54 Facts About Helen Reddy

1.

Helen Maxine Reddy was an Australian-American singer, actress, television host, and activist.

2.

Helen Reddy 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.

3.

Helen Reddy was signed to Capitol Records a year later.

4.

Helen Reddy placed 25 songs on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart; 15 made the top 10 and eight reached number one, six consecutively.

5.

Between the 1980s and 1990s, as her single "I Can't Say Goodbye to You" became her last to chart in the US, Helen Reddy acted in musicals and recorded albums such as Center Stage before retiring from live performance in 2002.

6.

Helen Reddy returned to university in Australia, earned a degree, and practised as a clinical hypnotherapist and motivational speaker.

7.

In 2011, after singing "Breezin' Along with the Breeze" with her half-sister, Toni Lamond, for Lamond's birthday, Helen Reddy decided to return to live performing.

8.

Helen Reddy came to be known as a "feminist poster girl" or a "feminist icon".

9.

Helen Maxine Reddy was born into a well-known Australian showbusiness family in Melbourne.

10.

Helen Reddy's mother performed at the Majestic Theatre in Sydney and was best known as a regular cast member on the television programs Homicide, Bellbird, and Country Town.

11.

Helen Reddy's great-great-grandfather, Edward Reddy, was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1855.

12.

Patsy Helen Reddy, New Zealand's former governor-general, is a distant cousin.

13.

Helen Reddy's 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.

14.

Helen Reddy's father returned to service during the Korean War.

15.

Helen Reddy 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.

16.

On this occasion, Helen Reddy met her future manager and husband, Jeff Wald, a 22-year-old secretary at the William Morris Agency who crashed the party.

17.

Five months of phone calls to Capitol Records executive Artie Mogull finally paid off; Mogull agreed to let Helen Reddy cut one single if Jeff promised not to call for a month.

18.

Helen Reddy did "I Believe in Music" penned by Mac Davis backed with "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar.

19.

Helen Reddy's stardom was solidified when her single "I Am Woman" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1972.

20.

At the awards ceremony, Helen Reddy concluded her acceptance speech by famously thanking God "because She makes everything possible".

21.

Helen Reddy had two Australian number-one singles, while "Angie Baby" was her only UK top-40 hit.

22.

On 23 July 1974, Helen Reddy received a star, located at 1750 Vine Street, on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her work in the music industry.

23.

In late 1975, Helen Reddy toured East Asia, Australia and New Zealand and collected 16 gold records, including 6 gold records in Australia and 6 gold records in New Zealand.

24.

At the height of her fame in the mid 1970s, Helen Reddy was a headliner, with a full chorus of backup singers and dancers to standing-room-only crowds on the Las Vegas Strip.

25.

In 1976, Helen Reddy recorded the Beatles' song "The Fool on the Hill" for the musical documentary All This and World War II.

26.

Helen Reddy was instrumental in supporting the career of friend Olivia Newton-John, encouraging her to emigrate from England to the United States in the early 1970s, giving her professional opportunities that did not exist in the United Kingdom.

27.

Helen Reddy was most successful on the Easy Listening chart, scoring eight number-one hits there over a three-year span, from "Delta Dawn" in 1973 to "I Can't Hear You No More" in 1976.

28.

In 1978, Helen Reddy sang as a backup singer on Gene Simmons's solo album on the song "True Confessions".

29.

Helen Reddy made it to number 98 on the Country chart with "Laissez les bon Temps Rouler", the B-side to "The Happy Girls".

30.

Meanwhile, her one recording in the interim had been the 1987 dance maxisingle "Mysterious Kind", on which Helen Reddy had vocally supported Jessica Williams.

31.

Helen Reddy announced her retirement from performing in 2002, giving her farewell performance with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.

32.

Helen Reddy earned a degree in clinical hypnotherapy and neurolinguistic programming.

33.

Helen Reddy was a practicing clinical hypnotherapist and patron of the Australian Society of Clinical Hypnotherapists.

34.

At a ceremony in August 2006, Helen Reddy was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association Hall of Fame by actress singer, Toni Collette, who described her song, "I Am Woman", as "timeless".

35.

For several years, Helen Reddy maintained that she would not return to the stage.

36.

Helen Reddy said she had simply lost interest in performing.

37.

In 2011, Helen Reddy decided to return to performing after being buoyed by the warm reception she received when she sang at her sister's 80th birthday party.

38.

Helen Reddy said she refused to sing "Leave Me Alone " because she disliked the monotony of the repeated chorus.

39.

Helen Reddy appeared in downtown Los Angeles at the 2017 Women's March on 21 January.

40.

Helen Reddy was introduced by actress Jamie Lee Curtis and sang an a cappella version of "I Am Woman".

41.

Helen Reddy served as the semiregular host of the late-night variety show The Midnight Special in 1975 and 1976.

42.

Helen Reddy was one of many musical stars featured in the all-star chorale in the film Sgt.

43.

In September 1981, Helen Reddy announced she would be shooting the pilot for her own TV sitcom, in which she would play a single mother working as a lounge singer in Lake Tahoe, but this project was abandoned.

44.

Helen Reddy was an occasional television guest star as an actress, appearing on the television programs The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, The Jeffersons, Diagnosis: Murder, and BeastMaster.

45.

Helen Reddy appeared in four productions of the one-woman show Shirley Valentine.

46.

In 2007, Helen Reddy had a voice cameo as herself in the Family Guy television show's Star Wars parody, "Blue Harvest".

47.

Three of Helen Reddy's forebears left Ireland and went to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

48.

Helen Reddy was an enthusiastic genealogist; she researched her family's history extensively and founded the Tasmanian Genealogical Society.

49.

Helen Reddy was once asked in an interview whether her name had any connection to the Helen Reddy caste from India.

50.

Helen Reddy's father was born in Ireland, but his great-grandfather served with an Irish regiment stationed in India, so it is possible that I have Indian ancestry.

51.

At age 20, Helen Reddy married Kenneth Claude Weate, an older musician and family friend whom she says she wed to defy her parents, who wished her to follow them into show business.

52.

Helen Reddy converted to Judaism before marrying Wald, with whom she had a son, Jordan, born in 1972.

53.

Helen Reddy suffered from Addison's disease and dementia in her later years.

54.

In December 2020, Helen Reddy was listed at number 35 in Rolling Stone Australia's 50 Greatest Australian Artists of All Time issue.