Helen Reddy was a reluctant star

Helen Reddy didn't want to be famous. She wanted to be an ordinary housewife. The woman who became a star, singing the feminist anthem I Am Woman" was actually content to be a stay-at-home wife, someone who cooked the dinner, scrubbed the floors and didn't go out to work.

I really wanted that," she told me.

She was at Stage West Dinner Theatre in Mississauga appearing in the comedy Shirley Valentine."

It was 1997 and Reddy, perhaps best known as a singer, was on stage acting out the role of a dissatisfied Liverpool housewife longing for romance.

I love this character," Reddy said. I love the way she tugs at life and takes a chance. This is a woman who wants to be loved and can't stand the fact her life is passing her by."

Born into a well-known Australian family of performers Reddy was on stage since she was a little girl. It was her life. But it's not what she wanted for her future.

I don't know why I balked at it. Somehow, I just didn't think it was what I wanted to be, what I wanted to do with my life."

Reddy was persuaded to keep on performing however and she became a hit recording artist singing I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar."

There I was in California with this big hit record. Somehow it just seemed to be right and my mind was changed, maybe by success."

Reddy's biggest hit was yet to come with, I Am Woman" a song she wrote. It became a Number One hit record and feminist anthem.

Reddy laughs and shrugs a little.

It just shows you never know what's waiting around the corner."

Reddy reckons her best recording was actually the rather sad, You and Me Against the World," a song that chronicled the sadness at the end of a life's partnership.

That was a song that hurt when I sang it," she smiled.

Reddy was a fine actress, as well as a singer. She was a huge success in Willy Russell's musical Blood Brothers" in London and New York in 1995. She looked a little askance when I confessed, I never cared for Russell's musical. I always thought it a downer.

Well, it has some wonderful songs," she shrugged, And it was a huge success. I like the way it suggests the inequality of some folks' lives and holds up a mirror to the gulf between the haves and have nots."

Though Reddy had many top selling records, in the end, changing tastes in music caused her to have to finance and record her albums on her own label, just as stars like Anne Murray had to do.

The music business changed so much. Take songs from Broadway shows - they used to be played all the time on the radio and were sung on TV variety shows. With the take-over of teenagers in the music marketplace this doesn't happen much anymore. Times change, that's all," she says.

Reddy starred on television specials that have been seen almost world-wide.

That's another thing that's gone," she shrugs. Television networks don't do variety shows of the type I performed, not anymore.

I keep on working," she laughed. I'm busy enough for this stage of my life. That's what matters. A career is a career and it takes different paths. You have to be willing to go with it and change your expectations. Of course, I keep hoping for another hit song. I keep looking for one. But songs like Delta Dawn' and Leave Me Alone' aren't ripe for the picking just now. Never mind, I keep right on looking."

How does Reddy feel about doing a straight play without a song in sight?

Well, it just means using a different set of muscles. And acting in something as challenging as Willy Russell's Shirley Valentine' is a real work-out for me. Emotions are emotions and whether you express feelings through a wonderful song or an amazing play doesn't matter to me. It's all satisfying."

Later, I watched Reddy find the heart and soul of a woman searching for romance and joy, struggling in a relationship where both partners have lost the zest for living. Reddy connected so well with Shirley's sense of loss and loneliness you felt for her right away. Watching her sit by the sea with a glass of wine and a tattered paperback, waiting for her husband Joe to come rescue her, to take her home, you know why this actress-singer could put over all those hurting songs. She may have had the voice of a singer, but she's always had the soul of an actress.

Helen Reddy suffered from dementia and died in 2020. She was 78.

Gary Smith has written about theatre and dance for The Hamilton Spectator for 40 years. gsmith1@cogeco.ca