"Her courage will change the world"- Xena: Warrior Princess. Lucy
was born Lucille Frances Ryan on March 29, 1968, in Mount Albert,
Auckland, New Zealand; she was the 5th of 7 children, of Frank and
Julie Ryan. Lucy enjoyed acting and appeared in many plays in high
school. Later, she attended Auckland University and studied German,
Italian and French for a year. As many young people from New
Zealand do, she then headed for her O.E. (that's "Overseas
Experience"). Lucy left college and headed for Europe where she and
her boyfriend, Garth Lawless, traveled around Switzerland and
Germany (to earn travel money, she picked grapes on the beautiful
Rhine, "for about 3 seconds" she said later in a TV interview).
Then Lucy and Garth headed to Australia to earn some more travel
money; they found work with a gold mining company outside of
Kalgoorlie, about 500 miles from Perth. Lucy and Garth were married
in Australia in 1988, and then returned to New Zealand where Lucy
had a daughter, Daisy. Lucy was chosen Mrs. New Zealand in 1989.
She did a "really bad, cheesy commercial for travel" which led to
her first real acting job in a New Zealand comedy troupe show
called "Funny Business." Later, Lucy landed the job as co-host for
Air New Zealand Holiday, a travel magazine. Lucy worked in numerous
television and film productions. Finally, she got her breakout role
of Lysia in "Hercules and the Amazon Women" (1994) (TV). Shortly
thereafter, the producers needed someone to play Xena. Lucy, tall
(5' 10-1/2"), athletic, with brown hair and blue eyes, was perfect
for the part. But there was a snag: at first, the producers (what
do they know?) did not want Lucy for the part of Xena- after all,
she had played a different character already. So, Lucy dyed her
light hair a dark brown, making her look a bit different, and
history was about to be made! Lucy, in her leather outfit and armed
with her mighty Chakram, was thus cast in her signature roll of
Xena in 3 episodes of "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" (1995)-
"The Warrior Princess"; "The Gauntlet" and "The Unchained Heart"-
that would lead to her own spin-off series, "Xena: Warrior
Princess" (1995). Although "Xena" immediately got a huge fan
following in America, ironically "Xena" was not being shown in her
native New Zealand, so Lucy did not achieve her tremendous
popularity in her homeland until a bit later. In October 1996, Lucy
came to America to be on Jay Leno's "Tonight" show. She was to do a
publicity stunt, making a grand entrance by riding a horse in the
parking lot. The horse tripped on the cement, Lucy fell and broke
her pelvis. (Ironically, for the entire 6-year run of "Xena,"
Lucy- doing her own stunts and riding horses- never received a
serious injury.) After convalescence and another season of "Xena,"
Lucy returned to America for another visit; Lucy made her Broadway
debut playing Betty Rizzo in "Grease" from September to October,
1997. Also Lucy (divorced from Garth in 1995) became engaged to
"Xena" executive producer Robert G. Tapert at that time. They
married in Santa Monica, California on March 28, 1998. On October
16, 1999, they had a son, Julius Robert Bay Tapert, born in New
Zealand. Although "Xena" has been canceled after a fantastic 6-year
run, millions of Lucy Lawless fans know it is still just the
beginning for her, and we look forward to her new film projects.
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