Stevie Vallance
A collection of projects by Stevie Vallance's production company.
Calgary Herald
by Martin Morrow
backWhen Vallance was first asked to be Patsy Cline, she knew very little about the country music legend... Dean Regan approached her to star in his Cline tribute at Vancouver's Arts cub Theatre. Since then Vallance has become a major fan of the revered country singer, who died tragically in a plane crash in 1963 at the age of 30.
"She was an amazing woman with this strong, pioneer personality," says Vallance. "I found out we have an incredible amount in common, including our birthdays: Sept. 8. That blew me away." She's even become a pen pal of Cline's second husband, Charlie Dick. But the one thing Vallance clearly doesn't share with Cline is her appearance. "I don't look, physically, anything like her," she says. "I'm about half her size; I'm petite and she was quite buxom. But my costumes make me bigger. It's great. I get to be voluptuous and have an hour glass figure for the first time in my life!" In fact, with her black hair shorn to accommodate her Patsy Cline wigs, the slender, dark-eyed Vallance looks much more like Audrey Hepburn circa mid-60's. "I don't claim to sound like her, I'm just attempting to honor her phrasing and her style," she asserts. Rather than reproduce the original Cline performances note for note, Vallance is striving to use the country singer's techniques in a spontaneous way... "I try to combine elements of her style so that it's natural, it's not just a Xerox copy every time."
The Cline mimicry comes easily for Vallance - Patsy is just one of many voices in her repertoire, albeit the only country and western one. The Toronto-raised singer/actress regularly lends her flexible cords to Saturday morning kids' TV, providing the voices for the cartoon characters of The Popples, Ghostbusters, Dennis the Menace, Lady Lovelylocks and Madeline. (She plays Miss Clavel and Genevive the dog.) It was the offer to direct and voice the Canadian-made Madeline cartoon that prompted her move to Vancouver after 16 years in Los Angeles. Although she had carved out a TV niche for herself down there - playing guest and recurring roles on series running from LA Law back to The Ropers and the early Knots Landing - "after the riots, I decided life was too short and I should maybe consider coming home."
Despite her mass of acting credits, Vallance says singing has always been her first love. In Regan's Cline tribute, which he has remounted for ATP in a honky-tonk bar setting, she is able to perform with a five-piece band... the experience has whet her appetite to front a group of her own... blues and jazz. Thanks to her alter ego, she's become a late convert to country... she says the essence of great country music is the essence of Patsy Cline. "It's great music to sing because it's from the heart, and Patsy sang from the heart. It's when you do that, that you begin to create an original sound."