Did the world need a Helen Reddy musical biopic?

Isn't Helen Reddy broke and in a nursing home with dementia?

Well, on the bright side, she won't need to spend much inn the nursing home, as long as they're not kicking her out.

this is never getting released here.

That looks so boring, I couldn't even finish a minute.

I don't think there was ever a more annoying voice in popular music- never understood her appeal or the silly songs she sang-

Will it be honest about the cocaine fueled muff diving?

Will it cover her 1972 arrest for loitering in front of an orchestra? She was let off with just a $300 fine.

R5, I'm not a fan but it's kind of a stretch to call her the most annoying voice ever. Next to Britney Spears?!

Or Whispercoo Jackson?

Or Wing?

I've been waiting for this since "Airport 75".

This is going to be hard to market.

Who?

Seriously, who?

there's never a bad time to remind people of this incredible song from the mediocre Disney movie she did.

Wiki is weird about her possible dementia. They say she was diagnosed in 2015, and "unnamed sources" put her into the Motion Picture Country Hospital. But the very next thing it says it that she appeared for the Women's March in Jan 2017, and sang "I Am Woman." So who knows.

Tilda Cobham-Hervey IS Helen Reddy.

Not according to Gregory Ellwood at TIFF. "Cobham-Hervey gives, for the most part, a disturbingly passive performance. She tries to mimic the singer’s body movements during live performances and lays her emotions bare during key dramatic moments dictated by the screenplay. The problem is twofold, however. First, her voice is naturally higher than Reddy’s so when she’s lip-syncing the singer’s vocals there is a disconnect because Reddy’s singing voice is so much lower than the actress we’ve seen speaking so it all seems off (again, Reddy’s voice was not as high as Cobham-Hervey’s). Second, she can’t pull off the natural charisma Reddy had as a performer on stage. She’s got her looks and mannerisms down, but recreating Reddy’s onstage magic is beyond her. "

r1

Must be, because now she speaks with an Australian accent again. How come?

[quote] Second, she can’t pull off the natural charisma Reddy had as a performer on stage.

Jesus, if you can't manage to be Helen Reddy-level charismatic, perhaps a career onscreen isn't for you.

lol r19

She was the host of the Midnight Special. That was MTV before it was MTV.

Marry me, r19!

This would be a great movie to put on if you are having trouble sleeping. You’d be snoring in five minutes.

R8, Spears has no voice. Helen had a voice and it was annoying as hell.

When I was in high school I badgered the head of the local radio station for free tickets to see her.

It was so bad we walked out after a couple songs. Just terribly boring.

I probably just wanted to see if we could cajole the guy into giving us free tickets.

I'd rather see "Helen Beddy".

Her song "I Am Woman" is iconic, went to #1 and will be remembered forever. She has certainly earned her place in musical history. She had a good run in the 1970's with some big hits and carved out her own niche in the music world. Yay Helen!

Helen is 78 now.

I won't go to the movie without a guarantee of hearing "Angie Baby."

I would see it, I think she has an interesting story.

I’d rather they just adapt Angie Baby into a movie. It would make a good thriller.

Helen Reddy isn't ready

R1 No.

She is not broke and the home she is in is very nice.

She gets dialysis every other day as a result of the prednisone she took for Addisons's disease.

r33, where did you learn this? I'm glad she doesn't have dementia.

Also, she only has one kidney. She had one removed when she was young.

She's fabulous - how dare some of you

I liked "Pete's Dragon" it was the Christmas Show at Radio City Music Hall

Another demonic lesbian headed straight to hell!

What I am really waiting for is the Anne Murray biopic.

Helen's life today.

The world needs a Helen LAWSON biopic.

I was a huge fan back in the day. I'm not really into biopics, so I'll probably never watch it, but I still listen to her music.

Unless Evan Peters shows the pole or the hole, I see no reason for this film to have been made.

Inwonder if any of the scenes she created with her husbands when they received"bad service" are in the film. All I remember of her was Rolling Stone's reporting on the bad behavior of "the Reddy's" and tuneless nasal singing of hers.

She's the only recording artist to have 3 hit records about crazy women.

I remember she hosted the Tonight Show once. It was the most painful show I ever sat through. Her singing was fine, but she never got one laugh the entire show...not one.

Was she into coke or just her husband?

Evan Peters needs to help play young Malcolm MacDowell in the Mary Steenburgen biopic next.

I agree with what she said about her song, "I Am Woman."

[quote] "It's not just for women," she said. "It's a general empowerment song about feeling good about yourself, believing in yourself. When my former brother-in-law, a doctor, was going to medical school he played it every morning just to get him going."

It is a song that just really works you up. I knew a very macho guy in college who would play it on his ipod as part of his workout playlist. He discovered it because he said his coach in high school would play it.

Her husband Jeff Wald was one of the biggest assholes in Hollywood. A biopic about him would be interesting. Yes, he was so heavily into coke that he burned a hole in his nose and when a cocaine booger went straight to his brain.

Yes men sang "I Am Woman".

That ain't no wsy to treat a lady.......

In the biopic did they recreate the Grammy speech where she referred to God as a woman?

^ That really my steamed my father's potatoes.

Variety review.

Her sister, Toni Lamond was a star of stage and screen in Australia.

