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Song’s soul mates

Julie Anthony and Simon Gallagher... "Julie will not sing solo again, but she'll sing with me," says Gallaher.

STAGE and TV luminaries Julie Anthony and Simon Gallaher have a lot in common.

Gallaher has  a property at Tamborine Mountain and “a little place” on the Gold Coast at Palm Beach.

Anthony has  a property in the Tweed Valley and “a little place” in Melbourne where her daughter is studying – you guessed it – acting.

But the biggest thing they have in common is that they’ve both had enough – of performing in showbiz, that is.

Semi-retired is a pretty good description of Gallaher’s current state. “I’m ready for a change of pace,” Gallaher says, “it’s a hard, hard business.”

He spent his early years performing and promoting himself.

By age 23 Gallaher had won a Logie and three Mo Variety Awards, later on getting into producing and financing via his production company Essgee Entertainment.

“The risks and the stress are immense,” he says.

He pulled himself out of performing to concentrate on the hugely successful Gilbert and Sullivan shows with Jon English and other productions such as “The Merry Widow” and “Eureka”.

But now that Gallaher and his wife Lisa are “empty-nesters”, they enjoy time together cruising around the Baltic and other places, so when Anthony called up to see if he’d join her in a singing tour, he pleaded stage fright and said “no”.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” was the headmistressly reply.

Gallaher gave in. After all, both had enjoyed huge theatrical careers as well as star spots on TV and were “singing soul mates”.  And so they’ll be here in Canberra at the end of October.

“Julie will not sing solo again, but she’ll sing with me,” he says.

Back in the ‘80s, they sang together on Gallaher’s ABC show, toured with Tommy Tyco and appeared together on the “Midday Show” with Ray Martin, so they knew they had “quite a similar repertoire”.

Anthony confirms Gallaher’s story, saying singing with him is “a lovely thing to do… we have this like-mindedness, vocally.”

Anthony tells “CityNews” they’ll performing a wide-ranging repertoire, “a bit of Lloyd Webber, a bit of Cole Porter a bit of Neil Sedaka, a bit of Peter Allen and a bit of Air Supply.”

Eighty five per cent of it will be in three-part harmony, with musical director Kevin Hocking in the third part and there will be just about four solos each.

Julie Anthony and Simon Gallaher reunite in “Moments To Remember”,  Southern Cross Club, October 29. Bookings to 6282 7288.

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Helen Musa

Helen Musa

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