Pamelyn Wanda Ferdin (born February 4, 1959) is an American animal rights activist and former actress. Ferdin's acting career was primarily during the 1960s and 1970s, though she appeared in projects sporadically in the 1980s and later years. She began her acting career in television commercials, made 250 television shows and films and gained renown for her work as a voice actress supplying the voice of Lucy Van Pelt in A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969), as well as in two other Peanuts television specials.[1]
She had supporting roles in The Beguiled (1971) with Clint Eastwood and Geraldine Page, and a lead role in the exploitation filmThe Toolbox Murders (1978) with Cameron Mitchell. She also supplied the voice of Fern Arable in Charlotte's Web (1973). Ferdin distanced herself from acting in the late 1970s, worked as a registered nurse and shifted into animal rights activism, working as an activist and protester in animal-protection programs in New York City and Los Angeles.
Early life
Born in Los Angeles on February 4, 1959,[2] to Kenneth and Wanda (Jacewitz) Ferdin,[3] she began her career at age three, appearing in a hair color commercial.[4] She has two older sisters, Valerie and Wendy, who acted when they were young.[4] Ferdin attended Herbert Hoover High School in Glendale, California.[5]
In a 2016 interview with The Washington Times, she said she would have liked to have experienced "what it was like to be a normal kid in high school — without always going in and then being taken out, going back and forth."[6]
She has said that she regretted not having many aspects of a normal childhood and that her mother pushed her into acting. In 2016, she said, "My mom put me in the business. I had a very Hollywood mother. She put me in, and I just started getting role after role after role."[6]
Ferdin played the Bumsteads' daughter Cookie in the 1968–1969 CBSrevival seriesBlondie. She was subsequently cast as Felix Unger's daughter Edna in the 1970s ABC series version of The Odd Couple[2] and Paul Lynde's daughter Sally on the short-lived The Paul Lynde Show.
She voiced Fern Arable, the little girl who raises Wilbur the pig, in the 1973 animated film Charlotte's Web.[14]
Ferdin was considered for the role of Regan MacNeil, the demon-possessed girl in the 1973 William Friedkin film The Exorcist, but casting directors decided she was too well-known and cast the less familiar actress Linda Blair.
Her last acting roles were as the voice of the character Shelley Kelley in the Kids' WB series Detention in 1999 and as Christmas the Horse in the feature film Elf Sparkle Meets Christmas the Horse in 2008.[1]
In 2020, Ferdin co-hosted two episodes of the television talk show "Ken Boxer Live" on TVSB TV, originating in Santa Barbara, California.
Activism
After leaving her job as a public relations director in the mid-1990s, Ferdin began working for the Center for Animal Care and Control in New York City.[15] In August 2004, Ferdin accepted the presidency of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), according to statements filed under oath in U.S. District Court in New Jersey. The incumbent, Kevin Kjonaas, resigned after being indicted on charges of conspiracy and interstate stalking.[16] When Kjonaas and six other SHAC activists were jailed in 2006, Ferdin vowed to continue the campaign. According to salon.com, she defined her role as "a squeaky-clean representative for SHAC USA," but warned that if the SHAC seven were convicted, "[P]eople, I think, are going to get hurt. There's going to be a lot of violence."[17]
In 2004, she accused the parents of Kelly Keen, a three-year-old child killed in a coyote attack, of murdering their daughter and using the story of an animal attack to cover up the crime. This was part of her protest against public efforts to control the coyote population near suburban homes.[18]
On June 22, 2006, Ferdin was sentenced to 90 days in jail for trespassing and "targeted demonstration" outside the home of an employee of the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services. She stated that the conviction "is not going to affect my speaking out and exposing the atrocities occurring at our six city shelters".[19] She served 36 hours and was released before serving the full sentence due to prison overcrowding.
Her ex-husband, Jerry Vlasak, "sits on a precarious perch within the animal rights movement," according to a profile in The Los Angeles Times in 2006. "Through his Animal Liberation Press Office, he is the spokesman for shadowy groups that sabotage labs, vandalize homes, firebomb properties and make death threats via late-night phone calls. But he works in the wide open, operating a website, issuing press releases, talking to journalists."[21]
In 2008, Ferdin was found in contempt of court, after allegedly violating an injunction. The conviction was overturned and she filed a federal lawsuit against UCLA for harassment.[22]
She graduated from the Los Angeles County Medical Center School of Nursing in the spring of 1981 and got her first nursing job on the medical ward at UCLA Medical Center.[24]
She married Vlasak, a surgeon, on October 12, 1986, but divorced him in 2008.[25]
She has been a vegan since the mid-1990s. She promotes adopting rather than buying pets as well as having pets spayed or neutered.[6]
^"Register". www.ancestry.com. Retrieved August 1, 2021.
Sources
Leszczak, Bob (2014). The Odd Couple on Stage and Screen: A History with Cast and Crew Profiles and an Episode Guide. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN978-1-476-61539-4.
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