Rachel Luttrell

Biography

Rachel Luttrell is an accomplished actress and singer who has worked in film, television and on stage. Rachel Zawadi Luttrell was born in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, and is the second-born of four daughters to Veronica Makihiyo Shenkunde Luttrell, the daughter of a powerful medicine man of the Washambala tribes people, and William Leon Luttrell, Jr., a Bossier City, Louisiana native and then well-respected professor of Economics at the University of Dar Es Salaam. Shortly after her fifth birthday, Rachel and her family immigrated to Canada, settling in the cosmopolitan city of Toronto. As a child in Toronto, Rachel studied piano at The Royal Conservatory and ballet at the Russian Academy of Classical Ballet. Her father, a former member of both the critically-acclaimed Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and the Canadian Opera Company, trained Rachel's soprano voice. Later, she would study with other fine vocal coaches. Rachel played the alto-saxophone in high school and also studied English horseback riding. As a young girl, Rachel was always hamming it up for the camera and would often entertain guests at her parents' dinner parties by staging self-produced shows with her three sisters, Gillian, Amanda and Erica. The Luttrell house was always full of music and laughter. Everyone sang and most played an instrument. Rachel landed her first film role while still in high school, playing Billy Dee Williams' daughter in the made-for-television movie Courage (1986), also starring Sophia Loren. From there, Rachel appeared in commercials and starred on popular Canadian television programs, including the long- running drama, Street Legal (1987). Upon graduating from high school, Rachel enrolled in the Musical Theatre program at Sheridan College to pursue her passion for dancing, singing…