowell reached his London desk the following morning, there sat a manila envelope with the necessary paperwork.
If there’s one word that comes up often in discussion about Kerry Packer (aside from the favourite, four-letter one), it’s ‘loyalty’.
‘Oh, loyalty was an enormous thing to him,’ says Cowell. ‘Huge. I think if he ever thought you were trying to take the piss you were in deep trouble. If, on the other hand you were good and you worked hard, I think it was very much appreciated.’
Back at ACP, Cowell was soon named overall creative director. About a year after his return, he committed to buying a small house in Sydney’s inner west.
Cowell approached ACP managing director Rob Henty and asked: ‘Mr Henty, I want to buy a house and I need a deposit. Is there any way I could borrow it?’
Cowell grins as he recalls: ‘Literally two to three hours later Rob Henty said, “Come up and see me.” So I went up and there was this little letter that said ACP had loaned Andrew Cowell, interest-free, repayable on demand, the amount of $10,000 … The next morning I went to the bank and there it was.’
A couple of years passed. Happy as Cowell was at ACP, the opportunity to change tack and edit a magazine at another publishing house was a challenge he couldn’t resist. But there remained the matter of the $10,000 loan, which he’d made no effort to pay off.
‘So I had to call Rob Henty and say, “Mr Henty, I’m actually resigning and I want to leave quite quickly, because I’ve been offered this job I really want to do … My big concern is obviously that I owe you $10,000.” He went and had a chat to the boss, and then I get the call: “Mr Packer would like to see you.”
‘So I went up there and he says, “Son, you’ve got a real problem. You owe me money.” And then he asked why was I going, what was I going to do.
‘I think he really enjoyed winding me up. And
