Louise Robey

Louise Robey
Born Louise Ann Robey
14 March 1960
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Nationality Canadian
Other names Robey
Lady Burford
Louise Burford
Louise, Countess of Burford
Education St Leonards School
Occupation Singer-songwriter, actress, model
Years active 1979–present
Spouse(s) Charles Beauclerk, Earl of Burford (m. 1994; div. 2001)
Stan Shaffer (m. 2008; wid. 2010)
Children 1

Louise Ann Robey (born 14 March 1960), styled Louise, Countess of Burford during her marriage to Charles Beauclerk, Earl of Burford, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, former model, and actress. During much of her career, she used the stage name Robey.

Early life and education

Robey was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the daughter of Malcolm, a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and his wife Dallas, who was an English actress.[1][2] In a 1987 interview with People, Robey stated that her family are descendants of Scottish poet Robert Burns.[1]

Robey was raised and educated throughout Canada, France, Italy, and West Germany.[2] She attending St Leonards School in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland and took college preparatory courses for Oxford and Cambridge.[1]

Career

Modeling and singing

After graduating from St Leonards, Robey returned to her parents' home in Canada. She then began a romance with Canadian student whom she followed to France. After the couple broke up, Robey remained in France.[1] She later won a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School but, after being spotted sunbathing in the French Riviera by French photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue, decided to forgo school for a modeling career. [3][4][2] Lartigue set about making Robey into a model. One of her first professional photos was a nude taken by Latigue which appeared in Paris Match.[1] At the age of 19, she appeared in Vogue Paris, and later was signed to a cosmetics contract with Maybelline. Robey then moved to New York City where she worked as a catwalk model earning $5,000 a day.[5]

In the early 1980s, Robey moved to Los Angeles where she fronted the group Louise and the Creeps. Though the group was signed to a record deal, they broke up before recording an album. In 1984, Robey landed a solo record deal with Silver Blue Records and recorded a self-titled album (she decided to simply use her last name as her professional name as she felt "it had a nice ring"). Six singles from the album were released. One single, a cover of the song "One Night in Bangkok" from the musical Chess, became a hit.[1] Robey's version of the song spent three weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1985, peaking at #77.[6] It fared much better on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart, peaking at #5.[7]

Acting and current work

While working as a musician, Robey continued to model and also became involved in improvisational comedy. She also appeared in stage roles in dinner theater. In 1986, Robey landed in small roles in The Money Pit and Raw Deal. The following year, she beat out 300 other actresses for the role of Michelle "Micki" Foster, niece of antiques dealer Lewis Vendredi, on the syndicated horror series Friday the 13th: The Series, which Frank Mancuso Jr. produced. Robey's character, Micki Foster, was a young woman who had inherited an antique shop from Lewis Vendredi (R. G. Armstrong), her estranged uncle. When the antiques in the shop proved to have been cursed by the devil, Micki, Ryan Dallion (John D. LeMay), her cousin by marriage, and family friend Jack Marshak (Chris Wiggins) begin to hunt down and recover the antiques before they could kill, or cause the damnations of the souls of, anyone else. The show, which was filmed in Toronto,[2] was a hit with audiences and became one of the top three syndicated dramas airing at the time.[4] After the series was canceled in 1990, Robey starred in the independent thriller Play Nice.[8]

In a post on her now-defunct website dated 17 August 2008, Robey announced that she would be appearing on the DVD release of the first season of Friday the 13th: The Series, and that she also continued to work on music and photography projects.[9]

In December 2013, Robey released a new single, "Take It To The Top", a collaboration with recording artist Lovari. The single debuted at #87 on the iTunes U.S. Dance Chart.

Personal life

In 1993, Robey began dating Charles Beauclerk, Earl of Burford. The two met after Beauclerk gave a lecture about one of his relatives, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, who is one of several authors named in the Shakespeare authorship question. The couple married on 29 December 1994 at St. Winifreds Church in Manaton. At the time of the marriage, Robey was pregnant with the couple's child. Their son James was born in Boston in 1995. The couple lived in Ipswich and Hadleigh, Suffolk before divorcing in 2001.[5]

Robey subsequently moved to The Dordogne, France, with her fiance, photographer Stan Shaffer. Robey and Shaffer married in France on 22 March 2008.[9] Shaffer died in France on 10 June 2010.

Filmography

Year Title Role Notes
1986 The Money Pit Female Vocalist Credited as Robey
1986 Raw Deal Lamanski's Girl Credited as Robey
1987–1990 Friday the 13th: The Series / Erben des Fluchs Micki Foster 70 episodes
Credited as Robey
1992 Play Nice Jill Crane/Rapunzel Credited as Robey

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Cunneff, Tom (December 14, 1987). "On TV's Friday the 13th, It's Robey Who Makes Little Boys Really Howl". People (Time Inc.) 28 (24). ISSN 0093-7673.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Buck, Jerry (17 June 1988). "'Friday the 13th' was good luck for Robey". Daily News (Bowling Green, Kentucky). p. 11. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  3. ↑ "Louise Robey - Northernstars.ca". northernstars.ca. Retrieved 27 February 2015.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Robey: Bewitching on and off-camera". Observer-Reporter (Washington, Pennsylvania). 15 January 1989. p. 92. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Sayid, Ruki (2001). "M Profile: Lady Burford - The rock chick and the Earl; She was the Bohemian musician and actress who married one of England's most controversial aristocrats. But when these wildly different worlds collided, the fallout tore her life apart.". thefreelibrary.com. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  6. ↑ Whitburn, Joel (1991). The Billboard Hot 100 Charts: The Eighties (1st ed.). Menomonee, Wisconsin: Record Research Inc. p. March 9, 1985. ISBN 0-89820-079-2.
  7. ↑ "Artist Chart History - Robey". allmusic.com. Retrieved 7 August 2011.
  8. ↑ Play Nice at the Internet Movie Database
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Louise Robey Resurfaces". louiserobey.com. 7 August 2008. Archived from the original on 20 April 2009. Retrieved 8 August 2011.

External links