Bree Walker
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Bree Walker (born February 26, 1953) is a well-known television network news anchor (and later, a talk radio host); she has appeared as a news anchor and/or reporter in San Diego, New York City, and Los Angeles.
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[edit] Biography
Walker was born and raised in the state of Minnesota near the Iowa border. She inherited a rare genetic condition called ectrodactyly resulting in her fingers and toes being fused together. She has been married and divorced three times. Her surname is taken from her second husband. She has two children with her third ex-husband.
[edit] Career
As an advocate for people with disabilities, she is one of the first in her field to succeed in spite of a physical deformity.
Established and well into her career at the ABC affiliate KGTV Channel 10 in San Diego, Walker decided to go public with her ectrodactyly after previously keeping her deformed hands hidden inside a pair of glove-like prosthetic hands. With her hands now clearly visible, she continued her successful newscasting career at KGTV, moving up to the larger markets at WCBS Channel 2 in New York City, and in 1988 to KCBS Channel 2 Los Angeles.
Her media career started as an FM rock and roll disc jockey, on KUDL FM as "rock's lady of the night" in Kansas City in the middle 1970s. She soon became New York City's first female morning drive rock personality. Walker was later a DJ on San Diego's rock station KPRI FM. She started her television career in 1980 at KGTV as a consumer advocacy reporter. She also dabbled in acting, appearing as herself in the end of the world SF thriller Without Warning (credited as Bree Walker-Lampley but referred to on screen as Bree Walker) and as television reporter Wendy Sorenson in The Chase.
[edit] HBO and Dramatic Appearances
Walker's career took a surprising twist during the 2003 season when she watched the show Carnivàle, an HBO television series about a Depression-era carnival traveling through the Dust Bowl. She noticed that no cast member had ectrodactyly. She requested, created, auditioned, and won the role of Sabina, The Scorpion Lady.
Bree's portrayal of Sabina occurred in three episodes during the 2005 season. She showcases her webbed hands as the series probes public attitudes toward persons with highly visible disabilities. In Walker's own words: "I really get to be me." Walker based Sabina on characters she knew existed in the 1920s and 1930s carnival sideshows with names like Lobster Girl or Lobster Boy. These were typically the best jobs persons with ectrodactyly could have, with most others being hidden away.
Walker furthered her acting career in 2006 by appearing as an inspirational woman with ectrodactyly on the fourth season premiere of Nip/Tuck. She and her children were also featured on an episode of TLC's My Unique Family.
She also appeared in an episode of "Reading Rainbow."
[edit] Off Camera
Walker and her former husband, NBC and HBO sportscaster Jim Lampley, jointly run Crystal Spring Productions, a film production company. She is also a contributing writer for New Image magazine. Walker resides in Del Mar, California with her children, both of whom also have ectrodactyly. Lampley was her third husband. Her second husband, Robert Walker, from San Diego, is an independent media production professional active in radio, television and film production. She had no children with her first husband.
Walker currently hosts a progressive talk show on KTLK AM 1150 in Los Angeles on Saturdays from 2 to 4 p.m. Pacific Time.
[edit] Purchase of Camp Casey
On June 8, 2007 Brad Friedman of The BRAD BLOG [1] broke the news that Walker had purchased Cindy Sheehan's 5-acre "Camp Casey" site in Crawford, Texas for $87,000, in response to Sheehan's May 26, 2007 announcement that she would be selling the site and ending her antiwar activities; Walker plans to preserve the property as a peace memorial and garden, and keep it open to antiwar protesters. The Associated Press confirmed the report on 6/9/07 [2].
Sheehan handed the deed to Walker during her June 9, 2007 broadcast of The Bree Walker show. [3].
[edit] See also
- Larry King Live transcript
- Diane Bell, "Of Bree, HBO and ectrodactyly", San Diego Union Tribune newspaper, January 25, 2005
- for her career biography.
