Judith Lucy

Career

Born and raised in Perth, Lucy attended Curtin University and studied theatre. At age 20 she moved to Melbourne.

Live comedy

After arriving in Melbourne, Lucy embarked on a career as a stand-up comedian, leading to a series of highly successful one-woman shows, including No Waiter I Ordered the Avocado (1991), King Of The Road (1995), An Impossible Dream (1996), The Show (1998), The Show 2 (1999), Colour Me Judith (2000), I'm Going to Learn How to Fly (2001), I Failed! (2006) (based on her short-lived career on the 2Day FM breakfast show), and Judith Lucy's Not Getting Any Younger (2009). Her 1999 comedy album King of the Road was nominated for an ARIA Award. She also co-starred with Denise Scott and Lynda Gibson in the award-winning stage spectaculars Comedy Is Not Pretty (1999) and Comedy Is Still Not Pretty (2003). Lucy toured nationally in 2009 with her ninth one-woman show, Judith Lucy's Not Getting Any Younger. The tour visited Sydney twice for the return season along with Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Newcastle, Wollongong, Adelaide, Perth and regional towns Albury, Warragul and Ballarat. That tour marked 20 years in stand up comedy since she performed her first gig in Melbourne at 'Le Joke' in 1989.

In 2012, Lucy took her new show Nothing Fancy to Perth, Brisbane, Sydney and regional NSW. In 2013, Lucy and Denise Scott teamed up for a new live show The Spiral which made its debut at the Melbourne Comedy Festival before touring nationally. In August 2013, whilst being interviewed on Darwin radio Mix 104.9 to promote The Spiral, Lucy told announcer Pete Davies to 'get rooted' on air after the latter made a comment that a show was a 'cash grab' and that Lucy and Scott were 'teaming up and having a blue rinse together'.

Film and television

In 1993 Judith joined the cast of the live ABCTV comedy The Late Show. She has since co-starred with Mick Molloy in two movies, Crackerjack (2002) and Bad Eggs (2003), the latter directed by Tony Martin (both Martin & Molloy were fellow cast-members on The Late Show). Lucy also appeared on the short-lived & controversial The Mick Molloy Show. In August 2009, Lucy began appearing on Rove, replacing Dave Hughes after he left the show, remaining a regular cast member until the program ended three months later in November 2009. In 2011, she appeared in a series Judith Lucy's Spiritual Journey on ABC Television, directed by her old friend and Late Show colleague Tony Martin.

In 2012, Lucy was the Patron of Perth's annual Revelation Film Festival. That same year, she also had a small role in the film The Sapphires. In July 2013, Lucy teamed up with film critic Jason Di Rosso to serve as temporary hosts for ABC-TV's At the Movies.

In February 2014, it was announced that filming had commenced on Lucy's new TV series Judith Lucy Is All Woman, a look at the role of women in present-day Australian society. The series aired on ABC-TV in 2015.

Radio

Lucy was a regular on Mick Molloy and Tony Martin's radio show Martin/Molloy (1995-1998), and over the following decade she co-hosted several popular radio programmes, including Triple J's The Ladies Lounge (with Helen Razer) (1997) and the Austereo Network's Foxy Ladies (with Kaz Cooke) (1998), The Friday Shout (with Peter Rowsthorn) (2003), The Judith Lucy Show (with Peter Helliar) (2004) and The Arvo (with Peter Helliar) (2005).

Books

In May 2008, Lucy's first book The Lucy Family Alphabet was published. Lucy wrote the book about life with her Irish-born adoptive parents and not knowing she was adopted until age 25. The book has been described as "a riotous take on Lucy's childhood (and) the lunatics who made her who she is today."

In October 2012, her second book (and follow-up to her earlier memoir) Drink, Smoke, Pass Out was published. One reviewer called it both funny and sad but "worth it ... because like a true champion Judith finds her way through the self-absorbed mire. Not in a righteous religious way but in an honest way."

Personal life

She is the sister of Australian writer and scholar Niall Lucy, who died on 5 June 2014. Her adoptive parents emigrated from Ireland to Perth in the early 1950s. Lucy has made contact with her biological mother Jan. Her adoptive parents are now deceased.