Stevie Vallance
 | This article is an autobiography or has been extensively edited by the subject or by someone connected to the subject. (February 2009) |
Stevie Vallance (born Stephanie Louise Vallance on September 8, 1966), also known as Louise Vallance is a Canadian television actress, voice actress, Broadway stage performer, voice director and singer. Vallance was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Television
Vallance graduated from The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. At age 20, while fronting her own band in Los Angeles, a CBS executive heard her and offered her a recurring role as recording artist 'Sylvie', who broke up ‘Kenny’ and ‘Ginger’, opposite Michelle Lee and Joan Van Ark, on the long-running series Knots Landing. [1]
Over the next sixteen years Stevie resided in Los Angeles, and appeared on such network series as The Ropers; Bosom Buddies; Lou Grant; LA Law; Road to Avonlea. In the 1980s, Vallance co-starred as Det. Stevie Brody in the Canadian crime drama series Night Heat, which was also broadcast in the United States, while also co-starring alongside Ben Vereen as a very different character named Whazzat Kangaroo in the popular Hallmark children’s series Zoobilee Zoo.
Animation
Vallance also lent her voice to animated television shows, such as ReBoot as Mouse and Rocky; Donkey Kong Country as Dixie Kong; Madeline as Genevive and Miss Clavel; Shadow Raiders as Prince Pyros; Gadget Boy as the nemesis Spydra; InuYasha as Natsuko Fuji; Totally Spies as the computer G.L.A.D.I.S.; Growing Up Creepie as Gnat; The Care Bears as Proud Heart Cat and True Heart Bear; Dennis The Menace as Alice Mitchell; The Popples as Party Popple; and Sonic Underground as the singing voice of Sonia. On Bakugan she portrays the voices of Tigrerra and Rabeeder.
Casting and 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. Since then, Stevie has voice-directed the Teletoon series Silverwing and Totally Spies. In 2007, she cast and voice-directed Discovery Kids network's 2007 Emmy Nominee Growing Up Creepie. Vallance continues to excel in the animation field, most recently serving as Voice Director on 52 episodes of Teletoon's hit show Best Ed. She has said she will most likely voice direct the 5th season of the French animated series Code Lyoko. [2]
Teacher
Tooned In! is Vallance's workshop on animation voice-over acting. Since 1995, Vallance, has been facilitating actors in ‘giving voice' to their personalities. Since this time a student base of over 600 has taken Stevie's workshops. Founded in 1995, the first ‘Finding Your Inner Toon’ workshop took place in North Vancouver, British Columbia. Since then Stevie has also taught in Toronto and Los Angeles. In 2004 she presented Tooned In! - A Voice Academy, a series of workshops featuring all of the many facets of voice-over including Singing, Promos, Trailers, Commercial Advertising, CD Roms, Narration and Multimedia.
Music
In 1995, Vallance moved to Bowen Island, British Columbia where she met Michael Creber (piano; k.d. lang). Together in 1998, they recorded Stevie'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 Stevie's one-woman portrayal of Patsy Cline. Stevie 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, Stevie 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 Montreal, at The Upstairs, with jazz pianist Steve Amirault, bassist Zach Lober and drummer Jim Doxas.
In August 2005, Vallance moved back to Toronto in order to be closer to her family and in 2008, she moved further north to Saugeen Shores, where she presenting her aunt Vivien Kershaw’s paintings (who studied under Group of Seven’s Arthur Lismer), at the Southampton Art Gallery; and conceived Le Bouquett Quartet, with saxophonist Charlie Bell.
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).
Currently Vallance plays regularly in the Tornoto area with the Stevie Vallance Trio which features international jazz musicians Ted Quinlan (guitar) and Brian Dickinson (keyboard).
Film
In the 80’s Stevie went to Mexico to film the lead role of 'Tracy Falcon' in Falcon's Gold, co-starring Simon McCorkindale and John Marley. She played ‘Sally’ in the feature film Three Men and a Baby. Vallance voiced multiple characters in Don Bluth’s Thumbelina and The Pebble and the Penguin, which were musically directed by Barry Manilow. In the mid-90’s she co-starred as Jim Varney’s girlfriend, Erma Terradiddle, in Slam Dunk Ernest. Vallance voiced Share Bear in Care Bears movies Journey to Joke-a-lot and the Big Wish Movie, while voicing all of the Trollz in Barbie’s the Magic of Pegasus.
External links
Notes
- ^ www.imdb.com will verify any question on credits, early credits will be under Louise Vallance
- ^ http://lyokofreak.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6675