Biography
Vickey Dempsey Burns was born in northern Alabama to H. Pelham Dempsey and Elsie Dempsey, but before she was three years old, her parents moved to Houston, Texas, where her father worked 20 years for a Lincoln dealership as a mechanic, and later built a marina. Her mother worked as a homemaker and as a dental assistant.
Vickey Dempsey Burns became interested in acting in elementary school when she got the lead in a musical, Tomboy Joe, and performed in other productions in jr high and high school. She started her formal acting studies when she was 15 at the Alley Theatre's acting school, Merry-Go-Round. After writing a letter to theatre manager, Iris Siff, asking for a job, she was awarded a full one-year scholarship. After that year Vickey worked after-school jobs to pay for her acting lessons. Vickey's mother whole-heartedly supported her daughter's passion for acting and singing by driving her to classes, and local auditions, and waiting in the car with her reluctantly supportive younger siblings, Karon, Brent, and Rickey. During this time she was cast as an extra by Gary Chason in Robert Altman's movie, "Brewster McCloud." She went on to call back auditions in front of Peter Bondonovitch for "Last Picture Show," in the role of the Valedictorian, but the character was cut from the script before filming.
Later Vickey Dempsey Burns went to college at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. She graduated in 1977, and earned a BFA in Theatre with a Teaching Certificate in Theatre and English. While in college she was an Extra in a tv movie, "The FBI Story: Attack on Terror," a Quinn-Martin Production about civil rights workers.
After college, she briefly taught high school Theatre and Junior High English at Splendora ISD. Tired of being a poor teacher, she took a lucrative job at a Houston law firm, Royston, Rayzor, Vickery, and Williams, from 1979-1997. She then married poet, English teacher, and principal Jimmy Burns in 1984, and raised two sons, James and Christopher. Vickey focused on her family, directed local plays and was co-director of musicals at her large church in Conroe, Texas.
Vickey Dempsey Burns worked as a Substitute Teacher from 1998, until the present, first so that she could balance her home and work with raising their children, and later to become a caregiver for her husband who had a stroke in 2005, and her mother, who had Alzheimers. Her husband was paralyzed from the stroke, and later became completely bedridden with kidney cancer. He passed away in 2013.
Vickey Dempsey Burns realized how short life is after her husband's death. Rather than crying in a rocking chair and wondering "what if," Vickey Dempsey Burns took film acting classes, auditioned for films, obtained an Agent, and, thus, started again in 2014, actively pursuing her young-girl dream of a film acting career.
Vickey Dempsey Burns continues working as a part-time substitute teacher and actor, and studies acting with Roger Simon Studio of New York City.
