Maureen Andrew

I have very vague memories of my legs being in callipers. Two sticks up either side of the leg, going higher than my knees, with a series of several leather straps that were linked and pulled tight to keep my legs supported with an aim to straighten them out. I vaguely remember the really big people talking about Polio and how rife it was worldwide, and that I had caught a damaging disease that had come in from another country. ‘Overseas’ I think they called it, and it had spread throughout Australia damaging legs and spines and twisting bodies of young children, making them bed bound and dependent on others and sometimes even killing people. It was all very, very scary for such a little girl, and I willingly allowed Mum to strap me into them every day. The photographs of my backward curving legs taken when I was around two or three always intrigued me, and I remember in later years I was often referred to as being ‘double jointed’. Something that I had inherited from my Mum who suffered badly from back pain because of her flexible joints, back and feet.

But I do remember how those feet fascinated me. She would sit in the single seat lounge chair, with her bare feet slung over one arm of the chair, leaning back into the angled corner of the chair, whilst she was deeply engrossed in some book or other. She had the highest instep arch and I would often go away and compare her feet to mine. How fascinating was that shape.

Early childhood most exciting outings were heading down to the local Cinema on a Saturday evening to sit in that wonderful space, chew on popcorn, buy a chocolate covered ice cream, and watch Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and so many extraordinary and charismatic individuals singing and dancing on that huge screen. The walk there was exciting, the evening stimulating, and the magic lingered forever. I was still so little that I had to sit very upright so I could see over the high back of the seat in front of me.

I can’t remember my first dance teacher, but I do remember I started around age 10 and she unfortunately died. What I do remember as a child was being so physically flexible that I could do a backbend, and then walk my hands between my legs, hold onto my ankles and view the world from an upside down inverted position. So much fun, so easy to do. As were the splits, and all the other specific movements in a ballet class. My dance teacher would get me to stand on the stage, the three steps up stage. Drop a handkerchief to the floor, do a back bend from the top stair and then pick up the handkerchief in my teeth. Or was it two steps, or was it just one. I know I never even thought twice about the impossibility of attempting the ‘trick’ I simply did as I was told. Anyway it was pretty easy to do the backbend, or those splits, or the cartwheels. She had an old mattress in the corner of the room, where we would attempt our handstands and try to flip over and crash on our backs on the mattress. I always got stuck in the hand stand, into a back bend, but I could never quite get my legs to go all the way to end up in a full back bend. I realise now how lucky I was that I was not only hyper flexible but also extremely physically strong. Must have been all that tree climbing and swimming I did as a kid.

Hang on, I still was a kid. I remember when we used to make go carts out of one long piece of wood, two cross bars of wood that we screwed into the middle plank, and a long piece of rope that was attached with screws to either side of the front plank. Then four wheels stolen from somewhere, an old scooter, a pram, who knows. We were young and inventive. We would push off down the hills, and race down the centre of the street at extreme speed, using the attached rope to swivel the front piece of wood so that we could turn corners. Ridiculous now when I look back, and probably very dangerous, but of course the cars on the road in that era were few and far, and the kids of my generation still had a great sense of adventure. How I loved it. How exhilarating and exciting it all was. Sitting high in a tree and watching the world go by, feeling the breeze gently swing the boughs, watching the birds fly in and out, and then having a parent or two standing below yelling at us to get out of the tree.

My second dance teacher was Beverley Nevin. The Beverley Nevin School of Dance, and she had use of the upstairs level of the Library Town Hall which was just down the road from our house in Boundary Road, West End. The Library was on the ground floor, my other favourite haunt. I was the child who would go in, borrow five books and come back two days later and get another five. But, I heard the music and being an inquisitive child passionate about the piano and the joys of it, I wandered up the stair to peek in the doorway. Breathtaking. There was a lovely older lady on the piano down the far end of the room, on a stage that had three steps leading up to it, and she played all the music for the class. The floor boards were bare, and there were ballet barres on two of the walls, cleverly built and screwed into place. I used to always watch Dad doing the home maintenance and basic building works on our house, so I was intrigued by these wall attachments. I must have asked Mum to let me do classes. Probably begged her.

