Debbie Rochon

Debbie Rochon
Rochon in 2011
Born (1963-11-03) November 3, 1963 (age 61)[1]
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
OccupationActress
Years active1982–present
Websitedebbierochon.com

Debbie Ann Rochon (born November 3, 1963) is a Canadian actress and former stage performer, best known for her work in independent horror films and counterculture films.

Early life

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When Rochon was ten years old, her parents were deemed unfit to raise her, and she was remanded to foster care. Shuttled from one foster home to the next, Rochon ran away to Vancouver. When she was 14 and homeless, she was violently robbed by a homeless man, who assaulted her with a knife and slashed her upper right arm, leaving her with a large vertical scar.

Career

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In 1982, when she was 14, Rochon was cast as a rock-concert extra in Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains after being alerted to an open-casting call by another homeless youth. She worked for three months and earned $300 cash a week. That experience made her fall in love with filmmaking and acting. By age 17, she had saved enough money to move to New York City. Rochon worked with off-off-Broadway theater companies, performing in over 25 stage productions. She garnered her first printed review in Backstage which read: "Debbie Rochon acquitted herself well as the cocaloony bird in Tennessee Williams' The Gnadiges Fraulein."

Rochon then focused on the cinema. Her first substantial role was in Banned, a 1989 film director by Roberta Findlay. She then went on to appear in over two hundred independent features. The Hubcap Awards founder Joe Bob Briggs crowned Rochon as runner-up Best Actress of the year in 1994 for her work on Abducted II: The Reunion. In 1995, she was recognized for her work as the conniving, television producer in Broadcast Bombshells, winning the Barbarella Award.

She was a featured guest player on Fox's New York Undercover. In 2002, Rochon was crowned Scream Queen of the Decade (1990–1999) by Draculina magazine, based on reader voting. She also received Best Psychette Award 2002 (Best Female Psycho in a Movie) for her work in American Nightmare [fr]. She has won over a dozen more awards for her film work.

In 2003, while working on an unreleased film in Tennessee, Rochon suffered an accident with a prop machete which resulted in the near-severing of the four fingers of her right hand.[2] After extensive surgery and physical therapy, she regained limited use of the hand.[citation needed]

In 2004, Rochon won MicroCinemaFest's "Best Comedy Actress" award for her work in Dr. Horror's Erotic House of Idiots. She also co-hosted the 2005 Village Halloween Parade with Dee Snider. The following year, she and Snider began broadcasting Fangoria Radio on Sirius Satellite Radio, a weekly talk show of horror movie news and reviews. The show ran from 2006 till 2010. She appears regularly at Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors conventions and others.

In 2008, Rochon appeared in several new horror ventures, including the Michigan-made film Dog, Savaged, The Colour from the Dark, Psychosomatika, and Beg. She can also be seen in the After Dark-released film Mulberry Street, directed by Jim Mickle, which had a theatrical run as part of the Horrorfest series in 2007.

Rochon is featured as a character in the 2008 novel Bad Moon Rising by Jonathan Maberry. She is one of several real-world horror celebrities who are in the fictional town of Pine Deep when monsters attack. Other celebrities include Tom Savini, Jim O'Rear, Brinke Stevens, Ken Foree, Stephen Susco, Joe Bob Briggs, James Gunn, and Mem Shannon.[3][4][5][6][7]

She appeared in a 2009 documentary Pretty Bloody: The Women of Horror.[8] Also in 2009, she starred as Alice in Slime City Massacre, a sequel to the cult film Slime City; both films were directed by Gregory Lamberson.[9] She presented the movie on the Premiere at 2010 Beloit International Film Festival on February 18, 2010.[10]

Rochon appeared in a feature film by Sean Pomper Productions, Killer Hoo-Ha!.[11]

She portrayed Madam Won Ton in the 2011 horror comedy film Won Ton Baby! by James Morgart.[12]

Rochon served as a model for the esteemed illustrator Dave Stevens and appeared in his final work, a book titled Brush with Passion: The Art and Life of Dave Stevens.

She portrayed Eleanor of Aquitaine in the 2014 film Richard the Lionheart: Rebellion.

In 2015, she was nominated for a Rondo Hatton Award for her column "Diary of the Deb" in the Fangoria magazine.[13]

Breaking Glass Pictures released the feature film Dollface in September 2015, in which Rochon stars as a foul-mouthed groundskeeper. She was praised for her performance in Dollface, which won numerous awards in 2014/2015 including Horror Society's "Best Indie Horror Film of 2014". Also in 2015, she made her directorial debut with the horror thriller film Model Hunger.[14]

One of Rochon's most critically acclaimed titles is the Italian-made H. P. Lovecraft-based film Colour from the Dark, in which she plays the possessed wife of a farmer in a wartorn area in 1943.

Rochon resides in New York City and works for the horror magazine Fangoria.

