Ola Ray

Ola Ray is internationally known as Michael Jackson's girlfriend in the Grammy Award winning short film video ''Thriller." Her work in 'Thriller' brought her worldwide recognition and made her a household name. Ola was born in St. Louis ,Missouri, where she spent the early part of her childhood with her parents, six brothers and two sisters . Ola and her Family then came to Sacramento, California and lived there until 1975 when Ola moved with her family to Tokyo, Japan where her stepfather was stationed at Yokota Air Force Base for three years. Soon after her arrival in Tokyo, Ola began her professional dancing and singing career by forming a song and dance group called The Puppets with her twin brothers and sister. The musical talents of Ola and the other members of The Puppets landed them a year long performance contract at the Big Together Club in the Shinjuku District. The Puppets' increasing popularity led to appearances in TV commercials, performances in various cities throughout Japan and a recording offer from CBS Records in Tokyo . Throughout Ola's singing and dancing career in Japan, she also engaged in a substantial number of modeling assignments through Eddie Arab Modeling Agency. She modeled as a poster girl and appeared in several TV commercials for such well known Japanese department stores as Daimaru, Isetan, Matsuya, and Parco. After her successful stay in Japan, Ola and her family returned to the United States. Upon her arrival in 1978, Ola made Los Angeles her home so that she could further pursue her career in Entertainment. Ola appeared as Playmate of the Month for Playboy magazine. After her appearance in Playboy , she entered into an exclusive contract with Johnson and Johnson for promotion of their Classy Curl hair product. As part of Ola's promotion , her pictures were displayed on all Classy Curl Kit Products, in magazine advertisements, television commercials, and posters. Ola also served as spokesperson for the Classy Curl product promotion. Additionally, she sponsored on television and print nationally known products such as 'Milk'soring the Milk Advisory Board] , Coca Cola, Coors, McDonalds, and Leggs pantyhose, as well as several other products. Resulting from a successful modeling career and her work in 'Thriller' , Ola landed several acting roles in motion pictures produced by Paramount Studios, Columbia Pictures, and Warner Bros. Studios , and also in various top television shows for the leading three networks - NBC, ABC, CBS. She has appeared in such movies as '48 Hours' [with Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte] 'Night Shift' [with Michael Keaton and Henry Winkler] , Beverly Hills Cop 2' [with Eddie Murphy] '' Ten To Midnight' [with Charles Bronson] and 'Fear City' [with Billy Dee Williams and Tom Berenger] , Ola also played a leading role in a television pilot that was a spin-off from the popular sitcom , 'Gimme A Break' for NBC. Ola has written and produced several songs , one of which rose to Number Five on the top ten chart in Houston, Texas. Ola recently completed two features entitled Shooting Heroin opposite Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs , and It Wants Blood opposite Eric Roberts. Ola has recently completed a book memoir entitled For The Thrill Of It All which she has recently signed a literary contract with a Major literary Agency