Biography

Deanne Bray was born on May 14, 1971 in California, USA and spent most of her life there with her dad. She did live in Seattle, Washington for a few years with her mum however.

Deanne is profoundly deaf in her right ear, and has around an 86dB hearing loss in her left ear, in which she uses a hearing aid. Without the hearing aid, she cannot hear voices. She was trained from a young age to hear using her left ear and to read lips, as well as to communicate using both spoken/written English and ASL. As a child, she lived near to a deaf family and this helped to develop her signing skills and to identify as a deaf person.

Since Deanne's dad was a lighting director, she was exposed to the world of film from a young age. She would often watch actors, crew and her dad working. She became interested in acting at a young age. Deanne started acting as a young adult after she was discovered performing with a deaf dancing group, "Prism West", at a deaf festival at California State University where she earned a BA degree in biology. She was encouraged by the artistic director of the group to audition for speaking roles and so Deanne hired a voice coach to help with her verbal fluency and expression.

She has guest starred in a few shows, including "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "Diagnosis Murder", and also hosted a show for the deaf community called "Caption This". She is probably most well known for her leading role as Sue Thomas in the PAX (now known as i Independent) series, "Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye" though. This show portrays a young deaf woman who falls into an exciting career as an undercover surveillent for the FBI.

Deanne has taught deaf and hard of hearing high school students maths and science in California and also established a literacy program, "The Little Bookworm Club". She is soon to complete her Masters in Education. She is involved in many organisations and also serves as Second Vice Chairperson on the council board of the Greater Los Angeles Council on Deafness (GLAD).

Deanne lives in California, USA with her husband, Troy Kotsur, a deaf actor, who has made a few appearances with her on "Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye". They have a toddler, a girl called Kyra and since her birth, Deanne has cut back on work to focus on her. She enjoys reading, reading with deaf children and going to deaf community functions. She lists some of the people she admires to include her family members, the real Sue Thomas and Phyllis Frelich. Her favourite quote is the African proverb, "It takes a village to raise a child".

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