Lorrae Desmond

Desmond was born on 2 October 1929, in Mittagong, New South Wales, to Alice and Des Hunt. She left Mittagong after the fire season, and briefly lived on an island on the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, by age 10, she travelled to Britain with her family, and at 16, in 1945 started her career as a singing cigarette girl and became a celebrity there, she performed as a solo artist and with backing group "The Rebels", and featured in everything from cabaret, pantomime, and radio, and made live recording's, she had her own shows including several for the BBC, including Meet Lorrae and Swing with Lorrae.[3] She even featured in her own comedy series Trouble for Two in 1958, was in the cast of several Terry-Thomas TV specials, and competed to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1957.[4]

In his book Bounder (2008), Graham McCann states that Desmond might have married Terry-Thomas, who had been her constant companion for seven years. Instead, the actor overcame a 26-year age gap to marry Belinda Cunningham. Desmond refuted this in an ABC interview in April 2008, saying that she dated Thomas for 10 years, but they would never have married.[5]

Returning to Australia and in 1962, she made history by being the first woman to win the Gold Logie (which was in fact Silver, as women at the time received the Silver Statuette, and men received the Gold Statuette) for her work on her music variety show The Lorrae Desmond Show.[6] The Gold Logie award that year was a dual honour, with Tommy Hanlon Jr. also winning the coveted trophy.

She appeared in Red Peppers on Australian TV.

Desmond was married to Sydney surgeon Dr. Alex Gorshenin from 1963–76.[7] They travelled to the United States together, where he continued to study.

The Australian Government invited her to tour Vietnam from 1967 to 1971, to entertain the troops. She was widely courted as being the Australian Forces Sweetheart, amongst others including Dinah Lee, Little Pattie, Cathy Wayne, Sylvia Raye, Lyne Fletcher and Jacqui De Paul[8] Australia didn't have its own honours system at the time, however Desmond was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1970 for services to "entertainment and the welfare of the Australian Forces in Vietnam".[9][10]

Desmond's television appearances include Homicide and Number 96 (1973) and Arcade (1980), both series written by David Sale, however the latter series was unsuccessful and cancelled after 16 episodes. Later in 1997 she also had a guest appearance on Home and Away as Isobel Dupre, the mother of regular character Donald Fisher played by Norman Coburn[6]

Desmond after having appeared in the ill=fated series Arcade was touted by the Seven Network, alongside co-star Syd Heylen to appear in there new series A Country Practice in which became her best-known role as Shirley Dean Gilroy, and appeared from the series inception in November 1981 until 1992. In 1984 she won the Logie for Best Supporting Actress for this role. In one of the series' iconic episodes in 1992, Lorrae decided to leave the series and the long-running character Shirley was killed off in an off-screen plane crash, with actress stating she did not want a prolonged death storyline arc-like Molly Jones (Anne Tenney).

Desmond co-wrote the lyrics to the musical Man of Sorrows (originally titled Jesus Christ Revolution) which premiered in Melbourne in 1972.[11]

About the industry, she said:

What I really wanted to do was write lyrics for songs. I did do a few weeks in Home And Away after ACP, but I’m a bit sick of performing—after you've been doing it for 50 years you're just going around in circles! The thing I liked most about being a performer was putting the act together, which is why I've come back to writing. It's still pleasant to be recognized as Shirley because people are always nice to me. And with those ACP repeats on Hallmark, it goes from generation to generation.

In 2001, she obtained the rights to write the lyrics for a musical play based on Bryce Courtenay's novel Smoky Joe's Cafe, about the effects of the Vietnam War on a veteran. The play, entitled Honey, premiered in 2007 at the Riverside Theatre Parramatta.[12]

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

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.[13] In 2017, Lorrae 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.