Robia LaMorte

Date of Birth : 7 July 1970

Location : Queens, New York, USA

Birth Name : Robia Brett LaMorte

Height : 5’ 6" (1.68 m)

Mini Biography

Born on July 7, 1970, in Queens, New York, Robia LaMorte was taking dance instruction before she was ten years old. From that moment on she became a workaholic, practicing every day for hours, even in the backyard. Her big break could have come with her role as a young Victoria Principal in Mistress (1987) (TV), but the producers edited her part out of the film. Her main breakthrough came in 1991, when she was picked by Prince to dance with him for the "Diamonds and Pearls" album. A single from the album went to #1 and Robia was pictured on the cover.

In 1994 she appeared in the independent feature The Pros & Cons of Breathing (1994). Later on came a role in Spawn (1997) and, even more importantly, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997).

Mini Biography

Robia LaMorte was born in Queens, New York and grew up in the Florida Keys. At the age of twelve she moved with her family to Los Angeles, California.

Soon thereafter she saw the movie Flashdance (1983), and her life was forever changed. She immediately began to pursue a career as a dancer and began taking jazz, ballet and tap classes after school.

Robia was accepted to attend The Los Angeles County High School For The Arts as a dance major their first year in operation in Los Angeles. She left the school after one year to fulfill a full dance scholarship at the prestigious Dupree Dance Academy in Hollywood.

At the age of sixteen Robia began to work professionally. Her first job was the music video "Shake Your Love" by Debbie Gibson. You can see her looking very "Flashdance-esque" with her big 80s, ala Jennifer Beals permed hair!

Robia went on to appear in more than thirty music videos before Prince pursued her to play the role of "Pearl" on his hit album "Diamonds & Pearls."

She toured Europe with Prince and The Pet Shop Boys and also traveled extensively doing dance fashion shows with companies such as Reebok, Puma and Adidas.

At the age of twenty-two, Robia hung up her dance shoes and retired. She decided the next logical move would be acting. She began by doing television commercials before landing her first role as Jason Priestley’s girlfriend on "Beverly Hills, 90210" (1990).

She went on to guest star on shows like "The Sentinel" (1996), "The Pretender" (1996) and "Time of Your Life" (1999), before she was hired to play "Jenny Calendar" on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997).

After three seasons on "Buffy", Robia recurred on the WB show "Rescue 77" (1999) and filmed several independent films such as 12 Stops on the Road to Nowhere (1999) and _Pomegranate (2001)_.

Trivia

She studied at the LA School for the Performing Arts and the Dupree Dance Academy. She began dancing at the tender age of 12. She became a professional dancer at 16 and appeared in her first music video Shake Your Love for artist Deborah Gibson. She was paired with dancer Lori Werner and they became known as Diamond & Pearl - dancers for Prince. She and Lori Werner also appeared on the cover of Princes’ "Diamonds & Pearls" album.

Studied dance and traveled around the world with Prince

LaMorte means ’The Death.’

When Robia was asked back to do season 3’s "Amends", she agreed before reading the script. She was unaware that as The First Evil, she’d be playing a character that would essentially be Satan by another name. As a devout Christian, she was very uncomfortable with doing this, and though she honored her contract, feels it is far from her best performance. Even still, she has noted publicly that she was still open to appearing in future episodes on the show, but was never approached.

Grew up Roman Catholic and spent much of her early adulthood as part of the New Age Movement, but during the summer of 1997 (the hiatus between the first and second seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), she became a born-again Christian following several life events that included an encounter with Christian bikers on a California freeway.

Following the death of her character Jenny Calendar on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Robia returned for two more episodes to play other characters manifesting themselves as Jenny. The first time was in season 2’s closer, "Becoming, Pt. 2", when Drusilla assumed the form of Jenny to trick Giles into revealing critical information. Then in season 3’s "Amends" (aka "A Buffy Christmas), The First Evil takes the form of Jenny as well as some of Angel’s other victims to trick Angel into murdering Buffy.