Biography
Lamond was born in Sydney in 1932, as Patricia Lamond Lawman. She began her professional career at the age of ten when she sang on the radio while touring with her vaudevillian parents in variety shows ,which included her actress mother Stella Lamond. Her first stage performances were at the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney. Her first performances as a leading lady were with English comedian Tommy Trinder in The Tommy Trinder Show in 1952. She has starred in Australian productions of Oliver!, Annie Get Your Gun, The Pajama Game and Gypsy: A Musical Fable and was a regular in a number of 1970s television shows such as Number 96 and Graham Kennedy's In Melbourne Tonight. She later compered her own IMT, becoming the first woman in the world to compere a variety television show.
She travelled to the United Kingdom where she appeared in the British night club circuit as well as on BBC-TV and BBC Radio. She also recorded two singles for Philips in London. 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 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 2007 Lamond featured in Australian film Razzle Dazzle: A Journey into Dance. 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.
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 best-seller list in eight days.
In July 2010 Lamond was a headline act in the inaugural Melbourne Cabaret Festival.
Read more about this topic: Toni Lamond
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