Of course the other joy of childhood was the Sunday roasts, every weekend, at one or other of an Aunt or Uncle’s household. There were 13 kids in Dad’s family so the weekend outings were varied and interesting, the roast and the veggies and the yummy gravy were amazing, and desert was always a sponge cake with cream and jam. Occasionally pumpkin scones, definitely the only thing that pumpkins were ever good for. But every one of the aunts had a piano. And every afternoon, when the meals were finished, and the dishes were washed we all went into the front room of the house, stood around the piano while one of the aunts vamped out the tunes of the time, and we all sang and danced for hours. I didn’t discover till I was in my thirties that some people have to learn to sing harmonies. We all loved the music, the engagement, the sharing, the joyous sounds of it all, and no-one criticised or commented on the less than perfect tones, but in fact, I only every remember the brilliance of it all. No-one ever learned a melody line or a third or fifth, or an acceptable note journey throughout the song. We simply all just did it. How amazingly lucky was I to have had such a delicious engagement every Sunday, both the food, and the joy of song. I know we were all good. What a way to learn about the balance of notes and vibrations and the excitement and buzz off group harmonies shared from children to adults, boys, girls, Mums, Dads, Aunties and even Aunty Nana, obviously my grandma, but because everyone was called Aunty or Uncle I just naturally assumed she was also an Aunty.

This of course was also before television was invented, and generally many of the relatives lived in big houses on generous blocks so there was never ever even a thought or a consideration that we might be annoying the neighbours. At the end of a fun afternoon, all the kids would crash on the couches and old beds on the verandah, sometimes falling asleep until Mums and Dads woke us up and dragged us back home.

I moved through my grades at school too rapidly. I was apparently a bright child and the teachers made a choice to move me up a Grade. Mentally I could cope, but physically it was totally wrong. I was always the smallest kid in the class, skinny, skinny legs, and just that few years of emotional and physical development behind all the other kids in my class. By the time I was fifteen I would have been in Uni but instead, as was the norm of that generation, it wasn’t something the family could afford so I had to go to work full time, and earn enough money to pay a third of my wage to Mum for my share of the home rent. We, the younger generation, didn’t argue with the rules of the day, and simply accepted that that was the expectation of the era.

When we did concerts we also made our own costumes. Mum had an old Singer sewing machine. Machine only in design not in function. There was a flat board foot treadle attached to the side legs and sitting just above the floor. By pushing it with your feet it would accelerate the needle up and down action of the sewing machine and we could make … anything we wanted. I learned very young the art of making a tutu. Buying all the netting, and some lovely satin. making and fitting the bodice and then fitting and shaping the ‘pant part’ of the piece and finally stitching, gathering and attaching the layering from two inches to about 15 inches. Yep look it up. Inches/centimetres. My brain still works in inches. But I loved making my own costumes. It was a sense of achievement that no-one seems to have these days. I still buy some costume parts now, but I always add my own sections to make the design more personal.

When I was nineteen I had learned everything I could in my home town of Brisbane. Because I started later than so many of my dancing peers, I usually did three or four exam levels every year, just so I could catch up, but it also meant that my brain and my body had to memorise so much more and without really understanding the process, I was obviously becoming extremely fit. With a great balance of hyper flexibility and enough physical strength to keep so many of those supporting ligaments much safer. As the years passed I became more aware of how the hyper flexible body, when pushed to extremes, can actually break down and suffer through over use, over extension, and overstretching of ligaments.

I did everything I could to improve my dance skills, and I had met a young man in the dance classes, with whom I did some fabulous pas de deus, and we decided the next leg of the journey was to travel to Melbourne and pursue our dance and theatre interests there. We drove. Yes, all the way from Brisbane, Queensland to Melbourne. It took a few days, and we slept in the car on the way. How on earth we managed to find a flat I will never know. This huge city with enormously high buildings. I know we arrived on a Sunday and I remember parking the car, and walking through the city and being shocked by the feel of the wind blowing through the streets and around the towers. No, it probably wasn’t that big a city back then, but compared to flat and low Brisbane it was amazing. We found a flat in East St Kilda, where you could walk to the tram stop easily and catch the tram into the city. Somehow we both found work, and also discovered Betty Pounder’s classes in the Sun Room at the back of Her Majesty’sTheatre. Eventually we also met Antonio Rodrigues, and May and Tuppy Downs, an absolutely amazing mother and daughter team who had a small studio in the heart of Melbourne on the corner of Bourke Street and the enigmatic Ronnie Arnold.

