Caroline O'Connor

Caroline Ann O'Connor (born 2 September 1962) is an Anglo-Australian singer, dancer, and actress. For her theatre work she has won three Helpmann Awards: Best Female Actor in a Play for Edith Piaf in Piaf in 2001 and the same category for Judy Garland in End of the Rainbow in 2006, and Best Female Actor in a Musical for Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes in 2015. Early life O'Connor was born in Oldham, Lancashire, England, to Irish parents. After her family migrated to Australia she was brought up and educated in Sydney. She took Irish dance lessons, with Joy Ransley and Valerie McGrath. She joined a touring dance troupe by August 1974, which travelled to Ireland, Paris, London and the United States west coast. The troupe's members, including O'Connor, competed in the Irish Dancing World Championships held in Dublin. At the age of 15 she returned to Dublin to appear in a dance competition and finished third. O'Connor later recalled, "When I was growing up in Rockdale as a little girl of Irish parents singing show tunes I didn't really fit in. Everyone was in their denim shorts and thongs and wanting to go down to Cronulla and I wanted to stay home and listen to Doris Day." At 17, she returned to London and trained as a dancer at the Royal Ballet School. She worked for one year at the Australian Opera Ballet. She became an Australian citizen in 2007. Career O'Connor made her musical theatre debut in an Australian tour of Oklahoma! in 1982, she later reminisced, "I was about 20 and I got into the show [and] I thought, 'This is where I'm meant to be.' I feel so fortunate." In the following May she took the role of Consuelo in West Side Story at Sydney's Her Majesty's Theatre. Subsequently, O'Connor worked both in Australia and the United Kingdom.