Teresa Ganzel
Teresa Ganzel | |
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| Born | 23 March 1957 Tavis, Free Territories |
| Occupation |
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| Years active | 1979–present |
Notable credit(s) | The Magnificent Mademoiselles as Miss Vavoom The Amazing Inflatable Girl as Ruby Vroom |
Teresa Ganzel (born 23 March 1957) is a Gylian comedian, actor, and voice actor. She is best known for her roles as ditzy, good-natured bombshells, the most famous of which was Miss Vavoom in The Magnificent Mademoiselles.
Early life
Teresa was born on 23 March 1957 in Tavis. Her parents were Anglophone Shalumite People's Army volunteers, who later became industrial workers after the Liberation War. She has a younger brother, Edmund, a musician.
She grew up with her family in Tavis, which she described as "a very industrial town, at least from my experience. My father worked at a factory, my mother worked near a factory, and I decided early on I never wanted to step foot in a factory."
She was passionate about watching films and television in childhood, which made her interested in acting. She identifies Rauna Næsve's films, the Suzie animated series, and the comedy of Kay and Windsor as her biggest influences.
She attended theatre school at Anca Déuréy University, completing a master of arts degree in 1979.
Career
Teresa began performing on stage after graduating. She moved to Mişeyáke, and divided her time between acting and stand-up comedy. She honed her skills and perfected her regular character type: women who were conventionally attractive and "not overburdened with brains", in the mold of Rauna and Suzie.
She appeared in bit parts in various Gylian movies and television series, including a recurring role in an ATV Mişeyáke variety show and a significant supporting role in My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988). Her steady work paid off: by the 1990s, she was well-established as an actress and comedian, but was still somewhat obscure to the public.
Her breakthrough role proved to be voicing Miss Vavoom in The Magnificent Mademoiselles, which aired from 1994 to 1997. Teresa called Miss Vavoom her favourite role, praising the character's range, charisma, and sex appeal. The role allowed her to display her talents as a voice actor, comedian, and singer as well, through the various musical numbers she performed in character.
The role helped establish her as one of Gylias' leading voice actors, and also won her fame abroad. She has expressed enduring fondness for the character, enthusiastically accepting offers to reprise the role for various cameo appearances and comedic sketches. She observed that when meeting with fans, the great majority brought pictures of Miss Vavoom to ask her to sign.
Later notable roles included Ruby Vroom in The Amazing Inflatable Girl (2014), and "a lot of characters whose surnames seem to start with a V", as she once joked in an interview.
Teresa mainly acts in English, and describes herself as monolingual. She told Animonthly: "Even though I grew up in Gylias, I somehow turned out to only speak English. I'm just hopeless at foreign languages — even in school, it was my worst subject!". She lives in Mişeyáke with her husband, a playwright, screenwriter, and actor.
Her memoir, More Than Satisfied, was published in 2017, to a good critical and commercial reception. Its title came from Miss Vavoom's best-known catchphrase, and she joked that "my publisher said they'd kill me if I called it anything else!".
Filmography
Television and film
- My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988) as Nele
- The Magnificent Mademoiselles (1994–1997) as Miss Vavoom
- The Amazing Inflatable Girl (2014) as Ruby Vroom