Deborah Walley

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Birthday:

12 August 1941, Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA

Birth Name:

Deborah Edith Walley

Height:

157 cm

Actress, author, producer, and Photoplay's "Most Popular Actress of 1961," the daughter of Ice Capades skating stars and choreographers Nathan and Edith Walley. She was skating with her parents at age three, but resisted her father's urging to continue, opting to study acting at the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts. Her stage debut was at 14, in a summer-stock production of "Charley's Aunt". When she moved to Arizona to raise her three sons, she co-founded two children's theater companies (Pied Piper Productions and Sedona Children's Theater), introducing live theater and teaching acting to disadvantaged children. She also founded the Swiftwind Theater Company, writing film scripts and training American Indian actors and production-crew members. Her 1990 short film Legend of 'Seeks-To-Hunt-Great' (1989), starring Michael Horse, was awarded the National Cine Golden Eagle, the Oklahoma Tribal Council Award for best fiction film, the 1991 Algrave (Portugal) International Video Festival best-of-festival award, and the American Indian Film Festival's best short-subject award. She incorporated the story line -- an Indian boy's appreciation of nature while following a mountain lion -- into her 1993 children's book "Grandfather's Good Medicine." Deborah Walley also wrote scripts for her own production companies, for other children's films, and for Disney Animation, for which she supplied cartoon voice-overs. Show less «

When I was discovered, I was doing [Anton Chekhov]. I was in "The Three Sisters" off-Broadway, and I went from "Three Sisters" to Gidget Goe...Show more »

When I was discovered, I was doing [Anton Chekhov]. I was in "The Three Sisters" off-Broadway, and I went from "Three Sisters" to Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961). I rode on a Sixth Avenue bus from one end of Manhattan to another, crying my eyes out. "Gidget" was so huge, I guess I knew on that bus that day that part of my dream of being a serious actress was kind of destroyed. Show less «

[referring to being cast in Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961)] I wasn't really a movie fan. I lived in New York City; I was an actress on the stag...Show more »

[referring to being cast in Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961)] I wasn't really a movie fan. I lived in New York City; I was an actress on the stage and did some television out of New York. But I was so wrapped up in theater, and this was my dream--I was going to be a Broadway star--that I didn't pay too much attention to film. I was actually quite disappointed when I got the part to begin with. Show less «

I get things from 14-year-olds, and 15-year-olds, 16, 17, you know, saying, "Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) is my favorite movie" and "I loved ...Show more »

I get things from 14-year-olds, and 15-year-olds, 16, 17, you know, saying, "Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) is my favorite movie" and "I loved you in this and that". And they know everything I've done, or at least everything that's available on video, or has been played on television. And it's so different from what's going on today. Maybe that's the appeal. It is so diametrically different. It's so clean and fresh and fun-filled, as opposed to the movies they make for teenagers today. Show less «