Source: The 2007 HRC San Francisco Bay Area Gala Event Program 

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Guest Speaker

Lucy Lawless


Born in New Zealand in 1968, Lucy Lawless grew up fifth in a family of seven children.  With four older brothers as role models, her mother said she didn't know she was a girl until she was eight. By this age, she and her best friend were adapting fairy tales into plays that they would inflict on any possible audience.  Apart from a brief flirtation with the idea of becoming a forensic pathologist, brought on by watching 'Quincy M.D.', acting has always been her passion.  As the fare would have it, Lucy was the local kid on the spot when an American actress pulled out of the role of 'Xena', at that time just a guest character on 'Hercules the Legendary Journeys', which was filming in her hometown.  The character struck a chord with audiences and spun off into her own series.  Since then she has played Rizzo on Broadway, hosted 'Saturday Night Live', pulverized Callista Flockhart in claymation on 'Celebrity Deathmatch', saved Bart and Lisa on 'The Simpsons".  Roles on 'X-Files' and 'Battlestar Galactica' cemented her cult-tv status.

But it was 'Celebrity Duets' in October of last year that propelled Lucy in a new creative direction.  On the final night, when she got to sing a song of her own choice, 'Tell Mama!', Lucy recounts that, "...something broke wide open inside me; a lifetime of self-consciousness burst.  I have become a junkie for live performance.  I can't get enough, and I can't give enough."

Since then she has performed sold out shows at the famed Roxy in Los Angeles and the Canal Room in New York.  "It's a great way to meet your fans," she notes.

She is grateful to all her fans including a sizable gay contingent owing to 'Xena's' status as a lesbian icon.  As such, she has become a supporter of the R.E.A.F in San Francisco and the Trevor Project, a national hotline for gay and questioning youth.  In Lucy's own words, "Gay teens are three times more likely to commit suicide than their straight peers. It's a disgrace that in this country we are still shaming our kids to death. Shame Kills!"

In her own country she is a trustee for the National Children's Starship Hospital and received an Order of Merit of New Zealand from the Queen for services to the community.  Her proudest moment was being part of the push to set up Pua Waitahi Multi-Agency Center Against Child Abuse in Auckland, where social workers, police and medical specialists are under one roof, greatly improving communication and trust between departments devoted to the fight against the abuse of children.

She has three children, Daisy, Julius and Judah and has been married to Rob Tapert, her greatest fan, for ten years.  She is a sucker for Seinfeld and Court TV.