“Hairdressing was her love and what she made her living from,” Jackie said. “People flocked together and she realized that, ‘Hey, I can make a difference here. I can do something’.”
Lillian Frank often told a story to her daughters of their grandmother having a locked room at their home in India to collect dowries for women who could not afford to marry.
“Her mother said to her, ‘charity should be seen behind closed doors’,” Jackie said. “She got it from her mother de ella.”
Lillian Frank at the 1984 Melbourne Cup. Credit:TheAge,
Fashion designer Alex Perry remembered Frank as “brilliant in real life” and a force in Melbourne fashion through hairdressing and the horseracing scene.
“She was one of those incredible people who was always completely energetic,” Perry said.
“[She was] a tireless charity fundraiser, and that gets sometimes eclipsed by the pure joy she had at the Melbourne Cup where she would have the most outrageous hats.”
Victorian Labor minister Jaala Pulford said the community stood in solidarity with Frank’s family.
“We express our deepest condolences to them at what’s a really difficult time,” Pulford said on Saturday. “We thank her for her from her … from her incredible presence from her, her from her incredible work from her in business and in the community.”
Frank wrote a gossip column for the Herald Sun for decades.
Frank is survived by husband Richard, daughters Jackie and Michelle, and grandchildren Ella and Charlie.
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