Daz (Darrelle Parker) was born in Ripon North Yorkshire and moved at the soonest opportunity to the bright lights of London to work in the West End Theatre in ‘TIME’ The Musical starring Cliff Richard. Also taking her A levels and a Drama Foundation Course in Doncaster, commuting by train every day to London in the evenings. returning after the show back to Doncaster. (At 17 years old) She often appeared on stage and was an abseiling dancer- part of the Christmas Awards Show ‘Not the Lawrence Olivier Awards’.
After a year of commuting, and completing her A levels (winning Drama Student of the Year Award) she moved properly to London, and with a few years in various West End Theatres and a bout playing for the West End Softball league she gained a coveted place at ‘Dartington College Of Arts’ where she learned to write, direct and perform her own shows. With a spell at the famous Gate Theatre London. After 4 years of study she gained a 2:1 BA Hons in Theatre.
Daz then briefly returned to Yorkshire to work at the Harrogate Theatre during which she landed a role at the London interactive show ‘Alien War’ playing a gun busting US Marine in live version of the ‘Aliens’ Film.
She then performed as an actress in London, but whilst in the play Salome, joined a local swim club to learn to swim competitively (at 25 years old) and started to compete in local swim galas. This lead to an idea to combine sports and the arts and to train for the Stunt Register. This seemed like a natural progression for Daz, but it was a gruelling regime, training more than 7 disciplines to coaching level including a brown belt in Martial Arts, Trampolining , Scuba Diving, Horse Riding, Gymnastics, Sky Diving, Swimming, Kick Boxing and Fencing. This all took over 4 years and three jobs to pay for it all. (See 1994 stunt training video)
In 1999, soon after qualifying, she toured a smash hit theatre show ’Women on the verge of HRT’ around the UK and Ireland as a Stage Manager, but soon decided to concentrate on her chosen Film and T.V career. Her first major job was to do all of the gymnastics and stunts in the music video ‘Gotta Tell You’ by Samantha Mumba. And her first speaking part was in the Da Vinci Code where she landed a role as a 17 Century french speaking woman. Recently can be seen in National Treasure 2 as the girl running in front of a Truck. Her most recent films include the new Batman film ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘Harry Potter And The Half – Blood Prince’, a ‘Bunch Of Amateurs’ with Burt Reynolds and ’How To Lose Friends and Alienate People’.
During this time she gained her YMCA level 2 Gym Instructor and worked as a Kick Boxing coach to children and young adults. She also had time to train bi-monthly through the night for the London Eye Rescue Team, which was a retainer job in case of an emergency should the eye stop. This involved climbing up and around the eye and into the pods and abseiling the public to safety.
Once successfully established in Films she turned her attention to being creative again, writing and performing her one woman show that had a successful run at the Pleasance Theatre in london in 2003 when she also enjoyed swimming competitively, playing Water Polo in teams for Holland and Britain and completing the London Marathon in 2002. By 2005 she represented her County in the 50m Butterfly, and raced all over the World in Masters Competitions.In that same year she gained a professional swim coaching certificate (ASA 2) and currently teaches adults from non-swimmers to triathletes. She still keeps a hand in Theatre though, back in the West End one of the longest running the musicals ‘Blood Brothers.’ at the Pheonix Theatre.
Last year she turned her hand to Triathlon after winning a race bike at her local gym’s indoor triathlon race, thus giving her motivation to train for her first sprint triathlon – it just happened to be the Welsh Championships! She had a bit of a rough time in the sea swim and it poured down with rain but she wasn’t put off and raced 5 more times that year, completing her first Xterra sprint (off road) triathlon. All in all it was a successful year of competition in 2007, finishing 1st in her age group and a podium position overall.
Later that year Daz found a Coach, and training suddenly got serious…..
She currently trains twice a day, works as a Stuntwoman, Swim Coach and in Theatre. Her other interests are Yoga, Creative Writing and the Arts. When she has time…
