Lowy Family – up close with ABC-TV
As he privately celebrates his 80th birthday, a powerful series on some of Australia’s most famous and influential families opens with the hidden face of Frank Lowy, at an extraordinary turning point in his family’s history.
Peter, Shirley, Frank,Steven and David Lowy
Family Confidential will launch onNovember-15 on ABC1-TV with Frank Lowy speaking for the first time publicly about his private feelings.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the global multi-million dollar retail brand Westfield which Frank Lowy created from a small suburban shopping centre.
But behind the meteoric success is a family that is still struggling to reconcile its past and its future. As Lowy comes full circle with his past, he returns to eastern Europe to finally lay the ghosts that have shaped him and his family for over 70 years.
The Lowys are pillars of the Australian Jewish community, but Frank’s father, Hugo, struggled to make a living and provide for his wife and five children during the Nazi occupation of Hungary. When he disappeared suddenly, and without trace in 1944, the experience marked Frank indelibly.
Years later, despite the incredible business success he enjoys in his adopted country Australia, Frank Lowy and his three sons, who have joined him at the highest echelons of corporate power, still nurse a deep, private wound.
He speaks about it for the first time and the private side of the bold, tough businessman is shown to be poignantly vulnerable.
