Veleka Gray

During her teen years, Veleka enjoyed her volunteer work of recording books for the Lighthouse For The Blind in New Orleans. When she returned to acting in 2018, it was to record audiobooks again, now for Audible. In addition to narrating books, Veleka is CEO of her company Eloquent Advocates where she teaches women trial lawyers the secrets actors use to transform stage fright into power.

In 1999 she moved back home to New Orleans, where she continued teaching acting workshops and continuing education with Rebecca Hale of Hale Talent Agency. She wrote and produced eight films with her acting students, which qualified many of them to join SAG-AFTRA.

Veleka moved to Chicago in 1990, and after a two-year stint working in sales, was hired by the College of DuPage to teach actors. She also taught business classes on Public Speaking, Voiceover, Speaking Eloquently, and Personal Presentation.

After moving to San Francisco in 1988 to work as the National Sales Trainer for Houston company Five Star, she started volunteering at San Quentin Prison in the Re-entry program, training inmates in how to display self-confidence and use social tools to gain work once outside the prison system.

Back in New York City in 1986, Veleka became a regular cast member of the "CBS Radio Mystery Show" for Himan Brown. She also started coaching models on how to be actresses at the studio of Konstantin Pio-Ulsky on West 57th Street and found she had a gift for teaching.

After moving to Los Angeles in 1983, Veleka acted on The Young and the Restless in February 1983 as sassy manicurist Ruby Collins.

In 1976, in addition to playing on Somerset, Veleka was hired to write a bimonthly advice column as well as feature articles for Soap Opera Digest and eventually for other magazines. She studied TV writing at NYU and screenwriting from a variety of teachers, and in 2015 she was awarded the title of Master Screenwriter from screenwritingu.com.

In 1975 Veleka joined the cast of Somerset as Victoria Paisley opposite Joel Crothers, who played Julian Cannell. The pair were engaged to be married in real life when he died in 1985. In 1977, she was cast in the role of Mia Marriott on Love of Life. In April 1980, she originated the role of nurse Lyla Montgomery on As the World Turns.

Veleka has been a member of NATAS, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, since 1972. Starting in 1975, she became an annual Blue Ribbon Panel Judge for the Emmys. As a board member of Women in Film, she has judged many film festivals, and in 2018, she was invited to serve on the Nominating Committee of the Screen Actors Guild awards.

She was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1970, she played the role of Laura Donnelly Elliott on Love is a Many Splendored Thing, taking over the role from actress Donna Mills. In 1974 she was hired to play The Vixen Susan Pritchett on How To Survive A Marriage.

Veleka Gray (born March 22, 1951), sometimes credited as Velekka Gray, is an American actress, best known for her roles as department store executive Vicki Paisley Cannell on Somerset, and as Mia Marriott on Love of Life from 1977 to 1980.