Hazel Phillips

Hazel Julia Phillips (Lovegrove) (born 17 November 1929) is a British singer, actress and television talk show personality with a notable career in Australia.

Phillips is also a playwright, composer and lyricist who has written numerously for the stage, been a compere of radio shows, a newspaper columnist and briefly operated a dinner cabaret restaurant.

She has worked as an interviewer in Hollywood, where she interviewed numerous stars, such as Bing Crosby, Paul Newman and Omar Shariff and Fess Parker. Phillips has the apparent distinction of playing the world's first lesbian character on TV, the character Marie Crowther on the serial Number 96.

Phillips has appeared in numerous films including the Australian film The Set in 1970 and more recently in 2021, the Netflix film Love and Monsters, and scheduled  in a Paramount film starring Sam Neill, and a TV commercial for Ford motors She is often depicted as Australia's answer to Betty White in terms of career success and longevity.

Early life
Phillips was born as Hazel Lovegrove in Battersea (now Wandsworth), County of London (now south London). She has been singing and dancing since the age of three and in 1948 won the beauty pageant Miss South England. At the age of 20, she became engaged to Bill Phillips, a carpenter turned TV director and they emigrated to Australia as "Ten Pound Poms" in 1950–51, marrying shortly afterwards and having two children: Mark (born 1953) and Scott (born 1955). In 1961, at a time there were no seat belts in vehicles, the family was involved in a serious car accident, and Phillips sustained severe injuries to her chin. Her marriage broke up some time afterwards, with Phillips suggesting that the surgeries on her chin, her husband's infidelity and an ectopic pregnancy contributed to the break-up.

Early career
Phillips started her career at radio 2UE, having won a talent contest for Miss Television in Australia. Active in television since its inception in Australia, she became one of the first personalities on Network Seven. in 1963, Phillips made her break into show business with a role on the talk show Beauty and the Beast opposite beast Eric Baume. She also began to appear on the satirical The Mavis Bramston Show, where she became a regular after having to choose between Bramston and Beauty and the Beast.

Gold Logie, television, film and theatre
After leaving the Seven network she hosted the midday talk show Girl Talk on the fledgling Network Ten, for which she won the Gold Logie Award for the most popular female personality on Australian television in 1967. This was won jointly with Graham Kennedy who won the male award. She was the second female star to win that honour after entertainer Lorrae Desmond, who won in 1962. She had guest roles on numerous television shows including Number 96 (as a lesbian sharing a flat with Vera), Matlock Police, A Country Practice, G.P. and Pacific Drive, as well as mini-series Bride of Christ. Films include The Set (as a nude swimmer), Midnight Dancer, Walking Emily Home. and Monster Problems Theatre roles starting from 1956 include The Circle, Henry V, Pride and Prejudice and The Merry Wives of Windsor She also featured in a Marilyn Monroe Cabaret Show in 2002 In 2020, Phillips spoke to the Studio 10 program about gender pay gaps in the entertainment industry, stating female television hosts were paid less than their male counterparts, and that in the 1960s she had been paid less than one-tenth of the salaries paid to stars like Graham Kennedy and Don Lane.

Autobiography
In 2008, her autobiography, Black River, Bright Star (ISBN 9781921406171), was published by Zeus Publications.

Health
Phillips is an activist for alternative medicine, she suffered a mild heart attack in 2009, and underwent a hip replacement

Australia’s Got Talent
Phillips in 2011, performed in the fifth series of Australia's Got Talent. and performed the Frank Sinatra song "You Make Me Feel So Young" and the Marilyn Monroe, song Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend. Phillips reached the semi-finals in the over-65 category, but was eliminated in the public vote. She still performs with her son Scott’s quartet as a vocalist on occasion.