Doug Mattingly

Doug Mattingly was raised in a working class suburb of Baltimore, Maryland (USA), the son of an aspiring playwright/painter/novelist father and a mother who worked in the medical field. As a child and adolescent, Doug experimented with a number of the arts including painting, drawing, sculpture, music, acting, film making, poetry, writing short stories, and went so far as to be accepted into his high school's renowned art and music programs. At age 11, he began studying guitar, which quickly became an obsession. However, the straight A student continued to balance his love of music with year round sports that included soccer, basketball, and his first love, baseball. Doug received an academic scholarship to attend Calvert Hall College, High School, an all boys Catholic school in Towson, Maryland, where he nurtured his love for sports, music, and the visual arts. But as his high school years wore on, Doug's attention began to focus more and more on music, specifically on the guitar. All the while, however, he made short films as substitutes for term papers and traditional homework assignments to the amusement of his teachers and classmates. Because he didn't want to sing in the Fall musicals, and because the Spring dramas were always put up during baseball season, Doug never auditioned for his school's theatre productions. Still, when the time had come for him to choose a college and a major, he was torn between acting and music. Ultimately, the "pragmatic" side of him made him choose acting; the thinking being that he could always "make a living with his hands". He received a full academic scholarship to the University of Southern California, which landed him exactly where he wanted to be; in the middle of Los Angeles, California. While studying guitar at USC's Thornton School of Music, Doug also took numerous theatre classes and appeared in several student films. Within a few months of graduation, he was on the road with a rock band for the better part of a year touring the Western U.S., including a four month stint in Hawaii. Doug then returned to LA where he played in as many as four bands at a time and began to work as a studio guitarist. Within a couple of years, the academic bug bit again, and Doug was back at USC earning his Masters degree in guitar performance. This time he studied privately with Jazz guitar legend Joe Diorio. Over the next couple years Doug would be courted by managers, casting directors, talent agents, and even a few studio executives who tried to woo him in front of the camera, but as he was fully immersed in music, he turned them down. Eventually, however, he signed with modeling and commercial agents in New York and a move "back East" was imminent. The next several years found Doug releasing three full length solo singer/songwriter rock style recordings on his own independent label where he wrote, produced, and performed all compositions. (for more details, see Doug's music website bio at dougmattingly.net) His sophomore release "Building A Monastery" was voted "Best Local Album 2006" in Baltimore's Citypaper. He also made his way back into acting as he took up studies at Washington, DC's famed Shakespeare Theatre, while also teaching courses himself in music at a Baltimore area college. He simultaneously began accepting roles in DC's thriving professional theatre scene performing everything from Mamet to Shakespeare while appearing in several independent short films. Ultimately, Doug would return to Los Angeles to pick up where he had left off and has since worked in commercials, promos, and several independent feature length and short films. He has also turned his attention to writing, directing, and editing with the production of his independent short "Conviction". As for music, Doug continues to compose, write songs, work as a guitarist and singer, and teach.