Sad new details emerge after Geoffrey Edelsten found dead at 78
Geoffrey Edelsten reportedly lived the final few months of his life as a recluse and was found in his Melbourne apartment by his cleaner.
The controversial doctor and businessman and former owner of the Sydney Swans died on Friday at the age of 78.
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Victoria Police said a report would be prepared for the coroner following the discovery of Edelsten's body in his St Kilda Road apartment on Friday afternoon.
The death is not being treated as suspicious.
Sad details have now emerged about the final few months of Edelsten's life, with friends telling the Herald Sun he had become a "recluse".
The publication reported on Saturday that Edelsten was found by his cleaner, with his carer, brother and another woman spotted at his apartment in the hours after his death
“He was very pleasant, extremely well-mannered,” a neighbour told the Herald Sun.
“He was an old-school gentleman and very respectful. He was extremely private. He never really spoke to others in the building.
“The only people who would come to visit him this last year were his brother, his close family and his carers.”
Andrew Rule wrote on Sunday: "For a man who spent most of his adult life chasing fame and friends, Geoffrey Edelsten died not only alone but lonely.
"In his declining months, it seems, it was mostly paid domestic staff who had contact with him."
How Geoffrey Edelsten saved the Sydney Swans
Born in Carlton to Jewish migrant parents in 1943, Edelsten spent most of his years surrounded by controversy.
After working as a resident at the Royal Melbourne Hospital he became a GP, and with a colleague established a practice in Sydney's eastern suburbs.
In the 1980s he set up a string of open-all-hours medical clinics that featured grand pianos and chandeliers in the waiting rooms. Patients, who were bulk-billed, flocked to the clinics.
He was deregistered in NSW in 1988 and later in Victoria.
He became, by his own description, a "white knight" of the Sydney Swans in 1985 as they faced dire financial pressure and concerns they couldn't survive.
He spent time in jail, found guilty in 1990 of soliciting a well known hit-man, Christopher Dale Flannery, to assault a former patient.
Edelsten claimed bankruptcy in both Australia and the United States in 2014, citing a number of bad business deals including "splurging" millions on ghetto estates going cheap during the US mortgage crisis.
But it was his relationships with pretty young blondes that kept him in the spotlight.
He divorced first wife Leanne, a model, in 1988 after a three-year marriage, then married American fitness instructor Brynne Gordon in 2009 when she was 40 years his junior.
Less than a year after splitting with Brynne in 2013, he proposed to American model Gabi Grecko, 46 years his junior, at the Melbourne Cup.
Their on-again off-again relationship received much attention following Ms Grecko's outlandish social media outbursts and revealing photos.
Their love bubble burst not long after, with claims of infidelity on Edelsten's behalf and a range of public spats.
By 2016 a bankrupt Edelsten was being chased by more than 40 creditors in Australia and the US, including the Australian Taxation Office, for millions of dollars.
with AAP
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