Helen Reddy

Helen Maxine Reddy (25 October 1941 – 29 September 2020) was an Australian-American singer, actress, television host, and activist. Born in Melbourne to a show business family, Reddy started her career as an entertainer in vaudeville at age four. She sang on radio and television and won a talent contest on the television program Bandstand in 1966; her prize was a ticket to New York City and a record audition, which was unsuccessful. After a short and unsuccessful singing career in New York, she eventually moved to Chicago, and subsequently, Los Angeles, where she made her debut singles "One Way Ticket" and "I Believe in Music" in 1968 and 1970, respectively. The B-side of the latter single, "I Don't Know How to Love Him", reached number eight on the pop chart of the Canadian magazine RPM. She was signed to Capitol Records a year later.

During the 1970s, Reddy enjoyed international success, especially in the United States, where she placed 15 singles on the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. Six made the top 10 and three reached number one, including her signature hit "I Am Woman".

She placed 25 songs on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart; 15 made the top 10 and eight reached number one, six consecutively. In 1974, at the inaugural American Music Awards, she won the award for Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist. On television, she was the first Australian to host a one-hour weekly primetime variety show on an American network, along with specials that were seen in more than 40 countries.

Between the 1980s and 1990s, as her single "I Can't Say Goodbye to You" (1981) became her last to chart in the US, Reddy acted in musicals and recorded albums such as Center Stage before retiring from live performance in 2002. She returned to university in Australia, earned a degree, and practised as a clinical hypnotherapist and motivational speaker. In 2011, after singing "Breezin' Along with the Breeze" with her half-sister, Toni Lamond, for Lamond's birthday, Reddy decided to return to live performing.

Reddy's song "I Am Woman" played a significant role in popular culture, becoming an anthem for second-wave feminism. She came to be known as a "feminist poster girl" or a "feminist icon".

In 2011, Billboard named her the number-28 adult contemporary artist of all time (the number-9 woman). In 2013, the Chicago Tribune dubbed her the "Queen of '70s Pop".

Early years

Helen Maxine Reddy was born into a well-known Australian showbusiness family in Melbourne. Her mother was Stella Campbell (née Lamond), an actress, singer and dancer; her father was Maxwell David Reddy, a writer, producer and actor. Reddy was born during World War II. Her father was a sergeant in the Australian Army with a unit of entertainers, serving in New Guinea with one of his actor friends, Peter Finch, at the time of Reddy's birth. Her father returned to service during the Korean War. Her mother performed at the Majestic Theatre in Sydney and was best-known as a regular cast member on the television programs Homicide (1964), Bellbird (1967) and Country Town (1971). During Reddy's childhood, she was educated at Tintern Grammar and later Stratherne Girls' School in Hawthorn for a short time (mostly to study drama). Her half-sister Toni Lamond and her nephew Tony Sheldon are actor-singers.

Reddy had Irish, Scottish and English ancestry. Her great-great-grandfather, Edward Reddy, was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1855. Her Scottish great-grandfather, Thomas Lamond, was a one-time mayor of Waterloo, New South Wales, whose patron was Hercules Robinson, 1st Baron Rosmead. Patsy Reddy, a former New Zealand governor-general, is a distant cousin.

At age four, Reddy joined her parents on the Australian vaudeville circuit, singing and dancing; she recalled: "It was instilled in me: 'You will be a star'. So between the ages of 12 and 17, I got rebellious and decided this was not for me. I was going to be a housewife and mother." At age 12, owing to her parents' constant touring nationwide and their arguing, Reddy went to live with her paternal aunt, Helen "Nell" Reddy, "who was her role model"; as her aunt, "she gave her niece stability, a sense of morality, and strength" for her future career as a singer who motivated women. The younger Helen's teenaged rebellion in favour of domesticity manifested as marriage to Kenneth Claude Weate, a considerably older musician and family friend; divorce ensued, and to support herself as a single mother to daughter Traci, she resumed her performing career, concentrating on singing, since health problems precluded dancing (she had a kidney removed at 17). She sang on radio and television, eventually winning a talent contest on the Australian pop music TV show Bandstand, the prize ostensibly being a trip to New York City to cut a single for Mercury Records. After arriving in New York in 1966, she was informed by Mercury that her prize was only the chance to "audition" for the label and that Mercury considered the Bandstand footage to constitute her audition, which was deemed unsuccessful. Despite having only US$200 (equivalent to $1,985 in 2025) and a return ticket to Australia, she decided to remain in the United States with three-year-old Traci and pursue a singing career.

Music career

1966–1968: Early career

Reddy recalled her 1966 appearance at the Three Rivers Inn in Syracuse, New York—"[T]here were like twelve people in the audience"—as being typical of her early US performing career. Her lack of a work permit made it difficult to obtain singing jobs and she was forced to make trips to Canada which did not require work permits for citizens of Commonwealth countries. In 1968, Martin St James, an Australian stage hypnotist she had met in New York City, threw Reddy a party with an admission price of US$5 (equivalent to $46.29 in 2025) to enable Reddy—then down to her last US$12 (equivalent to $111.1 in 2025)—to pay her rent. On this occasion, Reddy met her future manager and husband, Jeff Wald, a 22-year-old secretary at the William Morris Agency who crashed the party. Reddy told People in 1975, "[Wald] didn't pay the five dollars, but it was love at first sight."

Wald recalled that Reddy and he married three days after meeting and, along with daughter Traci, the couple took up residence at the Hotel Albert in Greenwich Village. Reddy later stated that she married Wald "out of desperation over her right to work and live in the United States". According to New York Magazine, Wald was fired from William Morris soon after having met Reddy and "Helen supported them for six months doing $35-a-night hospital and charity benefits. They were so broke that they snuck out of a hotel room carrying their clothes in paper bags." Reddy recalled: "When we did eat, it was spaghetti, and we spent what little money we had on cockroach spray." They left New York City for Chicago, where Wald landed a job as talent coordinator at Mister Kelly's. While in Chicago, Reddy gained a reputation singing in local lounges, including Mister Kelly's, and in 1968 she landed a deal with Fontana Records, a division of major-label Chicago-based Mercury Records. Her first single, "One Way Ticket", on Fontana was not an American hit but it did give Reddy her first appearance on any chart as it peaked at number 83 in her native Australia.