Deanne Bray was born on May 14, 1971 in California, USA and spent most of her life there. She did live in Washington for a few years with her mum however.
Deanne is profoundly deaf in her right ear, and has a 78dB hearing loss in her left ear, in which she uses a hearing aid. Without the hearing aid, she cannot hear voices. She was trained from a young age to hear using her left ear and to read lips, as well as to communicate using both spoken/written English and ASL.
Deanne started acting as a young adult after she was discovered performing with a deaf dancing group, “Prism West”, at a deaf festival at California State University where she earned a BA degree in biology.
She has guest starred in a few shows, including “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” and “Diagnosis Murder”, and also hosted a show for the deaf community called “Caption This”. She is probably most well known for her leading role as Sue Thomas in the PAX (now known as i Independent) series, “Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye” though. This show portrays a young deaf woman who falls into an exciting career as an undercover surveillent for the FBI.
Deanne has taught deaf and hard of hearing high school students maths and science in California and also established a literacy program, “The Little Bookworm Club”. She is soon to complete her Masters in Education. She is involved in many organisations and also serves as Second Vice Chairperson on the council board of the Greater Los Angeles Council on Deafness (GLAD).
Deanne lives in California, USA with her husband, Troy Kotsur, a deaf actor, who has made a few appearances with her on “Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye”. Deanne also recently gave birth to a baby girl. She enjoys reading, reading with deaf children, and going to deaf community functions, like interacting with deaf senior citizens. She lists some of the people she admires to include her family members, the real Sue Thomas and Phyllis Frelich. Her favourite quote is the African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child”
Filmography
1. Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye (2002-2005) … Sue Thomas
2. L.A. Sheriff’s Homicide (2000) … Technician
3. Last Mountain (2000) … Blonde Annie
4. What Do Women Want (1996) … Sharon
5. Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct: Lightning (1995) … Teddy Franklin
Guest Appearances
1. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (April 2001) … Dr. Gilbert – episode 1.20 “Sounds Of Silence”
2. Strong Medicine (January 2001) … ??? – episode 1.16 “Fix”
3. Diagnosis Murder (February 1997) … Jan Curran – episode 4.18 “Murder, Country Style”
4. Ellen (February 1997) … Juliet – episode 4.17 “Ellen’s Deaf Comedy Jam”
5. The Pretender (October 1996) … Deaf woman – episode 1.03 “Flyer”