Toni Lamond

Lamond was born in Sydney in 1932, as Patricia Lamond Lawman. She began her professional career at the age of 10 when she sang on the radio while touring with her vaudevillian parents in variety shows, which included her actress mother Stella Lamond and father Joe Lawman. Her first stage performances were at the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney. Her first performances as a leading lady were with English comedian Tommy Trinder in The Tommy Trinder Show in 1952.[3]

She has starred in Australian productions of Oliver!, Annie Get Your Gun, The Pajama Game, and Gypsy: A Musical Fable, and was a regular in a number of 1970s television shows, such as Number 96 and Graham Kennedy's In Melbourne Tonight.[2] She later compèred her own IMT, becoming the first woman in the world to compère a variety television show.[4]

She travelled to the United Kingdom, where she appeared in the British night club circuit and on BBC-TV and BBC Radio. She also recorded two singles for Philips in London.[4] In the mid 1970s, Lamond moved to Los Angeles, where she appeared in musicals and television shows. She debuted on the New York stage with Cabaret at the age of 67. In 1986, she made a small appearance on the American crime series Murder, She Wrote in the episode “Murder in the Electric Cathedral” credited as “Ad-Lib Woman”. On her return to Australia in the mid 1990s, she performed in shows including 42nd Street, The Pirates of Penzance, and My Fair Lady.

In 2007, Lamond featured in Australian film Razzle Dazzle: A Journey into Dance. In April–May 2008, she appeared in an autobiographical one-woman show, Times of My Life (co-written with her son Tony Sheldon), at the Seymour Centre in Sydney.[5]

Lamond has written several autobiographical books, including First Half (1990), Along the Way (2002), and Still a Gypsy (2007). The first book went to the top of the bestseller list in eight days.[6]

In July 2010, Lamond was a headline act in the inaugural Melbourne Cabaret Festival.

She joined the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra with Trisha Crowe, Michael Falzon, Amanda Harrison, Lucy Maunder, Andy Conaghan, and others to record I Dreamed A Dream: The Hit Songs Of Broadway for ABC Classics, released on 21 June 2013.[7] Lamond sang "Send in the Clowns" from Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music.

Toni Lamond is a recipient of two Logie Awards, including the 1962 Most Popular Victorian Personality. She has received a Variety Club of Australia Award and a Mo Award.[8]

In 1993, she was presented with the Key to the City of Melbourne and in 2000 was included in the Honours List of Women Shaping the Nation.[4]

In 2001, she was awarded the Centenary Medal for "services to the community through the arts".[9] She was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2003, "for service to the entertainment industry, and to the community through fundraising for a range of organisations, including the Guide Dog Association of New South Wales and ACT."[3][10]

In 2011, she received the Australian theatre's JC Williamson Award for her contribution to the live performance and theatre industry, alongside fellow actresses Jill Perryman and Nancye Hayes.[11]

In 2014, Lamond received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Equity section of the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance. Actors Equity president Simon Burke says: “Toni is a truly legendary Australian performer whose phenomenal career has spanned vaudeville, musical theatre, television, and cabaret. She is also a wonderful human being who has given back to her community, to her colleagues, and to her industry in every way she can."[12]

Lamond has a significant pedigree within the Australian performing arts. She is the daughter of Stella Lamond (Homicide and Bellbird) and Joe Lawman, both vaudeville entertainers. Her parents divorced when she was seven and Stella remarried Max Reddy (Homicide). She is a half-sister to singer Helen Reddy, whom she raised as a surrogate mother while their parents were performing.

She married Frank Sheldon in 1954, but in 1966 shortly after a separation, he committed suicide. An addiction to prescription drugs followed, and she was a patient at Chelmsford Private Hospital, where she underwent deep sleep therapy. She overcame and publicly discussed the issue in an episode of The Mike Walsh Show, becoming one of the first Australian media personalities to do so.

Her son is actor and writer Tony Sheldon.

• Official website
• Toni Lamond at IMDb