Spotlight on... Alonna Shaw. The novelist, Hollywood actress & model with a passion for travel
by Kirsty Brown
MyDestination.com
April 2013
(archived)
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| Main photo: Alonna Shaw sitting on steps of overwater house, Bora-Bora, 1999 (Credit: Alonna Shaw) |
Novelist, actress and model Alonna Shaw has etched up an impressive CV since her career began aged just 15. Highlights range from modeling on the pristine beach of Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas and runway for Royals in London to doing a scene with Dick Van Dyke on Diagnosis Murder and playing leading lady to Jean Claude Van Damme in hit 90’s action movie Double Impact.
It’s these moments, “where I get butterflies and forget myself” that Alonna admits to cherishing the most. The former state of being perfectly illustrated the time David Copperfield levitated her on stage in front of a packed audience at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas while the second no doubt coming in to play when she got to shoot firearms for the role of a hit woman on Miami Vice.
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| Miami South Beach, Florida, USA (Alonna worked in film and television here in 1988) |
"...you have to put yourself out there and try things in life to achieve your dreams..."
Given this success it’s easy to assume Alonna had a plan, something she’s eager to dispel when our Skype accounts crackle into action from both sides of The Pond. “When I was a child I wanted to see the world and decided to join the air force. My father, a career military man, was against it but I saw it as a great vehicle for travel.” Something modeling also offered, as Alonna soon found herself hopping on and off planes so frequently for shoots she admits she turned into her own travel agent.
Flights, notwithstanding, the two career choices probably couldn’t be more different. Although like many models she admits it wasn’t all glitz and glamour. “We frequently had to change on city street locations with someone from wardrobe holding up a towel as a privacy barrier. Not glamorous! Also, due to waiting for the best light the days were long and I have many memories of being cold; shooting summer clothes in winter.” That said, the outdoor locations were some of her favourite “working backdrops”. And LA haunts such as The Palm and at Beverly Hills Hotel The Polo Lounge and the Fountain Coffee Room, remain some of her hottest tips to go and “mingle with the stars”.
Before moving to LA Alonna studied acting in New York and thus moving into soap operas after her modeling career ended at 23 was a logical, but not easy, move. Alonna was, by her own admission very shy, something she’s working on still today as she publicizes her first novel, “I’ve been told I need to get used to talking about myself. I find it hard though so I apologize if I waffle!” Waffle she doesn’t. Alonna might not be confident talking about herself but she has an honesty and positivity that even a weak broadband connection failed to disconnect.
It’s clear that in her professional life she’s learnt to deal with the shyness, believing very strongly that you have to put yourself out there and try things in life to achieve your dreams. A perfect example is when going for the part of Danielle Wilde in Double Impact. The character needed an English accent and the producers were thus planning on hiring an English actor. Little did they know Alonna had, as part of her studies, learnt a variety of accents, English being one of her strengths. She managed to get herself an audition for the part and well, the rest is history.
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| Hong Kong at night. (Double Impact filmed here in 1990) |
Speaking to Alonna it’s clear she’s not someone who is happy resting on her laurels and despite her success she is always on the look-out for the next big adventure. Indeed, she regards herself as “an explorer”, having lived in more places than most of us have vacationed in. And while her career has taken many turns there is one thing that has stayed true throughout, her love of travel.
Asking her to name her favorite place she says, “probably an over-water house in Bora Bora” citing the magic of being surrounded by water yet in a comfortable environment as her reasoning. However, Northern California will always be special to her with its mixture of sunshine and fog “that makes me want to go outside and roam.”
Combine this sense of “wander” with another of Alonna’s lifelong loves, books, and it is perhaps therefore, no surprise that Alonna has turned her hand to writing. As a little girl her mother filled their home with books and passed on proofreading application from military days, inspiring Alonna’s own love of accuracy and detail. Nevertheless, it was Carol Davis Luce, a top selling mystery/suspense writer and teacher with Writer’s Digest who finally gave her the nudge she needed to embark on her own work. And after three years and many notebooks later we are able to see the fruit of her efforts, debut novel, Eleven Sundays.
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| Alonna Shaw, Atlantic Coast, South Carolina, 2006 (Credit: Alonna Shaw) |
Writing her novel in a one-hundred-year-old summer cottage over-looking a beautiful valley near Point Reyes National Seashore it was her own great-grandmother that gave her the inspiration for her story. The Pacific Coast views a perfect backdrop to turn ideas into reality.
So what’s next for Alonna? She has a sequel to her novel in the pipeline and another move on the cards (as I spoke she was in-between breaks packing boxes with her husband in the California home) and of course, a whole list of places waiting to be explored.
“Discovering the Louvre alone, kayaking on Lake Superior eating pasties and hunting for agates, touching the hand-hewn items Richard Proenneke created at his cabin in the mountains of Alaska, diving the Great Barrier Reef, visiting Lord of the Rings country and soaking up the music, people and weather of Charleston, South Carolina” are but just a few of the places in which Alonna’s keen to start…
Alonna’s Shaw’s debut novel, Eleven Sundays, is a heartwarming contemporary story of loss, renewal, and redemption, available now in paperback and eBook formats.
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| Alonna Shaw holding a lion cub, South Africa, 1992 (Credit: Alonna Shaw) |
