Biography

Debra Haden is an "artistic tour de force" located in Los Angeles, CA. Haden has developed her talent in multiple areas throughout her life including acting, dancing, singing, painting, fashion design and animation. In her early years she relied heavily on her creativity and can learn new skills with ease. This ability to learn and adapt has made it easy for her to take on various characters in her acting career. After graduating a semester early from Kansas State with a B.S. in Clothing and Textiles, she moved to the east coast to work for a lingerie manufacturer. The design industry proved to be more technical than creative and Haden began to paint feminist paintings as an outlet for her artistic ideas. In 2005 she finally made her way to the west coast and started a female based arts collective called Feminine Oddities. Inspired by David Bowie's "space oddity", cabaret, sideshow acts, and the "female empowerment" aspect of the Burlesque revival at that time, her paintings were a tall pale alien-esque circus sideshow with flowing raven black Medusa-esque hair. The fashion figure-esque characters were beautiful, imperfect and distorted and several were conjoined twins because she was born a twin. This always made her feel like a stared at "oddity" as a child. It is at this time she began acting and performing at art shows she threw around Los Angeles. The shows fit the themes of her paintings and were considered provocative but layered with cryptic messages about society and politics. Left to interpretation by the viewer many got the hidden messages, others just saw beautiful women. Haden's breakout acting performance was in the 2017 indie punk film "Scumbag" which had its world premiere at the 46th International Film Festival Rotterdam alongside Academy Award-winning Best Picture "Moonlight". The film reached critical acclaim and she won the Exceptional Emerging Artist Award at Hollywood Film Festival along with her co-star Princess Frank for their duet "Is This Real?". In 2016, she officially formed her multi-media music project "Skunk in the Roses" and has since released the 2021 album "Rabid Perfume" (on digital and vinyl). From this album, the catchy single "Sad Sad Vampire" made a splash in the movie "Mister Sister" at Dances with Films in Los Angeles, and people still approach her remembering the tune as it played between movies before the advertisements. She has since released several singles and has performed live in Los Angeles, Toronto, and New York. The last several years, Haden has also appeared in several music videos from En Esch, Spookey Ruben, and Josie Cotton. With her degree in fashion, she enjoys designing original costumes and characters for live performances and uses them to be a muse at Disney and for various animators. She has also been the subject matter in photos featured by photographers in several art galleries such as Sur Le Mur at the Pacific Design Center. After being around artists and animators for several years she felt compelled to teach herself computer animation and in 2013 taught herself how to use After Effects. Using this new medium she created and voiced her own animations, many appear in her multi-media performances, as well as in the closing credits for the movie "Scumbag". In 2016 she also took an interest in Augmented and Virtual Reality and began teaching herself Adobe Spark, Cinema 4D, and Blender. Haden still loves to perform live and was seen in "Branson the Sitcom" and "P.L.A.Y Noir". Most recently Haden picture wrapped her third leading role in the feature film "Stars" in which she portrays an undercover homeless cop. In 2024, she is slated to be in an upcoming indie feature film that has not been announced and continues to tour while performing with the movies "Scumbag", "Mister Sister" and the upcoming "Stars" at screenings and events.
- IMDb mini biography by: Artist