cleveland854321: SHE IS WOMAN

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

SHE IS WOMAN

Helen Maxine Lamond Reddy or simply Helen Reddy was born in Melbourne, Australia on October 25, 1941. She's the second generation Hollywood royalty daughter of an actress named Stella Campbell (née Lamond) and an actor, writer and producer named Maxwell David "Max" Reddy. Employed as actors and singers were half-sister, Toni Lamond, and her nephew, Tony Sheldon. Former mayor of Waterloo, New South Wales Thomas Lamond is her great-grandfather. A singer and dancer named Stella Lamond was her grandmother. New Zealand's Governor-General Patsy Reddy was a distant cousin. With the outbreak of World War II, her father found himself in the Australian Army with an army unit who's primary purpose was troop entertainment. He was promoted to sergeant of the army unit during his tour of duty. After his tour of duty, he did the Australian Vaudeville circuit when she was four years old until her father ended up fighting in the Australian Army Unit during Korean War. Helen Reddy continued to due the entertainment circuit from age four all the way to seventeen. The pressures of being a child entertainer caused her to indulge in rebellious acts from age twelve to seventeen. Among the rebellious acts was a brief and ill advised marriage to an older age musician Kenneth Claude Weate which resulted in childbirth. Gaining primary custody of her baby with child and wife support unknown, Helen Reddy continued to perform the entertainment circuit---This time as an unwed single mother. It's not known if she ever attended school during this period of time. She didn't need to when she won a talent show contest on the Australian television series Bandstand. Her prize was a recording contract with Mercury Records. Armed with a two way airplane ticket to New York City, New York, she learned that Mercury Records changed their minds and chose not to pursue a recording contract. The unwed single mother performer stayed in New York City and continued to perform while still a citizen of Australia. It was difficult to find work in the New York City with a work visa, but easy to find work in Canada which was in the same British Commonwealth of Nations as Australia. She married secretary and future talent coordinator Jeff Wald. Jeff Wald took control of her career which resulted in her first recording contract in 1971 and she worked non-stop until 1983. She had her second child, a son, with Jeff Wald, but they divorced in 1981---Two years before she vanished from the music industry. She continued working despite having doors shut in her face from 1983 until she quit the music industry in 2002, returned in 2011, dropped out, returned in 2013 and she's still working the music clubs to this exact moment of time.