Toni Lamond

Toni Lamond AM (born as Patricia Lamond Lawman; 29 March 1932), is an Australian vaudevillian, cabaret performer, singer, actress, dancer, comedian, writer and television and radio personality/presenter. She has had a successful career spanning some 80 years, both locally and internationally, including in the United Kingdom and United States.

Lamond, who comes from a family involved in the performing arts, started her career as a child actor vaudeville/variety entertainment aged ten and was the first woman in the world to host a midday show. The second was her younger half-sister Helen Reddy.

Alongside her showbiz contemporaries Jill Perryman and Nancye Hayes, Lamond has been called one of the three grand dames of Australian musical theatre, and in her prime a talent that could rival Doris Day.

Early life
Lamond was born in Sydney, Australia in 1932 to actress and comedian Stella Lamond (1909-1973) and actor father Joe Lawman, as Patricia Lamond Lawman. She learned to tap dance at 8 and began her professional career aged 10 when she sang on the radio while touring with her vaudevillian parents in variety shows.

Theatre and variety
Lamond worked on the Tivoli Theatre circuit, the Brennan-Fuller Vaudeville Circuit and J. C. Williamson's and was a staple of touring mainstream theatre since 1951.

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.

She also starred in Australian productions of Oliver!, Annie Get Your Gun, The Pajama Game, and Gypsy: A Musical Fable.

Lamond was given the nickname 'Lolly-Legs' by entertainer, Noel Ferrier, who stated she had the "second best legs in the industry" when she featured on In Melbourne Tonight

Screen
Lamond was a regular in a number of 1970s television shows, such as Number 96 in a controversial black mass storyline and Graham Kennedy's In Melbourne Tonight. She later compèred her own IMT, becoming the first woman in the world to compère a variety television show.

In 1986, she appeared on the US television fiction crime series Murder, She Wrote starring Angela Lansbury in the episode "Murder in the Electric Cathedral". She also appeared in films including telemovies and features such as the 2007 Razzle Dazzle: A Journey Into Dance.

International career, recordings and stage
Lamond travelled to the United Kingdom, where in a similar vein to entertainer Lorrae Desmond, she appeared in the British night club and cabaret, circuit and on BBC-TV and BBC Radio. She also recorded two singles for record label; Philips in London.

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 a production Cabaret at the age of 67. 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 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.

Publications
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.

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

Notable work
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. Lamond sang "Send in the Clowns" from Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music.

Awards and honours
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."

Showbusiness family
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), whilst Lawman married soubrette Joy Robbins.

Therefore through her step-father she is a half-sister to the late singer Helen Reddy, whom she raised as a surrogate mother while their parents were performing.

Her son is actor and writer Tony Sheldon

Personal life
She married performer Frank Sheldon in 1954, but in 1966 shortly after a separation, he took his own life.

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.