Lorrae Desmond
| Lorrae Desmond, MBE | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Beryl Hunt 2 October 1929 Mittagong, New South Wales, Australia |
| Other names | Beryl Gorshenin (married name) |
| Occupation | actress singer entertainer. |
| Years active | 1955–1999 |
| Spouse(s) | Alex Gorshenin (1963–1976) |
| Parent(s) | Alice and Des Hunt |
| Awards | Logie 1984 – Best Supporting Actress in a Series for: A Country Practice (1981) Gold Logie 1962 |
Lorrae Desmond, MBE (2 October 1929) is a retired Gold Logie-award-winning Australian-born singer, entertainer, and character actress and theatre lyricist, in the vein of Joy Nichols with a career spanning over 50 years, both locally and internationally . She remains best known to early television audiences as presenter of the self-titled The Lorrae Desmond Show and for her long running role as Shirley Gilroy (née Dean), an original character from 1981 in the television series A Country Practice, which she played to 1992.
Lorrae Desmond was born as Beryl Hunt on 2 October 1929, in Mittagong, New South Wales. to Alice and Des Hunt. She travelled to Britain in the 1950s, and at 16, as Lorrae 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, she appearing in cabaret, pantomime, radio, and live recording, including several shows for the BBC, including Meet Lorrae and Swing with Lorrae. 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.
In his book Bounder (2008), Graham McCann states that Desmond might possibly 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. In 1962, she made history by being the first woman to win the Gold Logie (which was in fact Silver, as females at the time received the Silver Statuette, and Males received the Gold Statuette) for her work on her variety show The Lorrae Desmond Show. The Gold Logie award that year would be a dual honour, with Tommy Hanlon Jr also winning the coveted trophy.
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