Ellen O'Rourke

Ellen O'Rourke was born in Sunnyvale, California. She started acting at the age of 8 under the direction of Lou Anne (Ethel of I Love Lucy's sister) and Ross Graham (from ACT) at Los Altos Children's Theater. Her first line was "Oh Let us eat corn from Corn Tassle's Cooking Basket" in a play called Indian Captive. Other roles followed including Tiny Tim in Scrooge, Piglet in Winneh the Pooh, Peppermint Patty in You're A Good Man Charlie Brown and The Jester in Once Apon A Mattress. The next directors there were Jeffra and Michael Cook and under them Ellen did roles such as The Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, Bet in Oliver, Glinda the Good Witch in the Wizard of Oz. Ellen did over 30 productions with Los Altos Children's Theater by the time she was 16 and at one point Scott Williams was the director. Ellen did several plays in college including playing Marta in the Sound of Music and various Shakespearean roles for a show including one acts from Shakespeare. Ellen took every theater, art, dance and literature possible at Foothill College and then at San Jose State University culminating in a graduation with great distinction in Correllation in the Arts/Creative Arts. Ellen then did primarily painting for a while until at the age of 28 she discovered a way to be in films and TV. Ellen found the office of Casting Director Toni Suttie and was cast in her first role with her father. This was a movie called Garage Sale where she played a woman buying a lot of books. Through the offices of Beau Bonneau Casting Ellen obtained her first role in a large budget picture called Patch Adams. Other roles have followed until there are now more than a dozen films that Ellen has worked on and another dozen TV episodes.