There is more than one Britney Spears

Unlike Britney, I was a child star who didn’t live up to my initial promise. I did my first ad when I was six months old, a big fat roly poly baby lying nude in an underwear model’s arms. We were advertising ‘nursing’ bras and my job was to look cute and adorable (it was a stretch for me). Allegedly I peed all over her, I don’t think that is true, I can’t remember doing it. My mother swears it happened, but as she was once a young Liberal I’m not sure her testimony can be trusted.

One of my earliest and most favourite-est memories, (probably because my mum took a photo of me sitting on our lawn roller in our front garden) is of me singing Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head. My singing career started a couple of years after my modelling debut. I was wearing a cowboy hat that didn’t match my tutu. I used to sit on the grass roller looking fabulous between my shows. I preferred to play to intimate audiences rather than at larger venues. Singing was my thang, especially entertaining my mother’s friends as I stood on our dining room table in patent leather shoes, or warbling on our front fence. I also gave impromptu performances riding side saddle on my rocking horse on our front verandah, just to show my versatility as a ‘triple threat’ as they say in acting parlance. In the days before Autotune I was a magnificent singer. Who said all child stars grow up to become problem adults? Not me.

Yes this is child star Shirley Temple, she was WAY before my time but I didn’t copy her once in my stellar career appearing on book covers, in newspapers and magazines and live for a limited season on our front lawn.