They both wore their daily lady attire, not any ballet gear while they were teaching. I clearly remember Mum/May always seems to have very baggy underpants that seemed to sag under her skirt. Couldn’t be further removed from the leotards and tights that we all wore. They yelled the order of the routine steps at us, yelled everything at us, and it was there that I first remember meeting a very young David Atkins. What a dynamite kid he was, a fantastic tap dancer and great jazz ballet performer. The steps were somewhat less complicated in those early days but the discipline was at its peak. Co-ordination, timing, precision, uniformity, grace, style, class, repeat, repeat, repeat. They trained beautiful young girls and sent them over to Paris to dance. I never became one of those. Still considered too skinny in an era of voluptuous, blonde, movie stars

Ballet classes with Kathy Gorham in the downstairs studio with Madam Taska. Everybody yelled in those days, but of course, no one used microphones. To this day, every time I sing ‘At the Ballet’ I laugh on the inside because that is exactly how it was. Up a steep and very narrow stairs, to the voice like a metronome. The dance style exercises of the era were created by ‘Luigi’, well constructed, varied, but a consistent routine repeated every class, over and over till we reached some degree of perfection. We stood at the bars, both hands on the barre and facing the wall, feet in first position, extend and stretch the right foot to the side and begin doing our leg swings. My leg always swung on the upward trajectory, so close to my body that my leg would hit my head. Never though anything about it as it was simply where we pushed our body to, splits to the side, splits in the centre, back bends, turns, single pirouettes, double, triple, run to the corner of the room, prepare, step ball change and grand jete, grand jete, and then run round to the other corner back of the room to repeat leading wth the other leg. An hour and a half of class, several days a week. Wonderful memories. If our tights got laddered, we simply stitched them back up, if our point shoes wore out, we hand stitched small pieces across the toe points, sewed our ribbon laces to the shoes and sometimes a small piece of elastic that went across the front, for better support and tried to make every piece of our leotards, tights, and ballet shoes last five times longer than they should have.

But everyone WAS beautiful at the ballet... Not just a line from a song, but something really magical. When we went to theatre and watched those marvellous performers on stage it was etched into my mind forever. I did see Margot Fonteyn dance. No, she didn’t have the hyper flexibility that is expected of today’s young ballerinas, but it was the grace and beauty that beamed out of her body to every corner of the theatre. And a young Michael Barishynikov. When he jumped, he seemed to stay suspended in the air for a magic moment, before landing powerfully yet gracefully on the stage. It was the beginning of an explosion of expectations of dancers and the most amazing era of choreography and pushing the boundaries. Even watching the routines of dancers like Busy Berkley, not necessarily brilliant dance technique, but total discipline, balance, matching costumes, colour, and movement, to a point where it was like watching waves on the ocean echoing and repeating and bouncing off each other. Sensational.

It only took two years for my dance partner to get his first television dancing gig. I remember how we used to rehearse at home in the very tiny lounge room, doing choreography, trying new moves, and trying to not crash into the furniture. One song that was a hit at the time “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” from a western movie. Never could get that routine to match the music. The next year, I auditioned for and got into the Australian cast of Hair. It had been running for several months in Sydney and I was the only Melbourne person to be added to the cast at the time, and a whole lifetime of change began for me. What an astounding piece of theatre for its time. Two crazy young American writers, structuring a modern story line around a bunch of young innocent hippy kids, and their fears when one of their group is conscripted to the Vietnam war. I had loved all the musical of my youth, Brigadoon, My Fair Lady, everything that Judy Garland was in, the completely different styles of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the elegant and sexy Cyd Charisse and the reasonably safe story journey of their musicals, boy meets girl, they fall in love, fall out of love, dance with someone else and then up back in each others arms.

