Rising from the Ground Up

“Authenticity carved from real life, brought to every role.”

   As an actor, I am very versatile with a strong emotional range because of the real-life experiences I've survived throughout my life, having the ability to shift seamlessly between drama, action, and darkest of personas. Known for my adaptability, I can embody both vulnerable and nuanced roles to high energy archetypes with physically and emotionally demanding performances. I enjoy playing characters from gritty and obscure realities that require authenticity. I'm not afraid to play a hooker or mentally unstable identity who go from subtle and grounded to larger-than-life, then switch back to a collected and highly trained operative who's on a mission to save the world. 

   My martial arts background is based in boxing and jiu-jitsu; I started boxing in high school and have been practicing jitz for about 10 years. When I was a kid, my first sport was gymnastics and now as an adult, I'm an arm-wrestling champion. I perform all my own stunts and help design the fight and motion choreography for the films I produce and star in. 

   When not on a film set, I'm literally ALWAYS working! I put in 60-80hrs a week so I can write, produce, and act in my own films and also work on other Producer's movies. I have a very strong work ethic no matter what my job detail is for the day, giving my heart and soul into completing whatever my mission is- failure is not an option for me. 

   As a First Responder, I’m fiercely patriotic and I believe in the American Dream. I wasn't born into the lifestyle I currently have, I wasn't dealt "the privilege cards" in life- I literally come from nothing. I survived the streets, a lifetime of violence, betrayal, personal and financial loss. Every time I built myself up, a perfidy took it all away and I had to start from the ground up, again. Currently, I'm living my best life because of my "never give up, never surrender" attitude.

Saving My Brother

   Our mother was born into wealth in 1966 in Hammond Indiana, being the only member of her family who is legally blind with a congenital form of nystagmus. Having a disability was considered shameful to your social status during that generation- especially to her politically motivated household. Her family carried many secrets and scandals behind the façade of Christianity and politics. 

   Frank A.J. Stodola, our mother's father, had once been a respected attorney and judge who ran for Congress before being indicted under the RICO Act in 1987. After his incarceration, the rest of her family continued to deny our mother's disability and obvious mental health decline out of personal shame for her condition. Our grandmother Barbara had watched her daughter unravel from the day she was born, all while enjoying a privileged life. Instead of suggesting psychological services or helping her to acquire disability support, she ignored her very serious mental and financial issues. For whatever reason, she allowed us—her grandchildren—to suffer because of it.

   Because of this, my brother and I were bounced around from ghetto to ghetto, the most popular area being Gary Indiana, one of the murder capitals of the United States where survival of the fittest is a daily battle. We lived in apartments that were so infested with cockroaches they would crawl all over us at night. There were so many roaches, they chewed the ends of our hair and eyebrows off as a food source- we would wake up screaming when they crawled in our mouths. My brother and I both remember being abused by daycare workers and babysitters- the first time I saw someone get shot I was five years old.

   By the time I was eight, my own mother was calling me a whore because of the hatred she had for herself. She often told me of her regret that she didn't have me aborted when she had the chance- she was a very angry, very sick woman. As a child, I often wondered why the other poor families in the hood at least had love for each other. Everyone in the area lived in poverty and were desperate trying to make it on the daily, but I saw so much love when I would visit my friend's homes. It left me very confused for many years.

   Our childhoods were basically stolen from us— we raised ourselves as best we could with no food or money to survive. My brother spent years trapped in his bedroom, isolated by the same eye condition our mother was born with. My earliest memories of my brother are haunted with our mother regularly screaming in his face, “YOU CAN SEE, YOU CAN SEE! STOP ACTING LIKE YOU'RE STUPID!”- as if yelling at him would magically give him the ability of sight. I believed her when she said that he could see just like everyone else, because I was a child and she was my mother. My brother, the victim, believed her too because he never knew any different- he was born that way. This family secret carried out for decades. It was the greatest lie we had ever been told. 

   In high school, Dan never had any friends and was tormented so badly he wanted to kill himself, but the gun in the house had no bullets. I fought bullies for him the best I could, but I was so emotionally and physically weak at the time that I couldn’t stop them all. I was also persecuted by most of the kids at school and considered suicide many times during that part of my life. In 2002, at sixteen, I left home with one promise to myself: one day I would go back and get him out of there. That I would save him and get him the help he needed so he could live as independent of a life as possible despite his malady.

   Then twenty years later in November of 2022, I was finally able to keep that promise. When I found him, the living conditions my brother had been subjected to were beyond inhumane. The place that our family dumped him off at shook me to my core. How could anyone do that to anybody? Let alone a disabled family member.

