Stevie Vallance

Stevie Vallance

Photo by Trever Miller
Background information
Birth name Stephanie Louise Vallance
Born (1958-09-08) September 8, 1958
Origin Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Genres Pop rock, musical theatre, jazz
Occupation(s) Voice actress, musician, actress
Instruments Vocals
Years active 1971–present
Website http://www.stevievallance.com
Notable instruments
Vocals

Stephanie Louise Vallance, (born September 8, 1958), known as Stevie Vallance, and also credited in film and TV as Louise Vallance during the 1970s-1990s, is a Canadian television actress, voice actress, stage performer, voice director, casting director and singer. Vallance was born in Montréal, Quebec, Canada. She is known for her role as Whazzat Kangaroo in the children's television series Zoobilee Zoo which ran for 65 episodes.

Film & television

Montréal-born, Toronto-raised Louise Vallance was discovered by Alan Lund (out of the Alan & Blanche Lund School of Dance), who cast her in the lead role of "Adele" in the Charlottetown Festival musical production of Jane Eyre; that played at Toronto's O'Keefe Centre (now the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts) and also at Ottawa's National Arts Centre.[1] As a teenager, Vallance made numerous television appearances including leading roles on CBC network shows King of Kensington, Police Surgeon, The Tommy Hunter Show, and Norman Campbell's The Wonder of It All.[1] After graduating from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, in New York, she moved to Los Angeles, where she was cast in the first two seasons of the CBS network's Knots Landing, in the role of "Sylvie." During that time, the ABC network cast her as "Jenny," during the second season of The Ropers, opposite Norman Fell, Audra Lindley and Jeffrey Tambor.

Based in Los Angeles over the next two decades, Vallance guest starred on numerous television series including Bosom Buddies and Lou Grant. She played Jim Varney's love interest, Erma Terradiddle, in Slam Dunk Ernest and sang "Bei Mir Bist Shayne" to Kevin Spacey on L.A. Law. In the feature film Three Men and a Baby, Vallance played Steve Guttenberg's character's love interest, Sally.

As an LA-based Canadian actress, Vallance commuted between Los Angeles and Toronto, starring in many of the Canadian/US co-productions including Poltergeist: The Legacy, The Outer Limits, F/X: The Series, Cobra, First Wave, Dracula: The Series, Forever Knight, and Road to Avonlea, where she was whisked away on a horse by Christopher Reeve.[1] During that time she was best known for her role as series regular Det. Stephanie "Stevie" Brody on the CBS late-night series Night Heat, alongside Scott Hylands, Allan Royal, Jeff Wincott, and others. She immediately followed that up with a very different sort of role, that of a pink kangaroo named Whazzat Kangaroo, one of the "Zoobles" of the Hallmark series Zoobilee Zoo, which was filmed entirely in California's San Fernando Valley.

Animation

Vallance also lent her voice to animated television shows, such as ReBoot[2] as Mouse and Rocky; Donkey Kong Country as Dixie Kong; Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog as Miss Possum; Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie as Syaoran's Mother, Yelan Li; Madeline as Genevive and Miss Clavel; Gadget Boy as the nemesis Spydra; InuYasha as Jinenji's Mother; Totally Spies as the computer G.L.A.D.I.S.; Growing Up Creepie as Gnat; Care Bears DIC Series as Proud Heart Cat; Dennis the Menace as Alice Mitchell; Dinosaucers as Princess Dei (as well as Teryx, according to Barbara Lynn Redpath and herself); Lady Lovely Locks as Duchess RavenWaves and Maiden FairHair; Popples as Party Popple; Sonic Underground as the singing voice of Sonia and both singing and speaking voices of Mindy LaTour; Bakugan, as Tigrerra and Rabeeder; Care Bears Season 1-2 and Care Bears: Journey to Joke-a-lot as Share Bear; Care Bears: Adventures in Care-a-Lot as True Heart Bear; Silverwing as Breeze; and Nilus the Sandman as additional voices.

Voice direction

Vallance was the recipient of a 2002 Emmy Award for casting and voice-directing the dialogue and music-vocals on more than seventy episodes of the Disney television series Madeline, on which she also portrayed the voices of Miss Clavel and Genevive.[3] Since then, Vallance has voice-directed Silverwing and Totally Spies. In 2007, she cast and voice-directed Discovery Kids 2007 Emmy-nominated Growing Up Creepie and then went on to serve as Voice Director on 52 episodes of Teletoon's hit show Best Ed. Vallance continues to excel in the animation field. Last year, in LA, she cast and voice-directed the animated feature Young Dr. Dolittle, starring Tom Kenny (SpongeBob SquarePants) and she also cast and voice-directed one of Teletoon's Detour Pilots, Celebutards, which premiered at the 2009 Ottawa International Animation Festival, where Vallance facilitated a Workshop in "Animation Voice-over Acting" to 200 animators.