Being in the cast of Hair, with Reg Livermore, Marcia Hynes, so many wonderful kids. I remember our Claude, handsome tall, beautiful, and sadly one of the many who died too young. I knew so many beautiful men of that generation who succumbed to the AIDS virus. How hard it was when we were performing in Brisbane for anyone in the cast who was gay. They had to stay in their apartments and only go out to perform at the theatre. It was the early days of the power of a young man named Joh Bjelke-Peterson who ruled the politics of the time, one of the longest serving politicians of his era, and if any of those young gay boys were caught they would be arrested and given a life time recorded sentence for their horrific crimes of variant sexuality. It was such an eye opener for me. There was so much to be learned and observed about how ugly human beings can be to each other, how easily the unknown can cause great fear and how with great fear and great ignorance comes terrible revenge.

Running Hair in Sydney was also a frightening experience as some of the boys would get bashed and there was one highly politically motivated religious zealot who also denigrated the whole of the cast. There was a nude scene at the end of the first act. The Tribe had protested against the injustice of sending young man to war, simply based on their birth date, in Australian drawn out of a barrel, and the final protest was to stand naked under the canopy. Emotions were high, both on stage and off, but all I can really remember at the end of the first act was the scramble to find ones clothes, hopefully still in the pile where you left them on stage, as we tried to fluff up the canopy that covered all of us, so that we could get dressed, get off stage, and have the half hour break. The funny thing that I remember about doing that show, is that every night I would go on stage prior to the show and do a dance warm up. After all it was the discipline of my training. So many years later I have always wondered if it was my fault that we all now have the ‘half hour’ or the ‘hour call’ to get to the theatre early and do physical and vocal warm ups prior to going on stage. Yeah, Nah. Surely there were other dancers over the world who also realised that it was safer to warm up and be prepared for the show run.

It wasn’t until my daughter endured hyper flexibility that I really became aware firstly, that there is a certain genetic disposition that is now sought after in the dance industry, superior flexibility, but I now recognise that what we believe to be superior flexibility can in fact be a life long source of destruction on the bones, joints and ligaments.

But the joy of movement, the bliss of the music coursing through the body and into our veins, the magic of unison, the grace, the totally matched tap beats, never leaves our hearts and minds. How lucky was I to have danced, and to have danced with such joy, passion and discipline. In my heart I am still that dancer, even if the body denies me the power of physical expression. It still takes my breath away.  

One day, several years ago, I was shopping in a store. I think it was in Box Hill, a suburb in Melbourne, and I heard a voice: ‘Good morning Mr Stephenson Jones”. It is not often that I am recognised over a public address system in the middle of a busy store. I turned to see a familiar  face promoting clothes and other items at “rock bottom prices”.

It was my friend, Maureen Andrew. Maureen, like most actors I know, was doing a non-theatre job. Actors are rarely unemployed, we prefer to say, “we are resting between engagements”.

Indeed, between shows actors often take on another job rather than sit and wait for the next dole payment, or the much-anticipated call from their agent.

It has struck me that every season there seems to be another popular job choice. Spruiking in shops is a very popular choice. For a long time, unemployed actors were doing store promotion work demonstrating the latest apple peeler, then there was massage, and today it seems to be getting gigs as civil celebrants.

Maureen is one of those special people in theatre with many strings to her bow having performed in all kinds of theatre, cabaret, and television. She is a travelling gypsy gracing the boards in several shows. She is a dancer, singer, and actress. She can also teach and I hired her several times in my school, the Actors Showcase.

I asked Maureen about some of her own teachers. Of course, I asked her about my old chum Lynn  Golding:

Yes, I do remember classes with Lynn Golding although I can’t remember where. I have a feeling it was in the big old ballroom floor studios above Flinders Street Station. I remember attending classes with a very young David Atkins at May and Tuppy Downs in that old upstairs studio in the heart of Melbourne. If only I hadn’t been so skinny, I could have been a “Tivoli Girl”. Betty Pounder jazz classes and tap classes with Isabel Ryan in the old Sunroom dance studio at the back of The Maj, Antonio Rodrigues, Madame Taska and Kathy Gorham, The Kathleen Gorham Ballet Academy in the ancient downstairs studio near the corner of Little Lonsdale Street, and with Tony Bartuccio in the 70’s, Barbara Warren-Smith and Ronnie Arnold. And of course, prior to moving to Melbourne aged 19, Beverly Nevin in Brisbane where we did the lot, ballet, (RAD) jazz and tap (C.S.Th.D) contemporary. I always wanted to attend the Borovansky Academy but as a lowly paid office staff I just couldn’t afford it. But great days, discipline, development, respect, hard work and constant push for progress and achievement.  The old standards were outstanding. I even learned how to do “The Swords”, the Scottish dance, when I was about 6 years old. I was very good at hopping over those crossed swords while wearing an oversized kilt.

