Lachlan Gillespie | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Birth name | Lachlan Gillespie |
Also known as | Lachy |
Born | Brisbane, Queensland, Australia | 23 October 1985
Genres | Children's |
Occupations |
|
Instruments |
|
Years active | 2009–present |
Labels | ABC Music |
Spouses |
Lachlan Gillespie (born 23 October 1985) is an Australian children's entertainer, singer, musician, and actor. He is a member of the Wiggles and wears the purple skivvy.
Gillespie began playing the piano at the age of four, and started formal singing training when he was 12. He attended the Fame School of Performing Arts as a teenager, earned a Bachelor of Arts in musical theatre at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), and has performed in musicals in Melbourne and New York. He has been a vocal and drama coach for children between the ages of four and 13. [1] [2]
Gillespie joined the Wiggles in 2009, touring with the "Dorothy the Dinosaur Traveling Show", as Captain Feathersword, and then as a Wiggly Dancer and Wags the Dog during the group's regular tour. In May 2012, it was announced that Gillespie would replace founding member Jeff Fatt as the Purple Wiggle at the beginning of the following year. [1] Gillespie hosts the short-form television show Lachy! which aired on ABC in 2016. It contains episode shorts of him as Lachy Wiggle. [3] [4]
In 2018, Gillespie, along with fellow Wiggles member Anthony Field, Emma Watkins and band members Oliver Brian and David O'Reilly, started a band for adult fans called the Unusual Commoners, which played a mixture of traditional Australian, Irish, Scottish and folk songs. They performed their first international show in St. John's, Newfoundland in late 2018. [5]
In May 2015, Gillespie and fellow Wiggles performer Emma Watkins announced their engagement. [6] They married on 9 April 2016 at Hopewood House in Bowral, New South Wales. [7] On 3 August 2018, Gillespie and Watkins announced their separation. [8] On 9 April 2020, ballet dancer Dana Stephensen proposed to Gillespie after meeting on the set of the Wiggles in December 2018. They wed in late November 2022. [9]
On 11 September 2020, Gillespie announced the birth of their twin daughters, Lottie and Lulu. [10]
The Wiggles are an Australian children's music group formed in Sydney in 1991. As of 2022, the group members are Anthony Field, Lachlan Gillespie, Simon Pryce, Tsehay Hawkins, Evie Ferris, John Pearce, Caterina Mete and Lucia Field. The Wiggles were founded in 1991 by Field, Murray Cook, Jeff Fatt, Greg Page and Phillip Wilcher. Wilcher left the group after their first album. Page retired in 2006 due to ill health and was replaced by understudy Sam Moran, but returned in 2012, replacing Moran. At the end of 2012, Cook, Fatt and Page retired and were replaced by Gillespie, Pryce and Emma Watkins. Cook and Fatt retained their shareholding in the group and all three continued to have input into its creative and production aspects, while engaging in occasional reunion performances. Watkins departed the group in 2021, with the group subsequently adopting an expanded line-up of eight members.
Gregory John Page, is an Australian singer, musician and actor. He is best known as the original lead singer and a founding member of the children's band the Wiggles from 1991 to 2006 and then again in 2012.
Jeffrey Wayne Fatt is a Chinese Australian musician and actor. He was a member of the children's group The Wiggles from its founding in 1991 to 2012, and was also in the 1980s and 1990s pop band The Cockroaches with fellow Wiggle Anthony Field.
Craig Dougall McLachlan is an Australian actor, musician, singer and composer. He has been involved in film, television, the music industry and music theatre for over 30 years. He is best known for appearing in the soap operas Neighbours and Home and Away and the BBC One spy drama Bugs. He has portrayed the title character in The Doctor Blake Mysteries, for which he was nominated for the Logie Award for Most Popular Actor; he has previously won the award in this category three times.
The McDonald College is an independent co-educational specialist primary and secondary day and boarding school with speciality in the creative and performing arts, in North Strathfield, an inner western suburb of Sydney, Australia.
