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Ray DeForest has worked extensively throughout the country and abroad delving into several facets of show business. In a career surpassing four decades, he broke into the musical theatre arena as a performer and choreographer, before extending his talents as a producer. He is best known these days for his inspired and highly popular creation of the drag character "Doris Dear, America's Perfect Housewife," which was originally developed for the cabaret stage but has since been transferred successfully to television.
Born on October 6, 1958, in Staten Island, New York, Ray and sister Nancy grew up there the offspring of middle-class working parents Duke and Taffy DeForest. His mother was a former runway and print model in New York, Rome and Paris during the late 1940s/early 1950s. His parents' passion and expertise for cooking, gardening and other lifestyle pursuits rubbed off on Ray and would influence his later professional TV career.
Ray first stepped inauspiciously on the theatre stage as one of the Three Kings in a kindergarten pageant. Attending an all-boys Catholic school, he later was given a butler role in the musical "No, No, Nanette" at the school's all-girls equivalent and enjoyed the comedic attention. It was in 1976 while attending the University of Maryland on a swimming scholarship, that he began to act on this burgeoning interest in the performing arts when he was handed a one-line solo in the university's musical production of "Jesus Christ Superstar." In between studies, he received a summer stock invite at the Culvermere Resort wherein he was given lead roles in "Candide," "Company" and "The Wizard of Oz" along with some choreographic duties.
During his college junior year, Ray auditioned for and was cast in a major Walt Disney show at Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center. As a result, he was offered a job at the Disney theme park in Orlando, Florida, and moved there before completing his studies. Performing various Disney characters around the park at first, he moved up the ranks as a "Showtime Singer" and one of the "Kids of the Kingdom." He also performed nightly at The Hoop Dee Doo Revue and was asked to assistant choreograph Disney's "Tencennial Celebration." The Showtime Singers earned individual distinction when it performed at the opening of the renowned EPCOT Center in 1982.
Ray remained with the Disney company for five years (1979-1984) before moving on and finding employment with various cruise lines (Fiesta, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, American/Hawaiian) as a singing performer. During that time, he developed a musical "act" which was utilized on several of these ship excursions.
A mentoring association with actor/producer Gene Nettles led to live musical theater work in Copenhagen, Denmark in the mid-1980s where he starred in, wrote, directed and produced various shows for Mr. Nettles. Paying his way back to the States with work as a European model, Ray was next hired to star in the musical revue called "Follies" in Bermuda. That two-year stint was followed by a three-year job as a singer in the long-running Las Vegas spectacular revue 'Jubilee!" at Bally's Casino on the strip in the early 1990s.
A whole new world opened up for Ray in Cleveland, Ohio, when he broke into television as a "Lifestyle Expert" with the early-day program "The Morning Exchange." This led to his tapping into an even larger morning TV market in Portland, Oregon, where he found ratings notice portraying the character "Chez Ray" in their local show "Good Day Oregon." It was via this program that Ray connected with broadcasting executive and one-time CBS News president Eric Ober who, at the time, served as executive producer of Lifestyle programming. Hired by Mr. Ober for the HGTV gardening show "Way to Grow," Ray appeared as a featured guest on 22 episodes.
As subsequent president of The Food Network, Mr. Ober brought Ray over to star in his programs "Food 911" and "Chef du Jour." From there the actor became a welcoming guest on other shows including "Lifetime Live", "Petsburgh" and "Live with Sara Moulton." Ray was also given the chance to star as one of the madcap hosts and designers of the syndicated home improvement show Design Invasion (2004) for Fox. This program lasted a year before he decided to make a transition into producing.
Ray was brought into Meredith Publishing's new TV division as a senior producer where he was central in producing and styling the program "Family Circle's Best Holiday Special Ever!" This led to a senior producing assignment for a then-failing show entitled Better (2008). After restyling and training editors, Ray was integral in selling the show to markets deemed unreachable by current producers. The now successful producer eventually decided to turn back to live performance once again.
Into the millennium, Ray was spotted on TV in such popular programs as "Sex and the City," "The Good Wife," "Unforgettable" (recurring) and "Boardwalk Empire," as well as a few movies such as the short film A Limited Time Offer in the Life of J.A. Golden (2011) (in which he was also given credit as costumer and makeup man), and a bit of stunt work in the full-length feature The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). Ray also appeared as a character named Taffy (named after his mother) in the NYC urban film drama Eleanor (2019), which was based on the stage play "Eleanor Rigby Is Waiting" by writer David Parr.
Witnessing his mother's five-year health decline with Alzheimer's disease, Ray paid special tribute to her when he developed the fictional alter-ego female character "Doris Dear, America's Perfect Housewife." The singing, storytelling Doris poignantly talked about this personal loss as well as other family tales. Originally planned as a one-time performance, the event became such a hit that "The Doris Dear Christmas Show" was created as an off-shoot. That popular show has since been turned into a sold-out annual event off-Broadway in New York City. In recent years, "Doris Dear" has been memorialized on TV with her own special The Doris Dear Christmas Special (2020) and a franchise has developed with live pay per view concerts and country-wide tours. Once making a single appearance on a TV episode of "The Carrie Diaries," the Doris character was more recently given her own trendy, Telly Award-winning Lifestyle mini-series with Doris Dear's Gurl Talk (2020).
A multiple MAC award winner for "Impersonation/Characterization/Drag Artist," Ray's other sideline ventures include owner and operator of DeForest Theatricals; recurring guest lecturer at The Commercial Theater Institute; guest soloist/company manager for various hotels and special events; co-producer of "Bull Durham, The New Musical," which is Broadway bound; and consulting producer at The Dennis & Victoria Ross Foundation (DVRF), an educational, current affairs non-profit foundation also designed to promote emerging theater, film, visual arts and musical artists.