Maureen always loved to dance. Left is one of her first gigs at sixteen years of age. Note that they sewed their own Can-Can costumes in those days.

I first met Maureen while hunting around for a movement teacher for one of my weekend workshops. Maureen was available and the students thoroughly enjoyed her classes. I have relied upon Maureen a few times over the years.

It has been a very impressive career having worked on so many shows and gigs. When work is not available she is one of those wise and talented ladies who has the skill to create her own work.

One show I remember Maureen doing was her one-woman cabaret solo. It was called A Diva and Her Toyboy. This delightful cabaret was performed in 2001 at Chapel off Chapel, Malthouse. She was accompanied by a very talented pianist Adrian Kirk.

They were perfect together. Maureen told stories, sang from the shows, and the audience loved her.

I remember getting into conversation with a few Tivoli ladies. I have always loved talking to Tivoli showgirls. My mum knew many but that is for another article.

One song Maureen sang was ‘Everything is Beautiful at the Ballet’. This was interspersed with some truly delicious stories. The cheeky rapport she had with Adrian Kirk was delightful. Adrian is now M.D. with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and working with Cameron Mackintosh. From humble country boy organ player to top M.D. gig on the planet!

Maureen has always loved musical theatre and has appeared in many shows. She has appeared with many top theatre stars too, such as Hugh Jackman in The Boy From Oz, as well as performing with Todd McKenny, Live at the Palms Crown Casino.

Maureen was in Scrooge at the Princess Theatre in 1994. This beautiful production starred Keith Michell. Michell was very much show-biz royalty and although the show starred Anthony Newly in the West End, Keith was soon to make the role his own. He was a perfect Scrooge who was able to bring a gentle sympathy to the nasty  mean old miser. Also in the very impressive cast were Max Gillies, William Zappa and Tony Taylor. She also played in Greasethe mega-musical tent tour around Australia in 2010, and with David Atkins in Saturday Night Fever. Maureen played in the original cast of Hair. This show let the sunshine in for eighteen months in New Zealand, Melbourne and Sydney.

Maureen is clearly a triple threat. She is equally at home in the worlds of dance, singing and obviously acting. Her list of musical theatre accomplishments is extremely impressive. One show she loved doing was Gypsywhich she played for Nova musical theatre. One of the biggest numbers in Gypsyis ‘You’ve Gotta Have A Gimmick’. This number can easily steal the show with Tessie the stripper.

Critics from ‘Theatre People’ said:

Maureen J. Andrew (Tessie Tura), Sapphira (Electra), and Cassandra Beckett (Mazeppa) brought the house down with ‘You Gotta Have A Gimmick’. Andrew’s additional scenes were a delight, just the right combination of sass and the kind of brassiness that come from being washed up. 

So many shows. Some that come to mind are Hello, Dolly!, Dear World, Phantom of the Opera, Hugh Jackman’s The Boy from Oz, and Billy Elliot. Another includes Calendar Girlsfor the John Frost Organisation in which she understudied eight roles.

It was fitting last year when Hugh Jackman asked the understudy for Sutton Foster in The Music Man to take a special curtain call. Understudies do not get the luxury of much rehearsal. It is one of the toughest jobs in the industry. To understudy eight roles is a great achievement. The understudy must survive the groan from the audience when it is announced that the main actor will not be performing that night. It takes talent and guts.

Often the audience does not even catch the name of these performers. I have seen some stunning understudies and standbys over the years but I could not name any of them. Without these grand  people, theatre would not survive.

At 27, Maureen played with the Mulga Bill’s Bicycle,which eventually became The General Store. This was the first of many bands and singing gigs she played in.

Maureen has actively participated in the LGBTQI Chill-out Festival. So, what is Chill-out? To quote from their own web page:

From humble beginnings in 1997, the Chill-Out Festival has grown to become Australia’s largest Queer Country Pride festival. Chill-Out is recognised as a culturally important and nationally celebrated LGBTIQ pride event, supporting and representing Queer pride for all regional people.

