Jeanne Little's Double Bay apartment sold
The Double Bay home of entertainer Jeanne Little - before Alzheimer's disease took hold - has been sold by her devoted husband, Barry for $2.4 million.
Interior designer, Barry and Jeanne, the Gold Logie winning daytime television star, had bought the apartment in Overthorpe for $1.7 million in 2008 after selling their longtime terrace in Paddington.
The New South Head Road apartment, with sub-tropical garden aspect from every room, was recently snapped up through McGrath agent Mary Howell.
The 218 sqm three bedroom apartment in the early 1980s Mirvac built complex was mortgage free.
Barry has recently spent $440,000 on a Hunters Hill apartment in The Lodge retirement village.
The effervescent Jeannie Little, made famous for her signature greeting "daahling" began her TV career on The Mike Walsh Show in 1974 before being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2009. She has been in nursing home care for five years.
For some time now Jeanne Little has not recognised her husband and her only daughter, Katie Little who told Studio 10 on Channel 10 in February of her heartbreak at watching the once vivacious TV personality lost inside the confusing mental maze of dementia.
The 77 year-old began her TV career on The Mike Walsh Show in 1974 showcasing designer maternity fashions when she was pregnant with Katie.
"It’s a shocking way to live for a star performer who entertained audiences with her outrageous antics, signature shrill voice and affectionate persona," Katie said of her bedridden mother.
Katie said one of the first moments she realised her mother may have been battling the mental illness was when she couldn’t remember the names of her television industry friends.
In 1976 Little won the Gold Logie for most popular television personality which in her last ever interview she told New Idea that it was her most shocking showbiz moment.
"When Burt Lancaster opened that envelope and drawled in his famous macho voice that Jeanne Little was the most popular female personality on Australian television, I just sat there thinking it’s a hideous mistake. They’ve got it wrong. The room was stunned, no-one clapped, there was deathly silence so I went up on stage, feeling really awful inside about having won."
She had become one of the most popular panelists on Beauty and the Beast.
The irrepressible Jeanne Little performed on stage including her tribute to 1930's screen legend Marlene Dietrich at venues including the Western Suburbs Leagues Club, before it toured the USA in the early 2000s.
This article was first published in the Saturday Daily Telegraph.
