- Born
- Since her minor role in the movie Vice, Vanessa Dimitropoulos (legal and maiden name) has stepped away from acting in order to focus on the larger life roles which acting led her to experience. She is the founder of The Escaped Goat, a campaign with the mission to reform psychological abuse laws and educate law enforcement on the epidemic of an abuse that leaves no broken bones or bruises. Her journey to advocate stemmed from an all too common story of being discredited by someone close, leading to false stories to the police. Vanessa has dedicated her time to interviewing victims and pursuing collaborations with the goal of generating not only awareness, but change. She believes that psychological abuse laws need to be treated with the same criminal prosecution as physical and sexual abuse, and that The United States needs to catch up to the progressive psychological abuse reforms implemented by the UK, France, Ireland, and Scotland.
Vanessa grew up in Paramount, CA and received her BA in Communications from Chapman University. She then owned and operated a children's dance company in San Diego with a student base of 300. While still actively involved in her company, and after a short stint as the bartender on San Clemente Island located 80 miles off the coast of Southern California, Vanessa moved to Rota, Spain, where she frequently traveled, wrote the children's book Spotty Dotty (self-published in 2018 with illustrator Zelda Vinciguerra), and worked as a Library Technician. Her next adventure brought her to New Orleans, just a few days after the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. At the time, NOLA was a major Film & TV hub, giving Vanessa the opportunity to follow her heart and finally pursue the career she had wanted since a child. She also became a real estate agent, worked at Cineworks post production facility, and eventually started her own video successful audition taping service as well as Shoot My Reel; a demo reel service for actors in need of footage in order obtain representation. Before leaving New Orleans for Los Angeles during The Big Short's Oscar nomination and ultimate win, Vanessa produced two web-series and a short film, the latter of which won Best Drama at the Louisiana International Film Festival.
Vanessa has not completely left the Film and TV industry. She is the producing a feature film and developing a media company which will showcase interviews, PSA's, and video books revolving around the subject of narcissistic abuse. When she is not producing, writing, advocating, or studying the martial arts form Krav Maga, Vanessa spends her time dancing, traveling, creating entrepreneurial concepts, and continuing her spiritual journey.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Vanessa Cloke
- SpouseLaythan Cloke(2003 - 2009) (divorced)
- ChildrenChild
- During her senior high school year, Vanessa was nominated to attend the National Youth Leader's Conference in Washington, DC. She graduated ninth in her class, and received a scholarship from the Compton Courthouse. She was a Co-Captain on Paramount High School's drill team, the school's Pirate mascot one year, a Corsair, the ASB Commissioner of Rallies, on the Prom Court, and voted Female Student of the Year by her high school instructors.
- Whenever in her hometown of Paramount, Vanessa stops to enjoy a cheeseburger special from Tam's on Alondra. She gets extra Thousand Island on her burger, and a side of it for her fries. She's taken many people to Tam's over the years, partly so she can also find an excuse to eat some of their amazing chili cheese fries with her meal.
- While taking a full load at Chapman University, Vanessa worked three jobs. She was a preschool and elementary mobile creative movement teacher, sometimes teaching 20 classes per week. She was a children's birthday character entertainer, showing up as Belle, Pink Power Ranger, Minnie Mouse and more to perform magic tricks, make balloon animals, and paint faces. Lastly, she was, for a while the only female delivery driver at Restaurants on the Run, a restaurant delivery service similar to Uber Eats, but before cell phones and navigation systems. "My first day of training, I was in my car changing out of my dance attire and into my delivery uniform when my trainer rolled up. Ha! We used walkie-talkies and the good ole Thomas Guide. 'Base to V, you have a pick up at Claim Jumper.' I once delivered a McCormick and Schmidts dinner to a sole man working in an Irvine high-rise, with black gloves on. I got the hell out of there pretty quickly.".
- While operating her dance company in San Diego, Vanessa was offered a job as the bartender of the Horse and Cow, a submariner bar. She would later be introduced to another bartending position on San Clemente Island. She got the job, and for about a year, was flown back and forth each week. While living there, she explored the island by water and land, became a "gym rat," and beat the Chief in a racquetball match.
- Vanessa found out about her Walking Dead character Anna's death by Googling herself and discovered that Anna had died in a gas explosion in Alexandria. In a Google alert, Vanessa read that the show claimed that Vanessa was no longer available to work, when in actuality, Vanessa had moved home to Los Angeles during The Big Short's Oscar season in order to pursue her career further. She was always available for shooting in Georgia, yet TWD did not want to pay for the actress to fly out. This isn't the first time a TWD actor has been shunned for asking the production to pay reasonable costs. Vanessa drove back and forth from New Orleans to Senoia with the expectation of paying her own travel and accommodations. She made more per episode on Common Law (2011-2012), a Friday night show which never reached anywhere near the acclaim or profit of TWD. Vanessa encouraged actors to expect their worth, and not accept the minimum given by productions that paid exponentially higher wages to names yet handed stipends to struggling actors. "Actors are easily taken advantage of; we are unfortunately a dime a dozen. If actors stand for low wages in exchange for a part, they not only demean themselves, but they allow for the ongoing proliferation of demoralizing the craft and the value of artists. We cannot be for ourselves. We must stand together. We are one of the few members of this industry that does not operate on a tier. You can be in the business for 30 years and still get offered, and expected to accept, minimum union wages, simply because we are so desperate for roles. Never make decisions out of desperation.".
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