Melinda Culea rose to fame as a film and television actress, but she actually started her career as a model before moving into acting. Although she doesn’t have a hundred films to her name; she had some major roles in productions such as the 1984/85 ABC television series Glitter, the 1996 film Secrets Buried, and The A-Team. now ventured into writing and the arts.
Melinda Culea – Biography
Melinda Culea was born in Western Springs, Illinois on May 5, 1955. She was also raised here in a home of five children. Ever since she was a little girl, she has always loved adventures. It was this and her love for modeling that drove her to New York in her early twenties to find modeling opportunities that were unavailable where she grew up.
Four years later, having learned it all and achieved considerable success, she moved to California, convinced that it would give her a bigger stage to pursue her career.
As a model, she has been involved in a number of commercials in the past. In 1978, she was in the Woolite Cold Water Wash commercial as well as the Burger King commercial in which she appeared with Ally Sheedy.
Acting and writing career
In 1981, the former model got her first role as an actress in Dear Professor. A year later, another TV production soon followed. The Rules of Marriage. From then on, Culea had more and more roles in other productions such as Fantasy Island (1983), Family Ties (1986), Beverly Hills, 90210 (1991) and Star Trek: The Next Generation (1992) . ).
Before ending her acting career in 1999 with her appearance in The X-Files, Culea also appeared in Target Earth (1998), a few episodes of C-16: FBI (1997), Brotherly Love (1995), and À Through the Eyes of a Killer (1992).
Her most notable role as an actress was in the hit NBC TV television series, The A-Team in which she was given the role of Amy Allen who was an LA Courier paper reporter. She appeared in 24 episodes of the series in 1983. Years after the series ended, it still remained one of her most important performances, even though it was not part of the full series that had run from 1983 to 1987.
Growing up, Melinda Culea described herself as a loner, even though she came from a household that had many children. She was wandering the woods alone and started coming up with story ideas. However, she would give up everything afterwards to pursue her other dreams, including acting.
She recorded decent financial success as an actress and model but the satisfaction was not there as she believed herself to be more of an artist and writer than an actress. It was one of the main things that had stopped her from acting and led her to write.
Melinda Culea published her first work Wondago: An Illustrated Mystery Novel in 2016. In the novel, Culea tells the story of a girl who suffers an accident that causes her to lose most of her memory. She must therefore continue to draw the images that come to her mind. From her drawings and writings, the young girl hopes will help solve the mystery surrounding the disappearance of a woman who also lives in Wondago. Besides writing stories, she also draws for herself and shares her art on social media.
Private life
The A-Team actress is married to Peter Markle. The pair first met in 1994 while working on Wagons East; the comedy adventure film in which Melinda Culea played the role of Constance Taylor while Markle was the director.
Soon after, they started dating and in 1996 they finally walked down the aisle as husband and wife. More than two decades later, the couple is still going strong. At the same time, they kept quite secretive about their family life.
Peter Markle rose to fame as a film and television director and screenwriter. The Personals (1982) and Flight 93 (2006) are among his very popular works. Outside of Wagons East, Culea and her husband have yet to collaborate on any major projects. However, she did appear in the 1999 Alpha episode of The X-Files, also directed by Markle. In the production, she appeared as Karin Berquist.