Loretta Chandler - Cast Member of the Month

Loretta Chandler

Loretta Marie Chandler was born on 8^th March 1963 in Pueblo County, Colorado, where she was raised by her parents Reverend Fortson and Rosetta Chandler.  Aged 6 years old she started singing in her family’s gospel group known as The Chandler Family, along with her Sister Cloretta and 2 Brothers, David and James.

After starting a gospel program at the University of Southern Colorado, Loretta decided to enrol in the vocal program at the Institute of the Arts just outside of Los Angeles. There she founded and directed the Cal Arts Gospel Extravaganza and was looking into recording an album with her group when she decided to join some friends at an open call auditions for “Fame” in 1985.

“I heard they were holding auditions to replace Janet Jackson, but I didn’t think I had a chance. I mostly wanted to have fun and hopefully get a chance to meet Debbie Allen and Gene Anthony Ray. You know “Fame” is mostly dancing and dancers are itty-bitty people. I was kind of big at the time, so I didn’t really go to audition. But I was told I could not enter the sound stage unless I was auditioning, so I said, “Give me a number. I want in.” I took and number and went inside where I saw then auditioning singers. They took ten of us at a time and I was number 10 in my group. There was a long green table at one end of the room with the directors, producers, etc and a girl with a timer on the end.

Each girl was given like 5 seconds to ‘show them what you’ve got’. Well you can’t show much in 5 seconds especially if you start at the beginning of a song, so when my turn came I started at the climax of the song and I was about to whale when I hear. “Time! Thank you very much… Next”. Like a reflex action, I exclaimed, “Oh, you’ve got to let me do the high note. Please let me do the high note!” They did said, “OK.” and I sang “Ahhh!” and they said…. “Thank you … next.” I was mortified.

So I made my way out the door when the girl with the timer came running across the room and told me to come back and read for them. I made the cut.” WOW! There was one more audition that day and several more in the following weeks. During that time I took dance classes to better prepare and it paid off.”

Loretta won the role of Preacher’s daughter Dusty Tyler which she played for 2 years in seasons 5 and 6 appearing in 30 episodes.  Loretta with her big powerful voice was given the honour of re-recording the “Fame” Theme for the opening and closing titles for those 2 seasons and she won the Luminous Award for the episode 'Self Defense".

When asked at the time about joining Fame she said: “I love it! The series is great! I’m doing everything I ever wanted. I sing, record, dance, work with different directors and actors. I’m meeting all of these major talented people and it is just really great! What a wonderful experience. Everyone has been so helpful and very supportive. It’s really like a family here and they work very hard to make it like that. “

After “Fame” Loretta had guest appearances on a Movie of the Week called “Give Me My Child” starring Valerie Bertinelli, “A Different World” and “Misery Brothers”, however, Loretta’s first love is music and theatre.

Loretta’s passion for theatre has allowed her to star in numerous national tours such as; “Dream Girls”, “Smokey Joe’s Cafe”, “The Gospel Truth”, “Law’d Ha Mercy” “Wait Until Dark”, “Out Of The Frying Pan” and “Harlem Suite” where a special solo featured spot was created for her by the director and co-writers, Maurice Hines and Jennifer Holiday.

When her parents became ill Loretta moved to Atlanta Georgia to help care for them, until they died.

Currently, Loretta has a new love, writing, directing and producing her own work. She created and features in the web series “Clickthrough” but she is most proud of her latest venture, “The Black Path Finders!” a dinner theatre production based on the movie “The Black Panther”.

In 2019 Loretta was invited to be part of the Fame U.K. Reunion, which was the first time she’d reunited with her co stars since the TV show ended. Initially she was going to be a special guest at the Fame Family Experience Convention but when Erica Gimpel had to drop out of the Reunion Loretta readily agreed to step in and be part of the concerts too .

Loretta said at the time: “Fame U.K. Reunion is going to be such an amazing experience. To be with all those beautiful people that I admired and loved and then got this amazing opportunity to be a part of. It’s gonna be an awesome experience!”

5 months later she was reuniting the Fame cast members again at the Chiller Theatre Convention and releasing a new song titled “Welcome The Change”.