Biography
Valeri Ross
ACTOR
Everyone at Charles M. Hall School, from 1st graders to High School Seniors, filed into the gymnasium (turned auditorium), delighted that there was an assembly today - usually a boring offering by some of their unlucky fellow students. It seemed like an ordinary assembly to Valeri but then Linda McNear's performance of Lady MacBeth washing her bloody hands began. Valeri had never seen live theatre and her mother, Mary Goss Parker, did not allow her to go to movies - refusing to patronize a business that had restricted seating for blacks. So the Bard infected another young girl's heart with a love for theatre in that, at least for Valeri Parker Ross, not so ordinary assembly.
Theater was only a delightful distraction for Valeri, since she had already decided to study law. Besides, it just did not occur to her that there was a whole world of folk, outside her reality, creating and consuming stories. That is until she attended Knoxville College's Upward Bound Program with Sherby Barber who introduced Valeri to Black Theater. She was still a nerdy teen, when good grades and manners did not make you popular, but Black Theater made her part of a greater world where she felt perfectly comfortable. Valeri had planned her whole life by the time she was 9 with an adjustment to transfer to Alcoa High School which had recently been integrated.
Transferring to the local white high school was Valeri's naive idea of participating in the civil rights movement and staying on course to graduate from UCLA and become a lawyer.
Valeri headed off to study math and law; but ended up learning about Ed Bullins and Lorraine Hansberry, Harold Pinter and Viola Spolin. Spurred on by encouragement from John Cauble at UCLA, even though she majored in math, she found a way to make theatre an important part of her studies.
Completing Jo Forensburg's two year program in improv comedy at Second City (Chicago) gave her the courage to leave Systems Engineering and make her living as an artist. From the moment that she left IBM and resettled in California, she knew she had made the right choice. For the first time in her life, Valeri fit in; she had found home. In her first year as a professional actor, Valeri became a California Arts Council Artist in Residence in a program developed with award winning dancer/choreographer Mitsuko Mitsueda.
Valeri & Mitsu won that honor for the maximum time of 3 years. At the same time, Valeri was introduced to touring through Poetry Playhouse, a program that brought poetry to life through live performance. Through performances in corporate and educational video and film projects, she won her AFTRA and SAG union cards. During her years in San Francisco, Valeri was totally immersed in the idyllic theatre environs and performed, produced, taught and studied theatre. In Wendell Phillips' StageGroup (A former teacher at New York's Actors Studio) along with Del Roy Lindo, Ben Guillory and others, she took master classes in 'the method'. Master Classes with Beah Richards led to her first national tour in "STOOPS" an original work by Crystal V. Rhodes which Ms. Richards directed and Valeri produced.
Under the guidance of Mel Stewart, an original member of The Committee (the first commercially successful improv troupe), Valeri studied and performed improvisational comedy at a myriad of venues with her San Francisco theatre family, including Danny Glover among others, as part of the improv troupe 8 Pieces of Gold. Seizing an opportunity to live and work in Africa, Valeri moved to Harare, Zimbabwe with her husband Bart, a computer specialist and fine art photographer and their sons Akili & Gyasi.
She became active in the Zimbabwe Association of Community Theatre (ZACT), a grass roots theatre movement, and toured the country with a political theatre troupe based in the capital city Harare. She was a Guest lecturer in theater at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare. Valeri produced and performed in a national radio program featuring ANASI, the Spiderman, an ancient African folk hero. This series of 13 shows told folktales and historical moments from Zimbabwe's history.
Valeri created a troupe of young performers and trained them in voice over, acting and improvisation. They worked with professional actors to help create the radio series. Valeri also directed the school play at Harare's Vainona Elementary and Middle School.
On returning to the United States, she settled in Los Angeles where she was awarded a Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department Grant to present folktales on public radio. At the same time, she was touring schools as Harriet Tubman throughout the Los Angeles basin.
She has done sketch and improv comedy at many LA venues including the Main Room at The Comedy Store and at Pasadena's ICE HOUSE with "Hold The Cream", "Foxy, Fine, and Funny" and other groups. Her film roles include Sojourner Truth (with Roscoe Lee Brown as Frederick Douglas), Losing Isaiah, and opposite Robert Wisdom in "Rocky Road". She is probably most remembered as Mrs. Cager in "Glory Road". On TV, Valeri recurred as McGillis, MSW, the social worker in "ER" and Francis the maid in "American Dreams". Valeri's deadpan portrayal of the stenographer with Steve Carell in the "Office" is a classic.
She is best known for Losing Isiah, Glory Road, Prom Nite, and playing OJ's mom, Eunice, in American Crime Story: The People vs. OJ Simpson. She is the clerk on the official "TOP 40: SCARIEST ANTI-SMOKING COMMERCIALS [PART ONE]" where the young girl pulls the skin off her face to pay for her cigarettes. Valeri will portray a character inspired by Shirley Chisholm in Ad Astra/The Lima Project coming out in 2019 starring Brad Pitt.
Valeri never became a lawyer, but she played one on TV. In fact, she’s played several.