  I got him out of there and brought him back to my home in Atlanta to a clean and safe environment. Then I took him to the eye doctor where I finally learned the truth—his vision was far worse than I ever knew or that he understood. I broke down crying in the doctor’s office, grieving all the years he had been forced to suffer. My brother now walks with a white cane, a tool that would have been incredibly useful throughout his entire life.

   He had been abused so badly that I thought he was intellectually disabled as well as being legally blind because he barely spoke since childhood. The reality is that he is a high-functioning autistic and incredibly smart. All he needed was to be freed from our toxic family, free from their neglect and abuse. 

   My brother and I have suffered from physical and emotional abuse for more years than we have been free from it. For the first time in his life, my brother talks openly, laughs and enjoys life in ways I never imagined for him. Dan is a completely different person now and he's living his best life with me. I am my brother's keeper.

   Getting out of the hood and building a life for myself so that I could even get my brother was the furthest thing from easy. There were many times throughout that battle that I thought the day would never come and Dan would die there, trapped and covered in cockroaches like when we were kids. But I never gave up and I never surrendered because my soul would not allow it. I've saved a lot of people in my line of work throughout the years, but being my brother's hero is without a doubt, the greatest accomplishment of my entire life. 

Queen of the Badlands

   I ran away from my abusers at 16 years old, terrified of the thought of ever going back to the Northwest. Dealing with all the traumatic memories affected my day-to-day life for many years. It wasn't until after almost being shot and killed by my 2nd ex-husband in 2022, that I was ready to confront my deepest and darkest fears. As a lifelong victim, I absolutely refuse to live with the "victim mentality". Even though I'm a stronger person now, that doesn't make me any less of a victim for the crimes that have been committed against me throughout my life. It doesn't negate the lifelong trauma I've experienced or the pain I will always carry inside because of it. Those events changed my life and shaped me into the person I have become, I just didn't make excuses to not move forward in life because of that emotional damage. No matter what, I was always determined to make something of myself and create a life worth living.

   To heal my soul, in my own way, I started at the beginning in Gary Indiana. Finding the courage to go back was something I never thought possible. I toured my old stomping grounds and found one of my childhood friends, she is now addicted to meth, doesn't have any teeth, and lives in a detached garage because she can't be trusted inside her family home. She saved my life countless times when we were kids, so I made a  lot of calls and pulled a bunch of strings, making arragements to get her out of there and into a halfway house in Atlanta. I presented her with the opportunity at a better life but she wouldn't leave. I was too late, and she will die there because of her addiction. The lesson my 2nd ex-husband taught me was that you can't make anyone sober unless they actually want to be, so I had to walk away.

   Then I came across Dangerous Deb, owner of the legendary Roy Boy’s Tattoo Shop- Roy died in 2010. They were married back in the day and she was his muse; tattooing together, doing wild photo shoots, and making movies. Cody, their son, passed away in a motorcyle accident a few years prior to my visit with her. My son Brandon passed away from an aneurysm in 2012, which was the single most painful experience of my life. Deb and I are connected in so many ways. On top of all that, I look EXACTLY like her when she was young!

   Dangerous Deb is the "Original Gangsta" Queen of the Badlands- she created the empire. Chasz, shop manager and former apprentice to Roy Boy, is next in line to the throne because of her loyalty to the Kingdom. Me, I'm a Queen by reputation because I'm willing to walk into places most people wouldn't even dare drive through, and go into nefarious buildings to do what must be done. I march into Hell to save people, animals, and while this may sound stupid to most- I also save the plants.

Author, Screen and Scriptwriter

   Writing is a HUGE part of my life. Whether I'm writing the next movie I'm producing, a powerful speech or business plan for one of my clients, I'm always keeping myself busy putting words on paper. I started publishing books for third party companies in my early 20’s while working at a radio station, and I strongly believe this skillset is half the reason why I have a successful acting career. This creative outlet allows me to fully understand character composition, foreshadowing, alliteration, dramatic irony, and the deus ex machina.

   My most recent book encapsulates my work, "A Marine Endures Hell" depicting the real-life story of Ken Kraus, who was the first Marine held captive and tortured for 8 days during the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979. I met Ken at a Marine Corps themed bar after my 2nd ex-husband tried to shoot and kill me in my own home. Going to that bar after a hard days work made me feel safe, because I was surrounded by the brave and honorable people who serve our country.