Jennifer Delora was born in Upstate New York in the heart of the Hudson
Valley on March 2, 1962. She grew up riding and showing horses, a
member of Brownies, Girl Scouts and 4-H. She was a competitive Judo
champion, having won many trophies and ribbons as well as the Jr.
Olympics and Jr. Nationals and was a member of the USAA for both Judo
and swimming. She was also a NY State Champion swimmer and became a
certified lifeguard at the age of 12. She began dancing at age 5 and
was a "Schupplattler" (think Oktoberfest), from the age of 9. She wrote
her first play in 2nd grade, and was a member of the choir (winning the
vocal music award in 6th grade) and being chosen for the very
prestigious "Select Choir" in Jr. High School for which the choir
recorded an album in 1975 and won many competitions.
Jennifer knew from the time she was 4 she wanted to be a "star" and
began her career as a snowflake in Kindergarten.
She was also a cheerleader in High School and made a historical moment
for Kingston High School when she and another classmate were the first
of 2 junior girls to be chosen for Varsity Cheerleading (which was
normally reserved for only Seniors at the time), won State and National
Cheerleading competitions 3 years in a row as well as winning the
Spirit Stick at a national Cheerleading Camp. In Jr. High School, she
was on the math team, debate team and was a public speaking competitor
into High School. She participated in not only school plays throughout
her entire educational career, but did outside shows for the local
Community College and Community and Regional Theatres beginning at age
14.
In her teen years, Jennifer also directed and choreographed for various
community productions and pageants. She began doing pageants in her
early teens for Miss Teen Ulster County, Miss Adirondack Teen and
others, and did many other pageants including Miss Manhattan and was
Miss Murry Hill in the Miss Big Apple competition. She has also judged
many teen and adult pageants and was a celebrity judge for Miss Deaf
America.
From childhood to present, ever the 'over-achiever', a teenage Dr.
Delora was active in almost every club in school: yearbook, newspaper,
poetry paper & book, student government and much more. A popular
student with all groups of kids, she was invited to be a soloist at her
Sr. year's "May Day", and starred in every school play and musical. At
her 20th high school reunion, she enjoyed seeing a lot of her old
friends and acquaintances and spend a great deal of the time taking
photos with, and signing autographs for her fellow alumni.
Jennifer was also an early admissions student to Ulster County
Community College (now SUNY Ulster) beginning in her junior year where
she majored in Theatre Arts and was inducted into the national theatre
honor society "Delta Psi Omega" at age 17. There, she starred in plays
such as the "Harvey", "No, No Nanette", and "Vaudeville" shows, summer
stock and "That's Musical Comedy II" show and tour. At the same time
she was very active in Community Theatre in the tri-county area of
Upstate New York and did several Renaissance festivals and
choreographed and directed for local high schools, usually doing at
least 2 different shows at once. She later, after Miss Ulster County,
went on tour with "Beauty and the Beast" for a youth theatre tour of
the southern states of the US.
Delora did her first film at age 17 as a featured extra in "The
Greatest Man in the World" for PBS, then was invited by Warner Bros. to
do a guest role of "girl at phone"
(Christine Baranski as "girl at bar),
for "Soup for One" and one year later she was in New York City from her
small upstate town in Ulster County NY, attending the prestigious
American Academy of Dramatic Arts and doing off-off and off-Broadway
dramas, comedies and musicals. She has played such diverse roles as
"Nurse Kelly" in "Harvey" to "Ado Annie" in "Oklahoma!", first "Miep"
and then "Anne Frank" in "The Diary of Anne Frank", "Mazeppa" in
"Gypsy" to "Jenny" in "Everything in the Garden" (both a standard stage
version in NYC to a mixed cast of hearing, deaf and hard of hearing
actors in LA).
After doing over 30 plays and musicals by this time, she got her first
film with the starring role as "Lisa" in
Bad Girls (1986).
