Rhonda Burchmore is ready to embrace all that Christmas has to offer
Rhonda Burchmore grew up loving Christmas, but for more than a decade it has only dredged up sad memories for the Australian entertainment legend.
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Christmas is bittersweet for stage icon Rhonda Burchmore. This year is the first she will decorate a tree and acknowledge the holiday as she knew it since losing her father Jack to Parkinson’s in 2009, her dear sister Michelle to a cruel neurological disease in 2015 and mother Yvonne in 2017. It’s been too painful before now.
But the Melbourne-based entertainer is coming home to Sydney to perform at Carols in the Domain, and is now ready to celebrate her past, not just be saddened by it.
“On a very personal level, I unfortunately lost my mum and my dad, my sister all within a very short time and we were the tightest knit family unit,” the 63 year old says. “And it makes me a little sad – without dwelling on it – because Christmas was amazing in the Burchmore household, it was really, really big.
“We grew up in the (Sutherland) Shire and it was extended family, it was our house and we’d have as many as 20 or 30 people. Mum would set the tables a month in advance and make all the decorations – it’s a little bittersweet now that they’ve all gone.
“I’ve still got lifelong friends in Sydney … so, for me, in a sentimentally silly old way, it’s a beautiful thing doing something like Carols, and to think of them. But it’s taken a long time.”
She says such profound loss in a small space of time had its impact, particularly when her parents and sister hadn’t been themselves for so long during their suffering.
“I wanted to get as far away from that whole family Christmas as I could, because it seemed a little bit wrong for me to be celebrating without them being there anymore,” she says.
“So my husband and my daughter and I, we got a little place on the Gold Coast, and that was my perfect escape to get away from it and just celebrate by the beach with a bottle of Champagne and seafood, just a really quiet Christmas. This year is the first one that we’re going to come back towards it. It’s a big step – I bought online today this magnificent Christmas tree, so I’ll probably have extended family and friends down here this year.”
The nostalgia of coming back to Sydney is a full circle moment, and the perfect way to honour the milestone of her 40 fabulous years on stage. And the festive season, she says, is needed more than ever this year.
“I love Sydney – I was born there so even though I live in Melbourne, it’s quite a joy to go back up there – and I adore everything about Christmas and carols,” she says. “At the one I did last year the skies opened and we were in the pouring rain, but it didn’t matter. I was in my million dollar frock and absolutely soaked to the bone, but singing my little heart out, and the people, it’s just a really great vibe.
“And, especially this year, there was so much sadness around, not only in the world, but so many of our friends and colleagues are dropping off the old perch – the lovely Johnny Ruffo – I’ve had three close friends in the industry die this year, and you just go, it’s Christmas, let’s all give each other a big old hug.”
While her longevity is something she’s proud of, she’s also proud of the long legs she’s synonymous with – especially as they were more of a burden than a blessing while growing up. “My dad was six foot three (190cm). I just knew I was tall, and growing up – it wasn’t a curse, but in ballet I was ostracised because I was too tall, and laughed at – my height was like a bullying thing,” she says.
“Crazily, it turned around in a positive way in an early show that I did called Sugar Babies, which was the one that would get me to London with Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller because they needed a tall, leggy showgirl.
“The Americans said, ‘Don’t crouch, wear the highest heels, you’ve got good legs, be as leggy as you can’ – so it wasn’t until then, well into my 20s, I thought okay, this is something that not everyone’s got.
“I grew up on the Mike Walsh show and Don Lane and Hey, Hey it’s Saturday, Ray Martin – they would always make a thing of my legs – it’s a bit like Kylie’s bum in her gold shorts.”
Burchmore laughs off the “myth” those legs are insured for a million dollars. She is insured for a whole lot more than that.
“I’m insured for quite a lot of money, more than a million dollars, probably several – but the thing is, I figure what is the use of just having my legs insured?” she says.
“If everything else falls apart, there’s no way you can perform, so the whole lot of me is insured. I have this vision when someone says that, of just these long legs coming out on stage, with no body,” she laughs.
Burchmore has just finished Hairspray with fellow 40-year industry veteran Todd McKenney – the dear friends graced the same stage for their first ever show in Adelaide on June 21, 1983, to be exact. She’s been in countless productions since then, from Guys and Dolls to Mamma Mia! and everything in between – and while it’s still her passion, her joy – it hasn’t always been easy.
“The thing that I’m most proud of, as with Todd, is our longevity, still surviving and being at the top of our craft, all these years later,” she says. “There are so many more schools for arts and performing now than when I grew up, and they might go out and do one job or two, but it’s sustaining it. Sustaining a career in the business is really, really hard, and I don’t care whether it was now or back then, it still takes a lot of homework and it’s not by fluke.
“You might get your first lucky break, but see how you go 10, 20, 30 years down the track. It’s hard work, but it’s what we love.
“It was an amazing life and fabulous because it was what I loved doing and still love – it wasn’t a chore. But the hardest thing was when I was in London, because I would end up doing four major shows over there, and that’s not easy.
