Helen Reddy

A vocalist celebrated for her warm, crystalline vocal tone and smooth light-pop songs, Australia's Helen Reddy remains best known for the 1972 chart-topping feminist anthem "I Am Woman." More than a dozen further Top 40 entries arrived through the close of the 1970s, among them the U.S. number ones "Delta Dawn" in 1973 and "Angie Baby" in 1974. At the height of her success she placed a pair of albums inside the Top Ten—1973's Long Hard Climb and the following year's Free and Easy—while also hosting the short-lived NBC variety series The Helen Reddy Show. Acting roles soon materialized, most notably her starring turn in the 1977 Disney musical film Pete's Dragon. Although her last Hot 100 appearance came in 1981, stage work continued, including a Broadway debut in the 1995 musical Blood Brothers. Occasional recordings kept appearing until The Best Christmas Ever, her seventeenth and final studio album, arrived in 2000. The biographical film I Am Woman reached theaters in 2019, the year before Reddy's death.

Helen Maxine Reddy entered the world on October 25, 1941 in Melbourne, emerging from a family steeped in entertainment. Father Max Reddy worked as a writer, actor, and producer, while mother Stella Lamond, also known as Stella Campbell, appeared regularly on Australian television programs such as Homicide and Bellbird during the 1960s and 1970s. Older half-sister Toni Lamond had already begun performing as a child after growing up on the vaudeville circuit. Reddy's birth occurred while her father served in an Army entertainment unit alongside actor Peter Finch. Once the Second World War concluded, four-year-old Helen began appearing onstage with her parents as a singer and dancer. At twelve she chose to reside with an aunt, a decision that partly reflected her resistance to her parents' way of life. After completing school, a brief marriage to an older musician left her a single mother by her mid-twenties, prompting her to pursue singing as a means of support. Radio and television engagements followed swiftly, and in 1966 she captured first prize in a talent contest on TV's Bandstand, securing a journey to New York City and an audition with Mercury Records. Although that visit yielded no contract, she elected to remain in the United States with her daughter.

Over the ensuing years Reddy often journeyed to Canada, another Commonwealth nation, for performances, since the absence of a U.S. work permit posed a significant barrier. In 1968 a New York acquaintance organized a party for her, levying an entry fee to assist with rent; there she encountered Jeff Wald, whom she wed several days afterward. Wald, then employed as a secretary at the William Morris Agency, soon lost that position, and the couple relocated to Chicago, where Reddy, now a U.S. citizen, secured steady lounge engagements. Before the year ended she signed with Fontana Records, a Mercury subsidiary. Her debut single, "One Way Ticket," reached number 83 in Australia.

In 1969 Wald relocated the family to Los Angeles and began managing acts that included Deep Purple and Tiny Tim. He eventually arranged a trial 7" for Capitol Records. Reddy selected Mac Davis' "I Believe in Music" backed with "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. The Andrew Lloyd Webber number became her breakthrough, climbing to number 13 on the Hot 100 and reaching the Top Ten in both Canada and Australia during 1971. The album I Don't Know How to Love Him appeared on Capitol that May, peaking at number 100 in the United States. Six months later she followed with Helen Reddy.

Reddy attained number one in 1972 with "I Am Woman," the title track of her third album. Co-written by Australian musician Ray Burton, formerly of the Delltones and the Executives, and Reddy, who supplied the inspirational lyrics ("I am woman, hear me roar/In numbers too big to ignore"), the track emerged as a rallying cry for female empowerment amid the counterculture period. It earned her the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female in 1973, the same year the Roe vs. Wade decision was handed down. Variety shows and late-night television soon sought her out, resulting in her own summer replacement series, NBC's The Helen Reddy Show, in 1973. Meanwhile the I Am Woman LP climbed to number 14 on the Billboard 200 and entered the Top Ten in Canada and Australia. She secured number one across all three territories with "Delta Dawn" from the 1973 successor Long Hard Climb, an album that reached number eight in the States. Two further hit albums arrived in 1974: Love Song for Jeffrey and Free and Easy, the latter matching a career-best number eight on the Billboard 200. Free and Easy contained her third U.S. number one in three years, "Angie Baby." That year she also portrayed a guitar-playing nun in the action film Airport 1975 and reached number nine on the Hot 100 with the Paul Williams composition "You and Me Against the World," which featured her daughter Traci. By then the household had expanded to include a son, Jordan. As Reddy became a recurring presence on programs such as The Carol Burnett Show and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, where she occasionally served as guest host, she returned to the U.S. Top Ten with "Ain't No Way to Treat a Lady" from 1975's No Way to Treat a Lady. Early the next year Helen Reddy's Greatest Hits entered the Top Five in the United States, United Kingdom, and New Zealand. With her style of adult-contemporary pop losing favor, her final Billboard 200 entries were 1976's Music, Music, which peaked at number 16, and 1977's Ear Candy, which reached number 75. In 1977 she appeared in Disney's animated live-action hybrid musical Pete's Dragon alongside Mickey Rooney and Shelley Winters. The following year brought a role in the musical comedy film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and a guest spot on The Muppet Show. As commercial momentum slowed in the late 1970s, albums such as 1978's We'll Sing in the Sunshine, Live in London, and the next year's Reddy failed to chart in the United States or Australia, though Reddy reached number 97 in Canada. Take What You Find, released in May 1980, proved to be her final Capitol release.

Still widely recognized, Reddy moved to MCA and issued Play Me Out in 1981. The label followed with Imagination in 1983. That same year she and Wald divorced, and she married drummer Milton Ruth. After leaving MCA she turned to regional theater on the West Coast, appearing in productions of the Cole Porter musical Anything Goes and Irving Berlin's Call Me Madam. Television appearances included episodes of The Love Boat and Fantasy Island. She resumed recording with the self-released 1990 album Feel So Young, a collection of re-recorded hits and new material. Her Broadway debut arrived in January 1995 when she replaced Carole King as Mrs. Johnstone in Willy Russell's Blood Brothers, a role she later reprised in the West End. Following her third divorce she toured the United States as Shirley in Shirley Valentine during 1997 and released the show-tunes collection Center Stage on Varèse Sarabande in 1998. Her final album, The Best Christmas Ever, appeared in 2000.

Having stepped away from recording, Reddy pursued further education and established herself as a therapist and motivational speaker. Occasional television appearances continued, among them episodes of Diagnosis: Murder and Family Guy as late as 2011. She performed a concert in Los Angeles in 2016, and the biographical film I Am Woman, starring Tilda Cobham-Hervey, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019. Helen Reddy died in Los Angeles on September 29, 2020, at the age of 78.