Lorrae Desmond

Lorrae Desmond (2 October 1929 – 23 May 2021) born as Beryl Hunt, was an Australian Gold Logie-award-winning singer, recording artist, radio and television presenter, character actress, and playwright, with a career that spanned over 55 years both locally and the United Kingdom. She started her career in England, in the vein of entertainer Cicely Courtneidge. She carved out a career as a variety performer, as a singer and radio/television presenter, primarily at the BBC, where she had her own shows during the years of World War II. Returning to Australia she became a popular presenter and remains best known to early local television audiences as hostess of the musical variety program The Lorrae Desmond Show from 1960 until 1964, while as a variety entertainer and vocalist she made numerous cabaret and TV appearances including In Melbourne Tonight, The Graham Kennedy Show, The Kamahl Show, The Ted Hamilton Show and appeared on Parkinson in Australia, and The Jack Benny Show. She was subsequently asked to tour South Vietnam with the Entertainment Unit during the Vietnam War, she also toured the Middle East, Malaysia, Singapore, Kenya and Somalia, where she became known for her live singing performances, billed as a forces sweetheart, she in the style of Vera Lynn and Anne Shelton, in which she was honoured with the MBE for services to entertainment. She started taking roles in local soap operas and serials starting from the late 1960s, including a guest role in Crawford Productions staple series Homicide, and a guest role in Number 96, after which she was given a more permanent role in the ill-fated series Arcade in 1980. However she became famous for her long-running role in the television series A Country Practice, as original character of nurse Shirly Gilroy appearing in 816 episodes from 1981 to 1992. She briefly guested in Home and Away as Isobel Dupre in 1997, as the mother of Donald Fisher (Norman Coburn). She had worked as a theatre lyricist, writing the play Honey in 2001, based on the novel Smoky Joe's Cafe by the author Bryce Courtenay.

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