Early Life and Education
Strickland was born in Blackshear, Georgia to Susan Strickland, a nurse, and Dee Strickland, a high school football coach, principal and superintendent. KaDee's birthname is Katherine Dee; her parents combined the K in Katherine with her father's name to make KaDee. She was raised in Patterson, Georgia, which she said is a "one-stoplight town", and she had a job picking tobacco on a local farm for eight years. When she was a child, Strickland watched the Woody Allen film Annie Hall (1975) and was, as she put it, "wanting to be in that place, and being completely taken with the energy of those people. I wanted to be in it". During her childhood, she was well known locally as a member of the Strickland family and for her extracurricular activities and achievements (she was the Homecoming Queen in elementary, middle and high school, the student council president and a cheerleader). She never considered a career in the performing arts until her participation in a one-act play performed by students of her high school: " the minute I set foot on stage, that was it. Destiny took over. There were no other options. I felt like I fit my skin, I knew what I was here to do", Strickland said.
After graduating from high school, Strickland wanted to study drama at college in New York City, but her parents did not want her to live in such a large city so soon. Consequently, she applied instead to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. During her studies there, she joined the Screen Actors Guild and considered using her given name, Katherine, as the first part of her stage name, before deciding she was "much too tomboy" for it. Strickland took a part-time waitressing job at a local restaurant and interned at a casting agency, where one of her tasks was to read lines at auditions for small roles in local film and television projects; the job landed Strickland her first film role. After graduating from university with a Fine Arts degree, she was schooled in New York City, and in late 2003, she moved to Los Angeles, California. In 2006, Strickland received the University of the Arts's Silver Star Alumni Award.
Read more about this topic: Ka Dee Strickland
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