Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo

In early 1972, 30-year-old journalist and editor, Ita Buttrose and 35-year old Kerry Packer, heir to what was then Australia's most ruthlessly powerful and influential publishing family, got together to create a magazine that became one of the most dramatic sensations in Australian publishing history. CLEO went on to help define women, Australia and the relationship between the two. Research and marketing analysis showed the project would be a failure and the magazine was vehemently opposed by the powerful head of the Packer clan, the domineering Sir Frank Packer (known to his employees as "God"), yet Ita and Kerry, knowing the consequences of failure would be dire, decided to back their gut instincts anyway. With courage and a stubborn belief in each other the odd couple went for it, and the result was a magazine that not only surfed the emerging 70s zeitgeist, but led the way in articulating for women a new way of thinking about themselves and their place in cultural Australia. Women readers found in CLEO a manifesto for a new confidence and an argument against the entrenched patriarchy that had for too long defined the relationship between the sexes. Filled with intelligence, wit, and a 'go for it' attitude, the fledgling CLEO took off on its first issue, taking Kerry, Ita, and a hand-picked bunch of iconoclastic staffers along for the ride. CLEO was a women's magazine with a libido and a curiosity about almost everything... (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)