Chrissy Amphlett

Christina 'Chrissy' Amphlett (1959–2013), singer/songwriter, was best known for her energetic performances as the lead singer of rock band the Divinyls, often in her trademark school uniform and fishnet stockings. Born in Geelong, she began performing in her teens and then busked around Europe. Back in Australia, Amphlett formed the Divinyls in Sydney in 1980 after meeting guitarist Mark McEntee at a religious concert at the Opera House. They played in grimy venues around Kings Cross before being cast – as a band – by director Ken Cameron in the film version of Helen Garner's book Monkey Grip. The single 'Boys in Town', performed in the film, became a top ten hit, and Amphlett was nominated for an AFI Award as Best Supporting Actress. Their critically acclaimed first album, Desperate (1983), followed. Over the next decade, with a number of personnel changes, the band released another five albums and became part of the international Australian music assault that included Midnight Oil, INXS and Crowded House. For a time they remained largely based in Paris and the US, where they scored a hit single in 1991 with 'I Touch Myself'. Amphlett also starred in the musical Blood Brothers (1988), and played Judy Garland in The Boy From Oz from 1998–2000 and again in 2006. The Divinyls were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2006. Amphlett's autobiography, Pleasure and Pain, was released in 2005; two years later, she announced that she suffered from multiple sclerosis, and in 2010 she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She died in New York in April 2013.