Helen Reddy

Born into a showbiz family, Helen Reddy began performing on the stage at the age of four when she joined her parents in their vaudeville show. Although she went through a rebellious phase resulting in her marriage to 32-year-old Kenneth Claude Weate when she was just 20, Reddy soon returned to her roots when her marriage fell apart and she became a single mother in need of an income. In 1966 she entered and won a talent competition and traveled to New York where she claimed her prize of cutting a single for Mercury Records. At a party in New York Reddy met her second husband, Jeff Wald, whom she married just three days later. Disillusioned by her inability to make it in New York, the newlyweds, along with Reddy's daughter Traci, relocated to Chicago where she got regular gigs performing in clubs, one such performance leading to her being signed by Fontana Records. Moving again, this time to Los Angeles, Reddy used her husband's influences in the business to cut "I Believe In Music"/"I Don't Know How To Love Him," the B-side of which earned Reddy her first top 20 place in the charts. In 1972 Reddy released her best-selling single "I Am Woman," which reached Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned her a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. More hits followed in the shape of the Number ones "Delta Dawn" and "Angie Baby" and "Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress)" which got to Number 3 and "Ain't No Way To Treat A Lady" reaching Number 8. In 1977, Reddy landed the role of Nora in Pete's Dragon in which she sang the love ballad "Candle On The Water" - she later released this as a single earning her an Academy Award nomination for Best Song. Reddy began focusing on her acting, landing roles in disaster movie Airport 1975, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and 1987 screwball comedy Disorderlies and even became the host of her own television show - The Helen Reddy Special. After shifting her acting career to the stage, with parts in Shirley Valentine, Blood Brothers and Anything Goes, Reddy announced her retirement in 2002. She returned to performing ten years later and sang an a cappella version of "I Am Woman" at the Women's March in downtown Los Angeles on January 21, 2017. Reddy, who had suffered from Addison's disease and dementia for several years, died on September 29, 2020 in Los Angeles, aged 78.