Toni Lamond

Lamond was born in Sydney, Australia in 1932, as Patricia Lamond Lawman. She learned to tap dance at 8 and began her professional career at the age of 10 when she sang on the radio while touring with her vaudevillian parents in variety shows, which included her actress and comedian mother Stella Lamond (1909-1973), a popular actress who worked at the Tivoli Theatre and the Brennan-Fuller Vaudeville Circuit and J.C. Williamson's[5] and her actor father Joe Lawman.[1]

Lamond was given the nickname "Lolly-Legs" by entertainer, Noel Ferrier , who stated she had the second best legs in the industry when she featured on In Melbourne Tonight[3]

Her first stage performances were at the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney.[1] Her first performances as a leading lady were with English comedian Tommy Trinder in The Tommy Trinder Show in 1952.[6]

She has starred in Australian productions of Oliver!, Annie Get Your Gun, The Pajama Game, and Gypsy: A Musical Fable.

Lamond was a regular in a number of 1970s television shows, such as Number 96 in a controversial black mass storyline and Graham Kennedy's In Melbourne Tonight.[3] She later compèred her own IMT, becoming the first woman in the world to compère a variety television show.[7]

In 1986, she appeared on the US television fiction crime series Murder, She Wrote starring Angela Lansbury in the episode "Murder in the Electric Cathedral".[8] She also appeared in films including telemovies and features such as the 2007 Razzle Dazzle: A Journey Into Dance.[9]

Lamond travelled to the United Kingdom, where in a similar vein to entertainer Lorrae Desmond, she appeared in the British night club and cabaret, circuit and on BBC-TV and BBC Radio. She also recorded two singles for record label; Philips in London.[7]

In the mid-1970s, Lamond moved to Los Angeles, where she appeared in musicals and television shows. She debuted on the New York stage with a production Cabaret at the age of 67. On her return to Australia in the mid-1990s, she performed in shows including 42nd Street, The Pirates of Penzance, and My Fair Lady.

In April–May 2008, she appeared in an autobiographical one-woman show, Times of My Life (co-written with her son Tony Sheldon), at the Seymour Centre in Sydney.[10]

Lamond has written several autobiographical books, including First Half (1990), Along the Way (2002), and Still a Gypsy (2007). The first book went to the top of the bestseller list in eight days.[11]

In July 2010, Lamond was a headline act in the inaugural Melbourne Cabaret Festival.