“I was married and my husband didn’t pack up, he stayed here in Melbourne, he’s a doctor, so that’s a big commitment and a lot of trust and a lot of phone calls and a lot of commutes.
“They’re the tough things. Even though it’s crazily wonderful to be out there performing for all these amazing people, it’s incredibly lonely when you’re on tour and even here in Australia, with work, you’re in Adelaide for Christmas, you’re in Perth, you’re all over the shop and it’s a bit of a juggle.”
She says the effects of Covid shutdowns are still being felt by the industry that barely survived them. “Covid hasn’t gone away – if you look at our industry, people coming to shows – they’re still not coming back in the way that they did pre-Covid, without that worry. And all the domino effect of people not having the money to spend on entertainment – it’s a little fragile, the whole world at the moment,” she says. “I’m not dwelling on Covid but one of the things that kept me going mentally was to get out all those old VHS and photographs, and I pinch myself that I can still remember the first time I worked on stage in London with Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller who were like these Hollywood legends that I’d grown up watching in the old musicals, and to actually be on stage with them.
“I still get little goosebumps when I remember standing every night on stage, one on either side of me, doing our final bow together – I was 26 years old, and that feels like yesterday.
“I remember my first show and all the excitement and learning so much from these other people. And now the shoe’s on the other foot when young people go, ‘Ooh it’s Rhonda’ and it’s a wonderful thing, it’s very flattering, if I can help guide or, not mentor, but just share some of my experiences over the years for these young up-and-comers.”
Another way she’s survived any lulls over the years – particularly when her height ruled her out for roles – was to, like her friend McKenney, create her own work.
“If there’s not a big budget, huge musical running around with a role suitable in it for you, what Todd and I do is we create our own shows, which is really gutsy in itself, when you’re putting up the money yourself and taking that huge risk, as well as getting out there and marketing it and performing,” Burchmore says.
“It’s really tough because there’s not that many of us around who have been in the business that long and still with the absolute love to do it, and even fewer who produce their own shows when they want to. But I love it.
“You can bitch about it some days – I mean, I just came off Hairspray with Todd and that’s eight shows a week and some days you wake up and go, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t really feel like it today’ – but it’s that wonderful thing of ‘Dr Footlight’ – you get out there and you do it and 99.9 times out of 100 when I’ve gone on stage, I feel better after.
“I think it’s one of those things that’s been in my blood forever – ever since I was … not that I was ever really a little girl … but when I was young, that’s all I wanted to do.
“I digressed to go to university to become a schoolteacher – for Mum and Dad – and got my degree in teaching, but because my big sister was in show business, the first show I could audition for I went out and did it. And so I’ve never had to look back on teaching.”
But despite all the highs, you’ll always have regrets, she muses.
“I got so close to doing Easter Parade on Broadway. Easter Parade was an incredible musical that was originally done by Fred Astaire and Judy Garland, and I was gonna go over there and do that and everything was set to go and it was a big tap-dancing, singing spectacular and I was going to star opposite Tommy Hume.
“That is one big regret … it was gut wrenching when it was two years in the making, and then all of a sudden the backers pulled out.
“Those opportunities don’t come around as you get older … and with my height, there’s only certain roles that I can do. I would never audition for Maria in The Sound of Music because they were really strict on the height you’d have to be, and they still are.
“I was always like a giraffe – I was never going to play the petite, sweet ingenue, it was always going to be a character role or larger than life, which has served me well – but to go back to Broadway, when a role comes along and the show’s been written for you and then the whole thing just falls over – that took a while to get over, and even now I wonder, ‘What if?’.
“Would I have lived in the States, Broadway?
“But I’ve just come back from taking my daughter away, we went in September and it’s really great over there, but the grass is not necessarily greener. I don’t have this absolute drive anymore to get over there. It’s not one thing that I have to do – and as you get older you become a bit more realistic too, and I’m more than happy with my lot back here.”
So after 40 all-singing, all-dancing years, Burchmore isn’t going anywhere just yet.
But when it’s time, she’s hoping someone she loves will tell her.
“I love doing what I do, but I think there’s nothing more tragic than people who may have lost their voice or they are not as great at their skills but still go out and do things,” she says.
“It’s really sad when you see these people that may have worked in stadiums and huge theatres and they’re working in little pubs with people talking over them and people having no idea or respect for who they were – I think that’s really tragic. I never ever want to be in that situation where I’ll be singing at some bar with people talking and going, ‘That used to be …’
“Hopefully someone – my husband or my daughter, will say, ‘Mum, it’s time to stop’ before it gets to that. But at this stage, I still love it and I can still sing. I love where my voice is placed now even better than 10, 20 years ago, and as I’ve gotten older, I’m not as worried about what people think. If I enjoy it, I go out and do it.
“I guess it’s called moxie – I’m a little bit more confident in myself.
“I’m less fazed about failure.”
Woolworths Carols in the Domain is on Saturday, December 16 in Sydney. Tickets available at carolsinthedomain.com
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