Teaching

Tooned In! is Vallance's workshop on animation voice-over acting.[4] Founded in 1995, the first "Finding Your Inner Toon" workshop took place in North Vancouver, British Columbia. Since then Vallance has taught in many cities including Toronto, Los Angeles and New York.

Music

Vallance had been able to indulge her love of singing in at least one installment of Night Heat, and Zoobilee Zoo also relied heavily on music and singing from the characters. After she left the cast of Night Heat, she chose to make singing an alternate career.

In 1995, Vallance moved to Bowen Island, British Columbia where she met Michael Creber (piano; k.d. lang). Together in 1998, they recorded Vallance's debut jazz CD Practically Naked. In Vancouver, she performed regularly at The Jazz Cellar and Rossini’s, where she performed alongside some of the city's well-known jazz musicians at the time, including Miles Black (piano), Rick Kilburn (bass), Daryl Jahnke (guitar), Darren Radtke (bass), Paul Rushka (bass), Mike Rud (guitar), Linton Garner (piano) and Bill Coon (guitar).

On her second CD Always released in 1999, inspiration came from Vallance's one-woman portrayal of Patsy Cline. Vallance toured the show in western Canada for six years, and opened for the Calgary Stampede in 1998.

Motivated by the loss of a close personal friend, Vallance conceived and organised the Divas For Life jazz benefit concerts held in Vancouver. In addition to producing the first “standing room only” concert at the Vogue Theatre, in 2001 she also negotiated a national distribution deal for the CD Divas for Life - Live At The Vogue!, which was released and performed as part of the 2001 Vancouver International Jazz Festival line-up as a series of sold-out dinner concerts. On Valentine’s Day 2002, she produced Divas For Love, which again packed the Vogue Theatre. The proceeds, totalling over C$70,000, were donated to supporting people living with a life-threatening illness. As a result, Vallance was presented with Vancouver's "Friend In Deed Philanthropy Award".

In 2004, Vallance debuted in her hometown, Toronto, where she was accompanied by Don Thompson, bassist Neil Swainson and drummer Ted Warren. She also performed for the first time in her birth town Montréal, at The Upstairs, with jazz pianist Steve Amirault, bassist Zach Lober and drummer Jim Doxas.

Vallance's latest CD, Make My Night was released in February 2008. Arranged by Pat Coleman (guitar) it features many other Canadian Jazz musicians: Ross Taggart (piano), Mike Herriot (trumpet), Tom Colclough (sax), Buff Allen (drums) and Miles Hill (bass).

Since 2008, Vallance has been based in Ontario's Bruce Peninsula, where she now hosts her own radio show, "Jazz & Blues on the Beach", that airs every Sunday night, on 98theBeach.ca

In 2009, Vallance performed in the Medicine Hat Jazz Festival for the second year in a row and she was also the featured vocalist with the Stardust Big Band and she also sang with the Charlie Bell Trio, in the Thornbury and Kincardine Jazz Festivals. In the fall she produced "Jazz Inclined"; Patsy Cline songs done with a "jazzy" twist. The live recorded CD features Richard Whitman (piano), Mike Grace (bass) and Kevin Barrett (guitar).

In 2010, Vallance is pursuing her impresario talents with the "Stevie Vallance & the Masters of Jazz:2010" 7-concert series, at the Bruce Power Theatre, in Southampton, presenting world-class players such as Kieran Overs (bass), Ted Warren (drums), Bobby Brough (sax), Rob Clutton (bass), Nancy Walker (piano), Ted Quinlan (guitar), Tim Posgate (guitar) and George Koller (bass).[5] The 7-concert jazz series kicked off on February 13, 2010 with the Stevie Vallance Quintet and on April 10, Stevie performed alongside renowned Canadian composer and friend, David Warrack, in the premiere of "3 Davids"; a Cabaret-jazz style revue consisting of Frishberg, Shire and Warrack tunes. Vallance is producing all concerts and also organizing the "live" recordings of every concert in the series for a "Best of the Masters of Jazz: 2010" CD.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Stevie's On-camera Acting Resume". stevievallance.com. Stevie Vallance. Retrieved May 5, 2010.
  2. ↑ "Animation Acting Resume". stevievallance.com. Stevie Vallance. Retrieved May 5, 2010.
  3. ↑ "Awards for Stevie Vallance". IMDB. Retrieved May 5, 2010.
  4. ↑ "Tooned In!". Stevie Vallance. Retrieved May 5, 2010.
  5. ↑ "About Me". stevievallance.com. Stevie Vallance. Retrieved May 5, 2010.
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