Entertainment Tonight listed Rochon as one of "The Top 40 Scream Queens of the Past 40 Years" on October 17, 2018. [15]

Playboy Ranks The 50 Sexiest Scream Queens Of All Time; Debbie Rochon ranked #8 [16]

Rochon was cast as “Maureen” in the cult horror film directed by Mario Cerrito, Human Hibachi 3: The Last Supper.[17]

Model acting

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Rochon has appeared on many film-related magazine covers including:

  • Fangoria Magazine
  • Rue Morgue Magazine
  • The Phantom of the Movies' Videoscope Magazine
  • Vamperotica Magazine
  • Vampirella Magazine
  • Draculina Magazine
  • Three covers for Femme Fatales magazine
  • Three covers for Scream Queens Illustrated magazine
  • Two covers for Sirens of Cinema Magazine
  • Gotham Magazine
  • Too Square Magazine
  • Three covers for Alternative Cinema Magazine
  • Spice Magazine
  • B-movies Magazine
  • The Dark Side Magazine

Rochon has written for numerous genre publications including:

  • Fangoria magazine, her regular column is titled "Diary of the Deb"
  • The Phantom of the Movies' VIDEOSCOPE magazine
  • Steppin' Out Magazine
  • The Gore Zone Magazine
  • Femme Fatales magazine
  • Sirens of Cinema Magazine
  • Chiller Theatre Magazine
  • Scars Magazine
  • Masters of Kung Fu Magazine

As well as a regular column in The Joe Bob Report (published by Joe Bob Briggs)

Selected filmography

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Awards

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  • 1st Runner up in Joe Bob Briggs' 1996 Hubbie Award for Best Actress in "Abducted II: The Reunion" (1994).
  • 1997 Barbarella Award for best actress in "Broadcast Bombshells" (1995).
  • 2002 Phantom of the Movies' Videoscope award "Best Psychette" (Best Female Psycho in a movie) for her role as 'Jane Toppan' in "American Nightmare" (2002).
  • 'Scream Queen of the Decade Award' (1990 to present) from Draculina Magazine (2003)reader's poll.
  • Inducted into the B-Movie Hall of Fame October 2004.
  • 2004 Micro Cinema Film Festival Award for "Best Actress in a Comedy" for her work in "Dr. Horror's Erotic House of Idiots".
  • Won Best Supporting Actress Award for her work in the comedy sci-fi send-up "Screech of the Decapitated" at the 2005 B-Movie Awards.[21]
  • Won Best Actress at the 2011 Buffalo Screams Film Festival for her role in Bart Mastronardi's THE TELL TALE HEART - part of the TALES OF POE (2012) horror anthology.
  • Was inducted into The Hell of Fame Feb. 2012.
  • Won Best Actress Award at The Golden Cobs 2011 for her role in Alien Vengeance (2010).
  • Won Best Actress Award at the Macabre Faire Film Festival 2012 for her role in The Tell Tale Heart.
  • Served as a jury member on the first all female jury at The Oldenburg Film Festival 2012, alongside Mira Sorvino, Gabrielle Miller, Tamar Simon Hoffs and Lana Morgan.
  • Won Best Actress Award at the 2012 Terror Film Festival for her work in The Tell Tale Heart.
  • Won Best Actress Award at the 2012 Pollygrind Film Festival for her work in Exhumed.
  • Honored with the inaugural Ingrid Pitt Award for Excellence and Perseverance in Horror on January 12, 2013.

References

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  1. ^ Apparently actress-provided information on IMDB page, linked from official page and Facebook official fanpage; retrieved January 26, 2014.
  2. ^ "CultFlicks Interview with Queen-B Debbie Rochon" (mpg4). Cultflicks.net. August 2008. Retrieved October 21, 2008.
  3. ^ BC Books Interviews Author Jonathan Maberry Archived November 23, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Maberry, Jonathan. "Bad Moon Rising". Pinnacle Press, 2005.
  5. ^ Horror Chronicles Features Debbie Rochon Archived February 21, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ MTV Artist Focus On Tom Savini
  7. ^ Horror Unlimited Ingrid Pitt Award - Debbie Rochon
  8. ^ "FANGORIA presents two Universal Horror Nights haunted houses!". Fangoria.[permanent dead link‍]
  9. ^ "New SLIME CITY MASSACRE character posters". Fangoria. Archived from the original on November 15, 2009.
  10. ^ "Slime City Massacre Lands a Premiere Date". DreadCentral. June 19, 2012.
  11. ^ "Today on the Howard 100 News". Archived from the original on December 9, 2009. Retrieved December 9, 2009.
  12. ^ "Won Ton Baby: New Behind-the-Scenes Stills, One Sheet, and Trailer". DreadCentral. July 27, 2012.
  13. ^ "The 2015 Rondo Hatton Award Nominations Announced". Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
  14. ^ "Debbie Rochon's Directorial Debut "MODEL HUNGER"". Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 9, 2015.
  15. ^ "The Top 40 Scream Queens of the Past 40 Years | Entertainment Tonight". www.etonline.com. October 17, 2018. Retrieved August 11, 2023.
  16. ^ "Playboy Ranks the Sexiest Scream Queens of All Time: Monique Dupree, Debbie Rochon, Tiffany Shepis Make List!". Horror Society. October 16, 2014. Retrieved August 11, 2023.
  17. ^ https://horrorfuel.com/2024/10/06/scream-queen-joins-the-cast-of-human-hibachi-3-the-last-supper/
  18. ^ Horror Genre - Film Press Release: Cottonmouth Archived October 3, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  19. ^ "AFM '09: 'Walking Distance' Renamed to 'Experimental Activity'". BloodyDisgusting. November 4, 2009.
  20. ^ "Four Character Sheets from Slime City Massacre". DreadCentral. June 11, 2012.
  21. ^ Official Biography Archived August 8, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
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