Australian children's musical group the Wiggles have released sixty-two studio albums, three live albums, eleven compilation albums, two extended plays, thirty-eight singles, two audiobooks, four karaoke albums, fourteen digital albums, two tribute albums, one remix album and thirteen other albums featuring solo group members or characters. Eighteen of the group's albums have been certified by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) as Gold, Platinum and double Platinum. Three of their albums have reached the top 10 on the ARIA Albums Chart.
This is a list of videos released by the Wiggles. Re-releases that combine two or more videos into one are not counted.
Wiggly, Wiggly Christmas, released in 1996 by ABC Music distributed by EMI. It is the Wiggles' seventh album and the group's first Christmas album. It was made into a video the following year.
Dana Stephensen is an Australian ballet dancer. She is a soloist of The Australian Ballet.
Emma Olivia Watkins is an Australian children's entertainer, dancer and television presenter. She is best known as the first female member of the children's group the Wiggles, which she was a member of from 2013 to 2021. Due to her popularity in the group, she starred in her own spinoff series as a solo Wiggles performer, titled Emma!. After departing the group, she debuted her own children's entertainment character, Emma Memma, in 2022. She released her first solo children's music album in September 2022, which received an ARIA Award for Best Children's Album in 2023.
The Wiggles Pty Ltd. is the Australian business created by the founders of the Australian children's music group The Wiggles. The group was protective of their brand, and adopted many of the same business practices as The Cockroaches, the former band of Anthony Field and Jeff Fatt, two of their founding members. They remained as independent as possible, and retained full creative control and ownership of every aspect of their business. As Field stated, The Wiggles Pty Ltd was "not your regular 'corporate culture'." The group made decisions by consensus and made business decisions based upon their experience as performers and their knowledge of early childhood education. They did not tour with a large troupe of dancers, cast, and crew until the late 1990s, and had high expectations regarding the behaviour and attitude of everyone associated with the group. They made careful decisions regarding their endorsements of toys and other products, and avoided over-extending their brand by only licensing products that correlated with their image.
The Wiggles characters are a group of characters who perform with the Wiggles, the Australian children's music group. Aside from the eight Wiggles, four secondary characters, along with a troupe of singers, actors, and dancers, appear in their television series, videos, and live concerts. These characters were developed in the 1990s and were originally played by group members and by Anthony Field's brother Paul Field, the band's manager. Later in the group's history, the characters were played by hired actors dressed in the characters' costumes.
Surfer Jeff is an album by the Wiggles, released in 2012, by ABC Music, distributed by Universal Music Australia. The album won the ARIA Award for Best Children's Album at the ARIA Music Awards of 2012. It was the first album to feature Greg Page back in the group's line-up since 2006, as well as the last to feature the original Wiggles line-up.
John Len Ruela Adamo Pearce is an Australian singer, dancer and children's entertainer best known as a member of Justice Crew, and also a member of the children's band The Wiggles where he wears the purple skivvy alongside Lachlan Gillespie.
Och Aye the G'nu is a 2017 children's album credited to Australian singer-songwriter, Jimmy Barnes and the Wiggles. It was first mentioned by Anthony Field in the Wiggles' 25th anniversary feature interview. The album was released in March 2017 and peaked at number 34 on the ARIA Charts.
The Big Red Car Ride was a dark ride that takes 6 guests at a time on a 120-metre (390 ft) car journey through the Wiggles' house. The house features Wag's Kennel, Henry's Underwater Big Band, and Dorothy's rosy garden. The attraction opened with Wiggles World on 17 September 2005 and closed on 12 August 2020.
Tsehay Hawkins is an Australian dancer and singer, best known as a member of the Wiggles. She was the second female to be a member of the group and is the first member of African heritage, as well as the youngest to have ever joined, joining at age sixteen.
Evie Ferris is an Australian ballerina and member of children's band The Wiggles.
Caterina Mete is an Australian dancer, singer, choreographer and children's entertainer who is a member of the children's band the Wiggles.