Celebrities like glamour couple Brendan Cowell and Rose Byrne, Larry Emdur, Damian Walshe-Howling and Australia's Next Top Model's Alice Burdeu and Adele Thiel, to namedrop a few, sashayed down the black carpet.

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But there was no star bigger than the man himself, Austrian gay fashion icon Bruno (aka comedian Sacha Baron Cohen), who turned up with this season's must have accessory, a blinkered white horse. (Considering the vociferous paparazzi flashes, the blinkers were a great idea. They should have been handed out to the public for occupational health and safety reasons.)

Bruno himself was carrying protection, in the form of a helmet and glinting armour that made up his Gladiator 2009 look, and was accented by four silver-coated back-up models in red bikinis.

The start of the film was held-up for an hour as the great man tried to fulfill all the needs of the man and the journalists on the street outside, but the excited crowd in the theatre was kept happy with flowing champagne and a goody box.

Finally six dancers in tight yellow lederhosen, performing suggestively to "Ich kommen zur LA," heralded the arrival of the man of the moment. "Wassup, Sydney! Last night ich touched Rove's bullycock," he started. "There vasn't much there." He continued, "In the last 18 days I have been in seven countries which is more than any Austrian since 1941." He then hoped his movie would go on to great things like herpes, before leaving the warmed up crowd to enjoy the premiere and the after party at the Hilton's Zeta Bar.

Bruno opens July 8.

By Deb Grunfeld