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| Faith Ford |
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Louisiana native Faith Ford began her career in NY as a model, following the success of becoming a finalist in a national TEEN magazine model search. In another competition in New York, she had to prepare a commercial to present on a runway. Instead of following the other models' approach to the competition with sexy beauty poses, Faith Ford walked onto the runway in khaki shorts and a pith helmet, doing exotic bird calls. It brought the house down. A comedienne was born! Why model, when you can act and get real live reaction from people! Her short lived modeling career was immediately replaced with her calling...acting!
Within six months of moving to NYC from her small town roots, she'd landed a recurring role on daytime's "One Life to Live" as the stiff jawed society kid, Muffy Critchlowe. This led to her casting as Kyra Sedgewick's replacement on the soap, "Another World", in the role of young author Julia Schearer. Working with phenomenal actors on this show like Morgan Freeman and Steven Schnetzer just to name a few, gave her an understanding of the craft and an approach of professionalism that affects her still today. It is within the grueling structure of daytime television, Faith Ford became a speed demon study at devouring scripts, memorizing them, and becoming a character instantly. It was as important a training ground as many of the master classes she took for the skills of acting.
She began to get cast in major commercials for products/companies like Arid Extra Dry, Diet Pepsi, and Burger King, ever the enjenue and perky cutie pie. Weist-Barron School in NYC gave her a wonderful foundation for her countless auditions. It became a process of "when" she'd land a role, not "if". It seemed everyone wanted this believable fresh face and genuine smile to win people and product loyalty.
Moving to Los Angeles after her role on Another World ended, she began a series of spots on shows like Popcorn Kid, Thirty Something, and Webster. Guest star appearances started to happen on shows like Murder She Wrote. With every role, she began to make wonderful friends and glean an acting education that far superceded all of the classes in which she was constantly enrolled. For instance, on the backlot of the Webster set, Grammy award winning songwriter, Mac Davis taught Faith the very important talent of 'ham-boning'. Now how many actresses can say they can "ham-bone"!???
Of course, one cannot discount an acting class like the one Faith Ford did find. Faith was in good company in the class taught by Lynette Katselas (now Lynette McNeal). Her classmates included people like Jim Carey, Molly Ringwald, Ellen Degeneres, and of course, one of her apartment mates, Jane Leeves. It was in this class, Faith Ford refined and practiced skills that she'd collected along the way.
Her audition for a young ex-beauty queen newsdesk reporter for a mythical show called FYI was just another audition for Faith. Afterall, actresses went on auditions every day, right? No. This audition was for producer/writer Diane English, and the whole experience changed the life of this young actress. Faith walked into this room of strangers, and went through the required paces, and they all, including Diane, politely thanked her for her time. And just as Faith was leaving the room...something clicked.
"Would you like to know how Corky dances?" Faith asked with her sneaky comedic smile.
In true tight-moving southern white girl style, she kicked her shoes off and moved in a combination of dance steps like American Bandstand circa 1965, a beach scene from an Annette Funicello movie, and a Baptist prayer meeting. It won her the role of Corky on the hit CBS show, Murphy Brown, which yielded her five Emmy nominations and rock solid friendships with some of the most influential people of her life. Candace Bergen, Joe Regulbutto, and Grant Shaud, along with the other FYI gang, still remain as close as one can possibly be with fairly tough acting schedules between them.
Within six months of Murphy Brown's emotional close, Faith headed a shortlived season with ABC's Maggie Winters, before deciding to take some time to smell the roses and examine her next acting steps. Her marriage to screenwriter, Campion Murphy on the romantic cliffs of Clint Eastwood's Carmel, CA ranch was storybook and gave her plenty to do in her much deserved hiatus.
Faith Ford, with the help of her mother, Pat, began to collect and transcribe the old family recipes all her friends loved on the set and at home dinner parties. Faith is a fabulous cook, and is constantly asked, "who is your caterer". With southern grace, she always replies, "well...me! Want my recipe?" The collection became a nationally released cookbook with anecdotes and pictures that tell Faith's story in food, "Cooking with Faith".
A request to come back to NYC to shoot a new show about sisters, was met with blessing and curse. It was to be a project with dynamo Kelly Ripa -- blessing. But it would mean leaving her beloved southern California home -- curse. Faith Ford did say yes, and with it she got an on-stage sister and an off-stage best friend with chemistry and compatibility that usually only comes from blood relation. Hope and Faith is in it's third joyous season filled with Lucy & Ethyl antics and the slapstick that makes these two sisters in more ways than one.
Leaving home at the young age of seventeen, with the humble background of teacher parents and preacher/farmer/oilfield working grandparents, made many people back home shake their heads wondering how this skinny little girl from Pineville ever made it out of the state, much less to the People Magazine "Most Beautiful" list! "Who did you know," became a constant question to Faith Ford and her parents.
Faith left home, a naive teenager who didn't know spaghetti was called pasta. Her mom and dad found her a church and a safe place to live in the big city because they believed in supporting their daughter's dreams and talents. With a plan for six months, and the money she would have used for college, she frugally began her journey to be the best actress she could be, with the agreement that at the end of that time, if she hadn't gotten 'something', she'd return home and work her way through school. In the six month, she got her first commercial and her first role in a soap. In high school, Faith had been very involved in speech competitions and broke all the records by winning first place as a freshman in the senior divisions of humorous and dramatic interpretations. She became known as that 'good little actress from Pineville" by winning first place at almost every tournament for the rest of her high school career. NYC and acting auditions were "nothing more than just another speech tournament" according to Faith. She only held only a few 'day-jobs' for a very short time before acting became her sole source of income. Faith Ford was a 'perfume girl' at Bloomies, she cut and arranged flowers at a floral boutique, and was a hostess at Star's Deli. To accompany her acting jobs in Los Angeles Faith catered the acting showcases that her teacher Lynette hosted. It was her first official 'catering' job. Faith felt people would stay longer and enjoy the acting more, if they had 'good food in their tummies'! Her specialty was philo dough pastry recipes she concocted of mushroom-pistachio and spinach ricotta. They were a huge hit!
A simple life of love with husband, Campion...her dogs, Rounder and Belle (American Dingo Rescues) in her home state of Louisiana Faith Ford stays balanced and grounded. With their Central Louisiana film company, trips to film locations, speaking engagements, homecooking, homemaking, and home gardening as her centering mechanisms, this red dirt girl still finds home to be the best place on earth!
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