She then continued stage acting, and, at age 24, entered the Miss
America Preliminary in Ulster County. Jennifer not only won the title
(at the stroke of midnight as she turned 25) to go to Miss NY and Miss
America, but won both the talent competition (with a musical song &
dance medley) and "Miss Congeniality". Approximately 3 months after she
was crowned, she was (and remains) only the 2nd woman in Miss America
Pageant history to be "de-crowned".
Since then, she has starred in everything from horror to comedy to the
series for Playboy Channel: "Electric Blue". Her starring roles in
comedies such as "New York's Finest", "Sensations", "Sexpot", "Young
Nurses in Love"; to horror/thrillers: "Deranged", "Fright House",
"Deadly Manor", "Phantasy", "Frankenhooker" (a cult classic horror
spoof), and many more. She also went on to work and get an Emmy nod for
her role as a Deaf Nun in "Breaking Through" with
JoBeth Williams and
Kellie Martin (which she also technical
advised and got many awards for that talent). She's also worked with
Ann-Margret on a CBS movie-of-the-week,
Blue Rodeo (1996), which
also starred
Kris Kristofferson. Dr.
Delora has made an award-winning career (Media Access Awards, the
California Governor's Distinguished Service Award, Aegis Awards,
Houston International Film Festival Gold Award and 3 Long Island
University Film Festival Awards) out of her experience from losing her
hearing and gaining her doctorates, for her expertise as a "Specialty
Technical Advisor" and has even Executive Produced films including the
award-winning "Vanishing Point", TV shows such as "ellen" and her own
talk/informational program "Deaf Perspectives". Dr. Delora has not one
but 2 doctorates, is a prestigious member and lecturer/writer for the
American Board of Disability Analysts, has been a professor at NYU, has
taught sign language to many stars and has worked endlessly with her
deaf theatre company "LA Bridges Theatre Co of the Deaf" her award
winning all deaf youth choir "Bridges Sign Choir", and her multi award
winning talents with her company "AccessDeaf Consulting". She has had
over 30 articles published in various journals including for Antioch
University, ADBA and many Deaf publications and even one in Emmy
Magazine who earlier that year had called her "the most remarkable
actor in Hollywood".
Jennifer held a record as the oldest woman in the top 500 from the
MySpace Bowio top 100 at #3, out aging the other women by 15-25 years;
a record she held before and after she turned 45 on March 2nd. She
looks 30 and says she feels and looks and is rocking better than she
ever did back in her 30s.
She's diverse as an actress from horror (known most famously as the
Queen of the B's, Icon of Fright, Scream Queen" etc.) but has also made
her mark in television with her TV films, shows and her recurring role
in the children's series, "Jay Jay the Jet Plane".
Jennifer is not only a talented award winning actress she has a genius
IQ, and 2 PhD's, and through her BA (she started at 30) and her PhD's
with her extra credit ended with a 4.5 GPA (and finished her first
Ph.D. by the time she was 34), but as you can see has had many
experiences and is presently working on several scripts which are under
consideration with various production companies, but is working on her
autobiography and a Sign Language book & DVD on a copyrighted system
she developed for all ages with a tag, "the fasted and easiest way to
learn ASL and write it with simple 3-D format".
She's happy to be doing the shows where she gets to meet the fans in
person as they are amazing and she loves doing it. She has vowed that
no matter what she's working on, she will continue to do the shows and
stay devoted to the fans that kept her around and get her where she is.
She rides a huge motorcycle in a bikini top and cut offs through the
streets of LA, loves cliff diving, and is a 4.0 tennis player. She has
done and continues to do a great deal of charity work on behalf of
children, victims of domestic violence (like herself) and plays golf,
tennis and has been with the Special Olympics as a volunteer since she
was 12.
She has also been an inspirational speaker all over the country and
says she will always take time to teach, volunteer, and do her variety
of activities because they keep life interesting and she is always
running into fans, large and small, wherever she goes.
This multi-talented actor/writer/sign performer/singer/technical
advisor/teacher/professor/volunteer/tennis player/ golf
player/celebrity phenomenon is always re-inventing herself and working
in the many diverse fields of entertainment and Deaf Culture.