At Chill-Out Maureen sang tributes to many gay icons such as Shirley Bassey, Bette Midler, and of course, Judy Garland, to the delight of the crowds.

Of her singing, critic Lucas Ioppolo remarked:

As for her rendition of the Academy Award winning ‘Over The Rainbow’ from The Wizard Of Oz, Andrew’s acting skills really made her commanding vocal performance ever the more convincing, taking us on the lyrical journey so magically and memorably through each note that came out of her mouth. She may have been performing to just one auditorium full of people about the land where dreams come true, but it felt like she was serenading to the whole world.

Since 1997 Maureen has had the rare distinction of playing four guest roles in the television series Neighbours. She auditioned for Jan Russ, the casting director of Neighbours, landing the role of an arts teacher, Mrs Killalee. Maureen believes that maybe her own experiences as a teacher helped her land the role. In another role she enjoyed playing Dr Danielle Marks and says it was fun playing a role in which her character had the authority to tell off Mark Rafferty for his character’s indiscretions. She hastens to add that Mark was a delight. She wished she could have stayed longer but had to fly to Sydney to start rehearsals for Cabaret.

In an interview for a web site called ‘The Perfect Blend’, Maureen was asked what she had been doing since her final stint in Neighbours?

I toured with Greasefor 9 months as Miss Lynch, with Cabaretfor 11 months playing Fraulein Schneider, and just finished in September 2005 an 18-month Australasian tour with Saturday Night Feverplaying Flo Manero. Since I have been back in Melbourne, I have played Madame Thenardier in Les Misérables, tap danced with Todd McKenney as one of the Golden girls in his cabaret show at Crown Casino, filmed a few commercials, some short films, am co-producing a film, teaching drama, and writing a musical tribute to Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence. Along the way I managed to get a gig in Peter Jackson's King Kong, scored the role of Mrs Danvers in the Australian premiere of Rebecca, the Musical and performed in several Fringe Festival Productions. A little later this year I head off again on tour with Hugh Jackman in the The Boy From Oz.

Her resume states 51 years professional work in arts and entertainment. It includes working for and touring with Hugh Jackman, Elton John, Kylie Minogue, tours with 20 major musicals, including performances at the Sydney Sports and Entertainment and the Rod Laver Arena. Film and TV from Neighboursto Cadburys Favourites and hundreds more. Trained teacher in classical ballet, tap, hip hop, funk, jazz ballet, etcetera. Self-produced tribute shows include Shirley Bassey, Tina Turner, Liza Minelli, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Dolly Parton, Shania Twain. Approximately 10,000 performances!

In 2012 Maureen scored a huge triumph when she landed the demanding yet incredibly rewarding role of Norma Desmond in CLOC’s production of Sunset Boulevard.

Maureen was thrilled to be playing the larger-than-life character of Norma Desmond, portrayed so brilliantly in the original movie by real silent screen movie star Gloria Swanson, in what became her most iconic role.

“This part is every actress’s dream, playing a character who is so commanding yet pitiful at the same time,” says Maureen. “And to also have the chance to sing the glorious Andrew Lloyd Webber score is an extra bonus, as I think he wrote lush, rich and beautiful music which captures the 1950s era and the Hollywood setting perfectly. I feel very blessed to have this opportunity and to work with a company with such high artistic and technical standards, which this show requires.” (Stage Whispers, 2012)

With music by Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton, whose names are associated with such successful musicals as Phantom of the Opera, Cats, and CLOC’s 2011 production Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard pays loving homage not only to the movie, regarded as one of the finest ever made, but also faithfully recreates the era of Hollywood, studios and stars in the years after talking pictures had taken over silent movies, with a show which is famous for its magnificent sets and costumes, biting humour and memorable dialogue (“I am big – it’s the pictures that got small”).

This show requires stamina as well as talent and Maureen has plenty of that. It was a performance to be remembered.

Maureen is known and loved by celebrities who all praise her professionalism and she is respected by her fellow gypsies.

It is almost inevitable that Maureen would become involved in politics some time. In 2016 she stood for the Arts Party which fostered her life long fight to get better recognition and support for artists. Maureen has long been an active EQUITY member.

Of course, supporting causes such as LGBTQI but also many others which are numerous.

It has been a pleasure to learn more about this remarkable lady.