It's a very short musical. That's because the first number is "Ruby Red Dress." So Helen comes out sings "Leave Me Alone," and the audience says "OK," and gets up and leaves.

They should do a movie about Helen and her crew of disturbed women including Delta Dawn, Angie Baby and Ruby Red Dress. They could all go to lunch.

Were those nine #1s on the Hot 100? Or are some of them AC/Country etc.?

Helen only had three #1 singles on the Hot 100. Also, the review above referred to her as having more chart hits than practically any solo female artist of the 70s, which is horseshit. Streisand, Ronstadt, ONJ, Carly Simon, Diana Ross, Donna Summer...

She had 20 Hot 100 singles, of which 3 were #1 hits and a further 3 were top ten hits. She had eight AC #1 hits plus another 7 top ten hits, out of 24 songs that charted on the AC chart. She charted once each on the C&W and R&B charts but they were low ranking.

I saw her do a set at a charity event in LA about 20 years ago. She was fantastic and the voice was as good as ever. It was a delight seeing her. She seemed really nice as well.

I want a Maureen McGovern biopic

Nobody gives a fuck about the AC chart. It means nothing.

They seem to have a complete inability to create the look of the 70s in these things.

Look at any Datalounge 70s nostalgia thread if you want to see what the 70s actually looked like.

I Am Woman is iconic? I think it's more like listening to ...Salem tastes good like a cigarette should.." believe me- no one is going to listen to and recall the great vocalists (Aretha, Streisand, Karen) or singer songwriters (Joni, Carole) in the same manner as the "iconic" Helen Reddy. Perhaps Tony Orlando and Dawn and their iconic "Tie a Yellow Ribbon". That voice could drive a stampede of elephants.

It was made by the Australians - to them she is iconic and she is Aretha/Streisand/Karen rolled into one. She's their biggest pop star of the 60s AND 70s.

Bigger than Johnny Farnham?

Wouldn't the Bee Gees and Olivia Newton John be bigger?

[quote]Did the world need a Helen Reddy musical biopic?

Well, maybe.

At least it's not another "reimagined" classic.

[quote]That looks so boring, I couldn't even finish a minute.

I saw this dud at TIFF last year and it really *is* boring.

I suspect the producers thought they could capitalize on the "biopic of iconic musical performers" trend that spawned recent hits like "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Rocketman." Or even older fare like "What's Love Got to Do With It?"

The problem is that people like Freddie Mercury, Elton John or Tina Turner (or countless other singers/musicians) is that they had FANTASTIC stage shows/stage presence, so the performance numbers in those movies have power. Helen Reddy didn't, so she literally just stands onstage at the mic, stationary, for song after song after song in this film. It was repetitive and d-u-l-l.

Evan Peters was fine, although he's essentially delivering a variation on most of the characters he's played on AHS.

^^ Ugh, please ignore the duplicate "is that they" above.

The Peter Allen TV biopic was pretty good. I didn't see the ONJ one, though I imagine Delta Goodrem made a pretty unsuitable ONJ.

Did Peter Allen have it in his will that if any sort of bio-project was made about him, whoever played him had to be 600% more attractive than Allen ever was? Between Hugh Jackman and Joel Jackson, you'd have thought Peter Allen was the most beautiful stud ever, not some nebbishy, balding mince.

R68: when they talk about Helen Reddy being the biggest female artist of the 70s they're really talking about the early 70s. In 1978 around the time of Saturday Night Fever and Grease, things kinda exploded then artists started getting number 1 hits with every release. Olivia Newton John had more hits but Donna Summer had 3 number 1 hits in one year.

How is it that Helen Reddy has a biopic and they STILL haven't made the Dusty Springfield movie?

A Dusty Springfield biopic will require every lesbian registered with Central Casting.

I want to be on that list!

Not just Dusty. There has been a Janis Joplin movie in the works for years, that hasn't taken off. (I don't count The Rose.)

[quote]Wouldn't the Bee Gees and Olivia Newton John be bigger?

The Bee Gees & ONJ were English, grew up in Australia, but returned to England as young adults and started their careers there.

In the early 1970's Helen Reddy's singing career was floundering badly and she was getting ready to return to Australia - she insisted to her husband/music producer Jeff Wald that he pay attention to her career once and for all. He rigged it up that she would be given one chance to demonstrate her singing prowess and they gave her "I Don't Know How To Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar. It did the trick and became a big Top 40 hit single, bigger than Yvonne Elliman's version of the same song (although personally I like Yvonne's version better ) AND the rest is history.

Reddy got "Love Him" after Linda Ronstadt turned it down. Ronstadt said she knew it would be a hit but couldn't sing it because she didn't like the lyrics.

She appeared at a Tampa Gay Pride one year and performed in concert. She sang three songs. For the second concert, she sang the same three songs.

Thank god it was free.

Jeff Wald seems like a more interesting subject than Helen.

That body language...

Was he like Jon Peters to Barbra?

More like Bobbi Brown to Whitney

Never heard of that woman.

Jeff Wald was raised in the Bronx, his dad was a surgeon who died young. He had a major coke and alcohol problem and rage issues He pissed away all of their money (mega millions) then blocked her from recording contracts after she divorced him.