Fort Payne is going Hollywood as a touch of Tinsel Town will be in Fort Payne to honor Sandra Ellis Lafferty with the reveal of her star in the sidewalk in front of the DeKalb Theatre on Friday, May 19, 2023 at 4:00 PM to honor one of its own star studded residents. The Public is invited to attend.
Mayor Brian Baine and Main Street Director Connie Fuller will reveal a “walk of fame star” in the sidewalk in front of the DeKalb Theatre to honor nationally and internationally acclaimed actor Sandra Ellis Lafferty, who has more than 70 acting roles to her credit. Lafferty is best known for her roles in Walk the Line (2005), Hunger Games (2012), Prisoners (2013) Self/Less (2015) A Walk in the Woods (2015).
Over the past three decades, Lafferty has received national and international acclaim for playing pivotal characters in film and television. She continues to add to her impressive career with more than dozen roles in the past five years including yet to be released films.
According to her IMDB profile, “Lafferty began her career as a stage actor and was named best actress for a season by the Denver drama critics, when she was a member of the Denver Center Theatre Company. She also was named best actress by Westword magazine.
With years of theater experience, Sandra began her film career at age 50. After a small role in the movie Dogfight, filmed in Seattle, she moved to Los Angeles. Over the next few years, she found steady work in regular guest roles in television shows including NYPD Blue, Melrose Place, Baywatch and Boy Meets World. Concurrently, she began earning roles on the silver screen.
In the early 2000s, Sandra returned to Alabama to help care for her mother. With the movie industry expanding its Hollywood roots to the East Coast, the move accelerated her career with key roles in blockbusters like Walk the Line and The Hunger Games. She followed with A Walk in the Woods, starring Robert Redford; Self/less, starring Ryan Reynolds; and Prisoners with Jake Gyllenhaal. While movies with A-list actors and award-winning directors have helped increase her visibility to larger audiences, she also finds excitement in working on independent films — Buster’s Mal Heart (Rami Melak) Steel County (Andrew Scott) and Starbright (John Rhys-Davies) and other projects – regular role on the television series Containment — that stimulate her love of acting. Lafferty volunteers with the Mentone Arts & Cultural Center, where she serves as artistic director mentoring high school theater students.”
