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Hilary Linstead, the agent, casting director and film producer who launched Australia’s first talent agency, has died aged 83.

Talked of as a “force of nature” by industry friends, Linstead is considered to have nurtured many of Australia’s most successful stage, film and TV talents, and is known for discovering Rome and Juliet director Baz Luhrmann among others, representing him and the likes of Power of the Dog director Jane Campion, Gillian Armstrong (Little Women) and Adelaide festival joint artistic director Neil Armfield.

Linstead was born in London in 1938 but moved to Australia to become an actress. However, she soon switched to become a casting director and worked at International Casting Services representing actresses. She then teamed with Liz Mullinar to form M&l Casting Consultants, which led casting on productions such as Rocky Horror Show and Jesus Christ Superstar and Australian film classics such as Picnic at Hanging Rock.

Independent website The Hoopla is asking its readers to help pay its writers. In return The Hoopla is offering to keep them up to date with how the site is doing commercially, including disclosing its advertising income and what it pays its journalists and writers.

The site – which targets middle aged women – was launched by Wendy Harmer in June last year.

Female-focused sites have become a key commercial battleground. earlier this week, Mia Freedman revealed she had been dropped as a columnist by News Limited, suggesting that it was because of the success of her site Mamamia. Fairfax has launched its own offering, Daily Life.

Because The Hoopla is unaudited it is hard to tell exactly what traffic it is getting. However the free (and not always accurate) audience assesment service Alexa, suggests The Hoopla is yet to make a breakthrough that would drive major advertising support.

(Update: We’re...

When Wilfred and.Lowdown co-creator Adam Zwar was in high school and university, he was fairly sure he must be deformed or charmless. Perhaps even both. At least in the eyes of women.

"All I was hearing were stories of success, while I was just going through failure after failure," he says. "It wasn't until later in life that I realised that all guys feel like that, and I think it's important that guys know they're not alone when they luck out."

Fast forward to 2012 and Zwar's production company has created Agony Uncles, a six-part series with the tagline 'When you have absolutely no-one else to turn to.'

The series, which is executive produced by Zwar alongisde Amanda Brotchie and Nicole Minchin, features 18 men including animator Adam Elliott, academic Waleed Ali and actor Josh Lawson, discussing everything from picking up and the first date to getting your heart broken and moving on again.