After a short and unsuccessful singing career in New York, she eventually moved to Chicago, and subsequently, Los Angeles, where she made her debut singles "One Way Ticket" and "I Believe in Music" in 1968 and 1970, respectively.

[5] Between the 1980s and 1990s, as her single "I Can't Say Goodbye to You" (1981) became her last to chart in the US, Reddy acted in musicals and recorded albums such as Center Stage before retiring from live performance in 2002.

Her mother was Stella Campbell (née Lamond), an actress, singer and dancer; her father was Maxwell David Reddy (born 1914 in Melbourne, Victoria), a writer, producer and actor.

Her mother performed at the Majestic Theatre in Sydney and was best-known as a regular cast member on the television programs Homicide (1964), Bellbird (1967) and Country Town (1971).

[10] During Reddy's childhood, she was educated at Tintern Grammar[11] and later Stratherne Girls' School in Hawthorn for a short time (mostly to study drama)[citation needed].

Her Scottish great-grandfather, Thomas Lamond, was a one-time mayor of Waterloo, New South Wales, whose patron was Hercules Robinson, 1st Baron Rosmead.

Her father was a sergeant in the Australian Army with a unit of entertainers, serving in New Guinea with one of his actor friends, Peter Finch, at the time of Reddy's birth.

[19] The younger Helen's teenaged rebellion in favour of domesticity manifested as marriage to Kenneth Claude Weate, a considerably older musician and family friend; divorce ensued, and to support herself as a single mother to daughter Traci, she resumed her performing career, concentrating on singing, since health problems precluded dancing (she had a kidney removed at 17).

She sang on radio and television, eventually winning a talent contest on the Australian pop music TV show Bandstand, the prize ostensibly being a trip to New York City to cut a single for Mercury Records.

Despite having only US$200 (equivalent to $1,878 in 2023) and a return ticket to Australia, she decided to remain in the United States with three-year-old Traci and pursue a singing career.

[20] Reddy recalled her 1966 appearance at the Three Rivers Inn in Syracuse, New York—"[T]here were like twelve people in the audience"[21]—as being typical of her early US performing career.

On this occasion, Reddy met her future manager and husband, Jeff Wald, a 22-year-old secretary at the William Morris Agency who crashed the party.

"[18] Wald recalled that Reddy and he married three days after meeting and, along with daughter Traci, the couple took up residence at the Hotel Albert in Greenwich Village.

[23] According to New York Magazine, Wald was fired from William Morris soon after having met Reddy and "Helen supported them for six months doing $35-a-night hospital and charity benefits.

[19] Her first single, "One Way Ticket", on Fontana was not an American hit but it did give Reddy her first appearance on any chart as it peaked at number 83 in her native Australia.

She did "I Believe in Music" penned by Mac Davis backed with "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar.

Female listeners soon adopted the song as an anthem and began requesting it from their local radio stations in droves, resulting in its September chart re-entry and eventual number-one peak.

[32] At the height of her fame in the mid 1970s, Reddy was a headliner, with a full chorus of backup singers and dancers to standing-room-only crowds on the Las Vegas Strip.

At a dinner party at Reddy's house, Newton-John met producer Allan Carr, who offered her the starring role in the hit film version of the musical Grease.

[34] Reddy was most successful on the Easy Listening chart, scoring eight number-one hits there over a three-year span, from "Delta Dawn" in 1973 to "I Can't Hear You No More" in 1976.

Reddy also made it to number 98 on the Country chart with "Laissez les bon Temps Rouler", the B-side to "The Happy Girls".

"[23] Reddy states that she was effectively being blacklisted from her established performance areas, which led to her pursuing a career in theatre where Wald had no significant influence.

[43][33] At a ceremony in August 2006, Reddy was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame by actress singer, Toni Collette, who described her song, "I Am Woman", as "timeless".

[44] In April 2008, Reddy was reported to be living "simply and frugally off song royalties, pension funds, and social security ... [renting] a 13th-floor apartment with a 180° view of Sydney Harbour".

"[47] She also performed many of her best-known songs, including, "Angie Baby", "You and Me Against the World", a medley of "Delta Dawn"/"Ain't No Way to Treat a Lady", and "I Am Woman", reasoning on the latter that the audience "comes to hear" it.

[48][49] In August 2015, unnamed sources revealed that Reddy was diagnosed with dementia and had moved into the Motion Picture and Television Fund's Samuel Goldwyn Center, where she was cared for by family and friends.

In September 1981, Reddy announced she would be shooting the pilot for her own TV sitcom, in which she would play a single mother working as a lounge singer in Lake Tahoe,[38] but the project was abandoned.

She mostly worked in musicals, including Anything Goes, Call Me Madam,[56] The Mystery of Edwin Drood and – both on Broadway and the West End – Blood Brothers.

"[72] At age 20, Reddy married Kenneth Claude Weate, an older musician and family friend whom she says she wed to defy her parents, who wished her to follow them into show business.

"[77] By 2 January 1981, Reddy and Wald had separated and he had moved into a Beverly Hills treatment facility to overcome an eight-year cocaine addiction, a US$100,000-per-year habit (US$315,724 in 2023)[78].