Disastrous Demise: Are You Reddy for This?

We continue to see members of our beloved Disaster Movie Club pass on the next plain. It's inevitable, yet we still have wistful feelings about that collection of performers who had featured roles in one or more of our beloved all-star disaster movies of the 1970s. Miss Helen Reddy was an anomaly. Chiefly known as a recording artist, she only performed a handful of legitimate acting parts during her career. But the one she did in 1974 became strikingly (in)famous! Since we're dealing with a musician here, much of the content will be made up of videos. Apologies in advance for any annoying ads that have to be sifted through.

Reddy was born to show business parents (who toured on a Vaudeville circuit) on October 25th, 1941 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Her mother was later a working actress on Australian TV. Basically told that she was going to be a star, the reluctant Reddy instead broke away at 20 to marry an older man. Soon left as a single mother when the union dissolved, she found herself having to sing for her supper in order to survive! After winning a trip to New York City where she thought she was going to audition for a recording contract, she instead wound up struggling to make ends meet, finally singing in Canada where she was able to work without a permit.

She wed for a second time in 1968 to an agent who eventually helped to build her career in the U.S., though the union was stormy throughout (they wed three days after meeting!) He tirelessly prodded Capitol Records to allow Reddy to cut a single and they relented so long as he promised not to call them for a month. The B-side of that unsuccessful single ("I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar) became an unexpected hit in Canada and before long Reddy was gaining notice. A string of Top 40 hits, three of them #1, followed.

When the A-side, a cover of Mac Davis' "I Believe in Music" didn't knock 'em dead, the single was released featuring the more popular B-side.

There was "I Am Woman" in 1971, which caught on with the feminist movement and earned her a Grammy as Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Reddy notoriously thanked God "because She makes everything possible" in her acceptance speech. Reddy had co-written the song when she couldn't locate one that matched the message she was trying to impart.

The next #1 in 1972 was "Delta Dawn," which had been a Top 10 country hit for Tanya Tucker the year before.

In 1974, she scored another #1 with "Angie Baby." These songs are only a few of the numbers that Reddy had success with in the 1970s.

In 1974, Reddy was cast (along with everybody and his grand- mother!) in the big-screen disaster flick Airport 1975. Playing a young nun opposite Martha Scott as fellow sister, she had fresh-scrubbed appeal if not exactly Sarah Bernhardt-level acting prowess. (Curious, too, was the fact that the lady who championed the advancement of women's rights was portraying such a character!)

In the rear of the plane is a sick little girl played by Linda Blair (not as sick as she was in The Exorcist a year prior!) Her fretful mother Nancy Olson hovers over her as they fly off to meet with a new kidney that's been earmarked for the young lady. 

Reddy decides that she's going to go visit with her and before you know it, she's picked up Blair's guitar/ security blanket and is tossing off a ditty called "Best Friend" (which Reddy also penned.) Reddy was nominated for a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer - Female, but the award went to another member of the DMC, Susan Flannery of The Towering Inferno. 

The sight of singing nun Reddy, on the heels of Julie Andrews' Fraulein Maria and Debbie Reynolds' Sister Ann, became a ripe prospect for parody as you will see in a moment...

The brief sequence in which Reddy entertains the beatific Blair contains a few things to watch out for. Firstly, the female extra in the chair behind them... She has her own mini-melodrama going on throughout the film but takes a breather here to listen. Also, there is the unintentionally hilarious moment when the other passengers - and chief stewardess Karen Black - crane their necks to see what the hell is going on.

 

 

The Carol Burnett Show wasted no time in parodying Reddy (along with many of the other folks found in the film) in a lengthy sketch called "Disaster 75." Below is just one of several moments in which Vicki Lawrence sings to the passengers on a crippled airliner.

In 1980, the hammer fell on the disaster genre with Airplane!, a hysterical movie which poked fun at many of the conventions of the trend, most especially those set in the air. In this instance, it took two people to parody Reddy's portrayal. Once was Maureen McGovern as a nun who carries a guitar:

But then when it came time for a song sung to the sick little girl, stewardess Lorna Patterson did the trick. This hilarious sequence features Jill Whelen (of The Love Boat) and Joyce Bulifant as the concerned mama. Note that the woman from Airport 1975 is in this movie, too! Now married and ill with food poisoning. And take note of the reactions from the passengers to the sudden singing. Ha ha! I thought Lorna sounded great on this song, apart from the comedy.

Reddy did not proceed to many more instances with acting, but there is the 1977 Disney semi-animated musical Pete's Dragon. Her role is substantial with plenty of singing and dancing, some of it with Mickey Rooney. One of the more memorable things to come out of it was the plaintive love song "Candle on the Water," which Reddy sings atop a lighthouse while hoping her long-lost fiancé will make his way back to her.

There's another sort of interesting career path-crossing with Maureen McGovern in that "Candle on the Water" was written by the same team who did "The Morning After" and "We May Never Love Like This Again," both of which won Best Original Song Oscars and both of which were made famous by McGovern. (And all three end with repeating phrases.) "Candle on the Water" was nominated, but lost to another sort of illumination -- "You Light Up My Life" from the film of the same name. Below we see Maureen (with her original nose) in the year between TPA and TTI..

 

I had gone many, many years without seeing Pete's Dragon. I was one of the kids who saw it on the big screen when I was 10 (and probably didn't care one whip-stitch about Reddy's missing love.) When I saw it again for the first time a few years ago, the song stood out very distinctly for me and I appreciated it a lot. Obsessive person that I am, I began watching countless versions of it and this one, from a high school choir, is my favorite. It takes a while to really build, but by the end is really pretty nice. (Jump to 1:50 - I tried to embed it that way but it wouldn't work...!)

By the time Reddy popped up at the deranged tail-end of 1978's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, flailing away next to Frankie Valli and in the midst of Carol Channing and Tina Turner, the superstar songstress couldn't know that her days as a top vocal artist were numbered. Her records were not selling as they once had and her marriage came apart amid drug abuse issues with her husband. An acrimonious divorce occurred in 1983. A few TV appearances came, followed by a successful string of stage performances in things like Blood Brothers and Anything Goes. By 2002, she announced her retirement from singing and went to live in Australia again. She also became a hypnotherapist (following a nearly lifelong interest.)

Despite the smiles, this union had a lot of ups and downs. Reddy later claimed that some of her concert appearances in the early-1980s were either canceled or prevented from being booked because of her ex's influence. A third marriage (to the drummer in her band) lasted from 1983 to 1995 before ending in divorce.

After a decade in retirement, Reddy sang at her sister's 80th birthday celebration, decided she liked what she heard, and made a brief return to concert stages in bother Australia and the U.S. She sang some of her hits along with other less familiar songs from her recording career which held a special place in her heart and which she felt deserved a bit more notice. Her fans enthusiastically greeted their once-dormant songbird. 

Unfortunately, not long after 2015, Reddy began to experience the onset of dementia and ultimately moved to the Samuel Goldwyn Center (formerly the Motion Picture Home and Hospital.) She passed away on September 29th, 2020 at age 78. She had developed Addison's Disease in addition to her other health concerns. Having lost two grandparents to dementia, believe me when I tell you that the end never comes soon enough in cases like this...! We salute the talented and inspiring Miss Helen Reddy, yet one more person who helped make disaster movies special to me during my own life.