Valarie Pettiford's Busy Fall: Two Recurring TV Roles and a New Album

The talented and beautiful Valarie Pettiford, known to daytime fans for her roles as Sheila Price in ONE LIFE TO LIVE and Courtney Walker in ANOTHER WORLD, will be dominating the small screen this fall.  The ubiquitous actress will be appearing in recurring roles on two shows on two major networks, with others soon to be announced. Valarie can be seen on the third season of HBO’s TREME and CBS’s new show THE GOLDEN BOY, starring Chi McBride, who has been waiting ten years to work with Valarie. After the first day’s shoot with McBride (she plays his wife), Valarie went back to her dressing room to find a massive, six-foot tall arrangement of flowers with a card attached that simply read, “Finally.”

Valarie’s parents always said that she came into the world dancing!  A tenacious and driven performer her entire life, Valarie auditioned for the film version of The Wiz at the age of sixteen even though she knew it was against the rules and would mean giving up her space at the prestigious High School for the Creative and Performing Arts.  When shooting on the film was complete, her father insisted that his defiant daughter graduate and had her use her salary from the film to enroll in the Professional Children’s School, something for which Valarie has always been grateful.

For the past three decades, she has appeared on stage and screen with some of the world’s most memorable performers, including Angela Bassett, Chita Rivera, Loretta Devine, Raul Esparza,  Lucie Arnaz and Michael Clarke Duncan. She is an award winning actor/singer/dancer who has created such memorable roles as Big Dee Dee Thorne on HALF AND HALF, Aunt Jackie in Stomp the Yard, and the inimitable Aunt Geneva in Jumping the Broom.

Valarie seems to be taking her cue from the title of her highly successful sitcom, HALF AND HALF, and is dividing her attention between television and singing, with film roles sprinkled in between. Also coming out this fall is Valarie’s new album of original lullabies, "Velvet Sky," which is being released in October. A collection of thirteen tracks that were written especially for her by two legendary Hollywood songwriting duos.