Farewell Dawn O’Donnell

Legendary community entrepreneur Dawn O’Donnell will be privately cremated on Friday following a public memorial service at St Canice’s Church.

O’Donnell passed away at 3:30am Sunday aged 79 after a long battle with ovarian cancer. She is survived by her partner of more than 30 years Aniek Baten.

Friends this week paid tribute to O’Donnell’s loyalty and charity. She was known for assisting community organisations with donations and fundraising auctions through her venues.

O’Donnell owned numerous gay and lesbian venues in Darlinghurst and Newtown over four decades, beginning with Capriccio’s in 1969. She became a long-time business partner of Roger Claude Teyssedre in venues including Jools, the Exchange, Flo’s Palace and Ruby Red’s – the first lesbian bar in Sydney.

O’Donnell shifted her focus to the inner west as that area’s gay and lesbian community grew in the mid-80s, selling her Darlinghurst properties to purchase the Newtown and the Imperial hotels. At the time neither had a gay client base, but grew to become a gay centre to rival Darlinghurst.

She sold her venue assets in later years of life, retaining only the two Toolshed outfits with Baten.

Bobby Goldsmith Foundation CEO Bev Lange called O’Donnell the bedrock of the gay and lesbian community, who stood up for people’s rights and bailed men out back when homosexuality was still illegal.

“She did anything from running a butcher’s shop to becoming a world recognised ice skater to owning pubs and having the most extraordinary range of friends,” Lange said.

She added that O’Donnell found comfort in travelling and didn’t want to waste the last years of her life in medical treatment.

Close friend Damien Furlong said O’Donnell made a career building businesses at a time when women couldn’t even get a home loan, and was the first to recognise Oxford Street for its gay and lesbian potential.

Graham Browning, better known as Mitzi Macintosh to the patrons of Dawn’s venues, recalled her as a well-liked but tough old bird during their 10 years working together.

“She made the Sydney drag scene what it is, but our gay scene wouldn’t be what it is without her either,” Browning said.

“Certainly she saw a gap in the market and made a lot of money out of it, but she also broke ground by opening venues where other people wouldn’t have. She opened the two venues in an area that had started to grow and were needed.”

Browning said O’Donnell was known for being thrift-wise and it was often joked that everything that went into her venues came from an auction.

“We used to joke about the fire rumours all the time. There were folklore stories of a nudge-nudge wink-wink phone call to move the girl’s costumes two days before Capriccio’s burnt down.”

The public memorial service will be held at St Canice’s Church, 28 Rosyln St, Elizabeth Bay, from 11am this Friday.