Toni Lamond

Toni Lamond, born Patricia Lamond Lawman on 29 March 1932 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, was an Australian performer whose career encompassed vaudeville, cabaret, musical theatre, television, radio, film, and writing. She held the Member of the Order of Australia (AM) distinction and worked professionally across Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States over a career spanning more than eight decades. Lamond died on 29 November 2025 in Sydney at the age of 93.

Lamond came from a performing family. Her mother, Stella Lamond (1909–1973), was a vaudevillian, actress, and comedian who later appeared in early Australian television productions including Homicide and Bellbird. Her father, Joe Lawman, was an actor. Through her mother, Lamond was the half-sister of singer Helen Reddy, whom she helped raise while their parents were performing. Lamond began tap-dancing at age eight and made her professional debut at ten, singing on the radio while touring with her parents in variety shows.

Her early stage work was rooted in the major Australian theatrical circuits of the mid-twentieth century, including the Tivoli Theatre circuit, the Brennan-Fuller Vaudeville Circuit, and J. C. Williamson's. Her first performances as a leading lady came in 1952 alongside English comedian Tommy Trinder in The Tommy Trinder Show. From 1951 onward she was a consistent presence in touring mainstream theatre, appearing in Australian productions of Oliver!, Annie Get Your Gun, The Pajama Game, and Gypsy: A Musical Fable. Entertainer Noel Ferrier gave her the nickname "Lolly-Legs" during her appearances on the television program In Melbourne Tonight.

Lamond's television career included regular appearances on a number of 1960s and 1970s Australian programs, among them Number 96 and Graham Kennedy's In Melbourne Tonight. In 1961 and the following year she compèred her own edition of In Melbourne Tonight, becoming the first woman in the world to host a midday variety television program. Her younger half-sister Helen Reddy was the second woman to do so. In 1986, Lamond appeared in the American television crime series Murder, She Wrote, starring Angela Lansbury, in the episode "Murder in the Electric Cathedral." Her film work included the 2007 feature Razzle Dazzle: A Journey Into Dance.

Her international career took her first to the United Kingdom, where she performed on the British nightclub and cabaret circuit and appeared on BBC television, including a program called First Night broadcast on the opening night of the ITV franchise holder Yorkshire Television in 1968. She also appeared on BBC Radio and recorded two singles in London for the Philips record label. In the mid-1970s, Lamond relocated to Los Angeles, where she appeared in musicals and television productions. Her Broadway credit came in 1978, when she appeared in Annie. She later made her New York stage debut in a production of Cabaret at the age of 67. Following her return to Australia in the mid-1990s, she performed in productions including 42nd Street, The Pirates of Penzance, and My Fair Lady.

In April and May 2008, Lamond appeared in an autobiographical one-woman show, Times of My Life, co-written with her son, actor and writer Tony Sheldon, at the Seymour Centre in Sydney. In July 2010, she was a headline act at the inaugural Melbourne Cabaret Festival. In 2013, she joined the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra alongside Trisha Crowe, Michael Falzon, Amanda Harrison, Lucy Maunder, Andy Conaghan, and others to record I Dreamed a Dream: The Hit Songs of Broadway for ABC Classics, released on 21 June 2013. Lamond contributed "Send in the Clowns" from Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music to that recording.

Lamond married performer Frank Sheldon in 1954. The couple separated, and Sheldon died by suicide in 1966. She subsequently developed an addiction to prescription drugs and underwent deep sleep therapy as a patient at Chelmsford Private Hospital. She later discussed her experience publicly on The Mike Walsh Show, becoming one of the first Australian media personalities to address the issue openly. Alongside Jill Perryman and Nancye Hayes, Lamond was recognized as one of the three grand dames of Australian musical theatre.

As a writer, Lamond authored several autobiographical books: First Half (1990), which reached the top of the bestseller list within eight days of publication, Along the Way (2002), and Still a Gypsy (2007).