The A&M Consolidated High School "star factory" has produced its share of success stories. It's been written here often about the pipeline from Tigerland to Times Square for the likes of Met singers Emily Pulley, Sasha Cook and Broadway's Tommy Sadoski.
While there's certainly a large measure of fame gained on such Big Apple stages, it's the small screen of Holleywood where fledgling stars often turn to superstars and it seems there's no stopping that journey for home grown beauty Tiffany Thornton, known best these days to young Disney Channel fans as the funny, perky and somewhat high-maintenance, self absorbed and mirror-loving character Tawni Hart on "Sonny With a Chance".
The 24-year-old shows up every Sunday night at 7 as the Disney Channel comedy's co-star along with another Texan, Dallasite Demi Lovato. "I think 80 percent of the people at Disney are from Texas," Tiffany said in a phone visit with The Eagle last week. "But it's great that so many from Consol have had so much acting success."
Tiffany Thornton's shooting star so far seems to know no bounds. From her 2003 start as a blue chip project of former resident Nikki Pederson's talent agency, she attended with Pedersen a conference of the International Modeling and Talent Association in LA. She was named Junior Actress of the Year and that was her springboard - Tiffany Thornton was discovered!
She left College Station with her grandmother Ruth Blatchley after her junior year at Consolidated and finished high school at a Christian High School in Los Angeles. Ruth ofcourse came back home but Tiffany has never left. "Nana moved here with me into a one bedroom apartment," she said, and proudly adds "A lot of people don't experience a closeness with their grandparents like I did."
They are a major part of a support system of family and friends that has served her well and kept her impressively grounded amid an otherwise steady diet of glitz, glamour, spotlights and temptations that Tinseltown offers up daily - at every turn.
Her father John, brother John Scott and nephews Collin and Christian live here. Her mom Kimberly in Kyle near Austin, paternal grandparents Sam and Marlene Thornton hail from Iola and maternal grandparents Ron and Ruth Blatchley (who she calls "Pops and Nana") live in Bryan. Ron Blatchley is a former Bryan Mayor and long-time Texas A&M Director of Student Affairs, who since has bought and sold a dozen McDonalds restaurants and currently, along with Ruth, are in the real estate and home building business in town, and both are full-time proud cheerleaders for their former cheerleader granddaughter's success -- and for plenty of good reasons both on camera and in life.
At age 24 Tiffany's already got a "filmography" that's grown and is still growing. Before "Sonny With a Chance" started in February of last year, she had appeared in episodes of "Quintuplets", "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter", "American Dreams", "The O.C.", "Desperate Housewives", "That's So Raven", "Jericho", "Hannah Montana", "Wizards of Waverly Place", along with Disney's New Year's Eve Specials.
While it's a life and career she's grown to love, she's quick to points out "it's not all palm trees and sunshine".
Learning 50 pages of script, 13 hours days on the set, and rarely a real day off all come with the territory for the young working actress, who's also writing a cookbook and planning a singing career that hopefully will earn her a recording contract and her first CW album session in the not too distant future. "Yes it is a lot of work with long days but just like anyone else, at the end of the day, we still go home and cook and clean and pay bills and take our car in when it breaks and just be alive," she said.
She still calls College Station home, where before her three years at A&M Consolidated she attended College Station Middle School. She once worked a summer for David and Julia Gardner's Jewelry store while waiting out a Hollywood writers' strike and word on whether Disney would pick up "Sonny With a Chance" as a regular show. She is one of hundreds of local pediatrician Dr. Mark Sicilio's patient alumni and is best friends with his daughter Sara.
But perhaps her closest connection with the community grew from her family at Central Baptist Church, where Chris Osborne and his ministry helped instill her with her most prized possession by far -- her faith.
"Growing up I was raised in the church and when I moved to Los Angeles, I found it was a melting pot for so many ethnicities and religions and cultures. When I went to the Christian private school, I was required to take a world religion class and learned about all the other religions."
She also learned to ask questions. "How do I know this is right?. Is this what I'm supposed to be believing or is it just because I was raised in the church? Even after studying all the other religions, I came to know Christianity got me past all the tough times I had come through in my childhood, that I had come out on top because of the Lord and that strengthened my faith. I'm not the kind of person who says 'you should believe in what I believe in'. I just try to lead by example. I'm not perfect but do the best I can each day and take being a role model very seriously, and I hope that people see me and ask what is it different about her from some others I have known and I hope they can see that it's Christ in my life."
Where does Tiffany Thornton see herself in ten years? Well, she was recently engaged to be married so hopefully with a family and possibly still acting with a singing career, but that's where she stops planning. "Thinking too much about that would be walking by sight rather than by faith," she said.
So her faith has taught her well that life is a day-to-day blessing with no promise of tomorrow. She counts her Disney relationship as one of those blessings because of the message that it conveys to her young audience. "What Disney does goes right in line with my morals and my ethics. I love kids. If I wasn't an actress I would probably want to be a pediatrician or a kindergarten teacher. It's nice to be able to be an influence in kids' lives because we do live in a world where children are not always protected as much as they should be from the bad things. It's nice to be a in a place where I can influence to be good. Sometimes they don't have a good family life and they need someone other than their parents to look up to. I'm happy to be able to take on that role."
Save the date
* Sunday: The Theatre Company presents "Willy Wonka", 2 p.m. (779-1302, threatrecompany.com)
* Monday- June 30: Gallery at Dartmouth presents art of Student Scholarship recipients, 2275 Dartmouth, CS (696-2787, acbv.org)
* Tuesday-June 2: Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History presents "Enduring Transformation: The Kazakh People in a Changing World" (776-2195, brazosvalleymuseum.org)
* Tuesday: George Bush Presidential Library presents "Authentic Stories of Texas History", 10:30 a.m. (691-4014, bushlibrary.tamu.edu)
* Thursday: George Bush Presidential Library presents "Issues Forum with Bear Dalton, Spirits and Fine Food Expert" (691-4014, bushlibrary.tamu.edu)
* Saturday: Still Creek Ranch presents "2nd Annual Fundraiser Car Show", 10:30 a.m.- 4 p.m. (979-589-3206)
* June 3-19: StageCenter presents "The Foreigner", Thur-Sat, 7:30 pm (823-4297, stagecenter.net
* All month: Children's Museum of the Brazos Valley offers various programs, including Monday Madness, from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. (779-5437, www.mymuseum.org)
* All month: Until August, the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum will present "The Culture of Wine", unraveling the mystery, magic and making of wine. (691-4000, bushlibrary.tamu.edu)
* Tom Turbiville is The Eagle's arts columnist. He's also sports director for WTAW-1620AM Radio. E-mail him at tom.turbiville@theeagle.com.
RSS
Mobile
Daily Emails
Twitter
Facebook
