23 Facts About Lorrae Desmond

Lorrae Desmond started her career in England, in the vein of entertainer Cicely Courtneidge.

Lorrae Desmond was asked to tour South Vietnam with the Entertainment Unit during the Vietnam War.

Lorrae Desmond toured the Middle East, Malaysia, Singapore, Kenya and Somalia, where she became known for her live singing performances, billed as a forces sweetheart, in the style of Vera Lynn and Anne Shelton, for which she was honoured with an MBE for services to entertainment.

Lorrae Desmond started taking roles in local soap operas and serials starting from the late 1960s, including a guest role in the Crawford Productions staple series Homicide, and a guest role in Number 96, after which she was given a more permanent role in the ill-fated series Arcade in 1980.

Lorrae Desmond had worked as a theatre lyricist, writing the play Honey in 2001, based on the novel Smoky Joe's Cafe by Bryce Courtenay.

Lorrae Desmond was born on 2 October 1929, in the Southern Highlands town of Mittagong, New South Wales, to Alice and Des Hunt.

Lorrae Desmond left Mittagong after the fire season, and briefly lived on an island on the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland.

Lorrae Desmond started her career in England in 1945, as a teenager of a mere 15 as a singing cigarette girl and became a celebrity there.

Lorrae Desmond performed as both a solo artist and with backing group The Rebels, whilst making studio recordings and featured in everything from theatre, cabaret, pantomime, and radio.

Lorrae Desmond had her own shows including several for the BBC, including Meet Lorrae and Swing with Lorrae.

Lorrae Desmond featured in her own comedy series Trouble for Two in 1958, and was in the cast of several of the Terry-Thomas TV specials.

Lorrae Desmond refuted this in an ABC interview in April 2008, saying that whilst she dated Thomas for 10 years, they would never have married.

Lorrae Desmond was widely courted as being the Australian Forces Sweetheart, amongst others including Dinah Lee, Little Pattie, Cathy Wayne, Sylvia Raye, Lynne Fletcher and Jacqui De Paul.

Australia didn't have its own honours system at the time, however Lorrae Desmond was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1970 for services to "entertainment and the welfare of the Australian Forces in Vietnam".

Lorrae Desmond, after having appeared in the ill-fated series Arcade, was touted by the Seven Network to appear in their new series A Country Practice which became her best-known role as Shirley Dean Gilroy, and appeared from the series' inception in November 1981 until 1992.

In one of the series' iconic episodes in 1992, Lorrae Desmond decided to leave the series and the long-running character Shirley was killed off in an off-screen plane crash, with the actress stating she did not want a prolonged death storyline arc like that of Molly Jones.

Lorrae Desmond co-wrote the lyrics to the musical Man of Sorrows which premiered in Melbourne in 1972.

Lorrae Desmond was a magazine columnist for That's Life; she wrote an article called "Ask Lorrae", in which readers would write in, asking for advice and information.

Lorrae Desmond took part in an A Country Practice reunion special in 2006, as part of the "Television Turns 50" celebrations, and the series' 30th-anniversary reunion in 2011.

In 2017, Lorrae Desmond, who was the first female to win a Gold Logie, appeared at the Logie awards, to present an award opposite her cousin's son, Chinese Australian actor and presenter Sam Pang.

Lorrae Desmond toured Australia, performing in High Society and her own one-woman show.

Lorrae Desmond was married to Sydney surgeon Dr Alex Gorshenin from 1963 to 1976.

Lorrae Desmond died on 23 May 2021, in Gold Coast, Queensland, aged 91.