Stars out for birthday celebration

By Dion Teasdale
SOME of Australia’s best known show business stars and personalities visited Warburton to help celebrate Wesburn resident, Myra Healy’s, 90th birthday.
John Michael ‘Hollywood’ Howson, Sigrid Thornton, Denise Drysdale and Colleen Hewitt were among the star-studded guest list and some of the performers who provided entertainment.
More than 180 guests packed out the East Warburton school hall to help Ms Healy, who enjoyed a long career as a film and television extra, celebrate her birthday on Sunday, 29 October.
Guests were wined and dined and treated to special entertainment throughout the afternoon.
Suzanne Bradley of The Bradley Sisters opened the show with a song especially penned for the occasion and Colleen Hewitt took to the stage, fresh from her standing ovation performances in The Boy From Oz.
Singer-comedienne Denise Drysdale and John Michael Howson belted out a few numbers along with Yarra Valley-based singers Four on The Floor.
Big Pat’s Creek resident and Ms Healy’s long time friend Ron Howard, 91, also got into the act with his own impromptu performance.
Cameo performances came from outstanding Australian actor and TV presenter Sigrid Thornton, Hollywood movie directors Michael Rymer, Simon Wincer, Rod Hardy and musical composer for The Man From Snowy River, Bruce Rowland.
Overseas guests arrived from Dallas, Texas, Red Oak, Iowa, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Vancouver and London as well as several from interstate.
Earlier in the day Ms Healy’s neighbours banded together to carry out their own version of Backyard Blitz.
As a special birthday surprise, about 20 of her friends got together and, while Ms Healy was at the hairdressers, constructed a large pond and fountain in the garden of her Wesburn home.
For the past three years Ms Healy, a regular on TV shows such as The Sullivans and Prisoner, has been President of the Upper Yarra Legacy Widows and vice president of the Upper Yarra RSL Auxiliary.
Following her fund raising efforts to help build the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Canberra, she was made an Honorary Life Member of the Vietnam Veterans Association.