‘GOURMET DETECTIVE’
PRODUCTION BIOS
DYLAN NEAL (Executive Producer/Writer) – Dylan Neal was born in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. Shortly thereafter, his family moved to Oakville, just west of Toronto, where he spent the remainder of his childhood. As a young student, he attended the prep school Appleby College, where he was introduced to the game of squash. Neal quickly fell in love with the sport and was soon playing for Canada at an international level. Towards the end of his teenage years, after many years of traveling across North America on the amateur squash circuit, Neal decided a professional squash career was not for him.
By this time, Neal was attending Blakelock High School, where he was enrolled in the drama program. At the urging of his drama teacher, Neal signed with a Toronto talent agent and began auditioning professionally. It didn’t take long for Neal to realize this was the direction his career would take. In 1992, he moved to Los Angeles where his career quickly took off.
Neal is a well-recognized face on television having had series regular roles in eight American television series, including Aaron Spelling’s “Pacific Palisades,” “Hyperion Bay” and “Sabrina the Teenage Witch.” He has had many major recurring roles including "Dr Anthony Ivo" in the CW's breakout TV series "Arrow," and his five-year stint on “Dawson’s Creek” playing Pacey’s brother, "Doug Witter.” He has had the good fortune of working opposite some of the biggest names in Hollywood and recently had a lead role opposite Val Kilmer in the Paramount Pictures thriller, “The Traveler” and just wrapped shooting a supporting role in the Universal feature “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Entering its third season, Neal currently plays “Jack Griffiths” in Hallmark Channel’s hit Original Primetime Series, “Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove.”
When not on set, Neal enjoys spending as much time as he can with his family and friends. On occasion, he can also be spotted in his workshop, where Neal, an avid wood worker, has for years recreated 18th and 19th century period furniture.
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BECKY SOUTHWELL (Executive Producer/Writer) – After growing up in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Oakville, Ontario, Becky Southwell settled in Los Angeles where she has been a writer for the last fourteen years. Shortly after moving to L.A., Southwell was selected to be a part of the Warner Brothers Comedy Writing Workshop, the premier writing program for new writers looking to start and further their career in the world of television. (Every year, the Workshop selects up to 10 participants out of almost 2,000 submissions. The list of graduates who have gone on to do great things is long: Terrance Winter (Boardwalk Empire), Marc Cherry (Desperate Housewives), Greg Garcia (My Name Is Earl) and Felicia Henderson (Soul Food) to name a few.) After the WB writing program, Southwell was staffed on a series and sold two television pilots. She continued to write in series television, a favorite job being writing jokes for Chelsea Handler on “Girls Behaving Badly.” She sold a thriller film before taking a five year sabbatical from Los Angeles, and the business, in order to start a family. During that time, she kept her writing chops up by writing for a food magazine, “Edible Vancouver.” Now that her two
(more) HALLMARK MOVIES & MYSTERIES/ ‘GOURMET DETECTIVE’ – Production Bios – Page 2 favorite creative projects have been successfully launched into elementary school, Southwell has returned to L.A. and the business full time with a busy slate of projects for Hallmark Channel.
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MICHAEL PRUPAS (Executive Producer) – Emmy® Award-nominated Michael Prupas is a 35-year veteran of the Canadian and international film and television industries. A former entertainment attorney and senior partner at the law firm Heenan Blaikie, Prupas launched Muse Entertainment Enterprises in 1998 and Muse Distribution International in 2000. Muse Entertainment has become a major production house with facilities in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Los Angeles and is known around the world for its high-quality, award-winning television programs.
Prupas is best known for executive producing “The Kennedys” and “The Pillars of the Earth,” both multiple Emmy® Award-winning, event miniseries. He is also known as an expert in international co-productions and has executive produced the award-winning miniseries “Answered by Fire,” “Human Trafficking,” “Ben Hur” and “The Flood.”
He most recently executive produced the 6-hour event series “Tut” for Spike TV, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries anticipated Original Movie “A Bone to Pick: An Aurora Teagarden Mystery,” the Disney family comedy “Bad Hair Day,” the Hallmark Channel Original Movie “Northpole,” the teen comedy “Zapped,” the Hallmark Channel Original “Series Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” the docu-drama “JFK: The Smoking Gun,” the undercover police series “Palyed,” the World War II dramatic series “Bomb Girls,” 4 seasons of the supernatural series “Being Human” and 3 seasons of the crime series “Durham County.”
He has executive produced many other TV series including “Family Biz”, “Crusoe,” 3 seasons of “This is Wonderland,” 2 seasons of “Twice in a Lifetime,” “Largo Winch” and “Tales from the Neverending Story,” as well as the miniseries “The Phantom,” “Impact” and “The Last Templar.” His credits also include Muse Entertainment’s first animated series for adults, “Bounty Hunters” and Muse’s first for children, “The Mysteries of Alfred Hedgehog.”
Prupas’ feature film credits include “The Deal” starring William H. Macy and Meg Ryan, which premiered at the Sundance Festival, “Niagara Motel” starring Craig Ferguson and Anna Friel, “The Guilty,” starring Bill Pullman and Joanne Whalley, “Savage Messiah” (winner of 3 Genie Awards), starring Polly Walker, Luc Picard and Isabelle Blais and the documentary feature “Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae.”
Among Prupas’ numerous TV movie credits are: “Cyberbully,” “Reviving Ophelia,” “The Wind in the Willows,” “An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving,” “Accidental Friendship,” “A Christmas Choir,” “Silent Night,” “Girl’s Best Friend,” “Too Young to Marry, Unstable,” “The Party Never Stops,”
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“House Next Door,” “Murder in the Hamptons,” “Plain Truth,” “Ice Bound,” “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” “The Sign of Four,” “The Royal Scandal,” “The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire,” “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” “The Stork Derby,” “The Investigation” and “ The Many Trials of One Jane Doe.”
Prupas established the first entertainment law course at McGill University in Montreal, which he taught from 1997-2002. He coached a minor league baseball team, served on the Board of Trustees of the Banff Television Festival and sits on the finance committee of the Association des producteurs de film et de télévision du Québec.
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JOEL RICE (Executive Producer) – Muse U.S.A. President and Executive Producer Joel S. Rice is responsible for developing projects with American television and cable networks in the areas of TV series, mini-series, TV movies and family programming.
After a career in social work, Rice moved into television production where he has worked for 20 years developing and producing programming for numerous networks. Rice has executive produced over 50 television movies, series and miniseries.
Rice’s executive producer credits include, Hallmark Channel Original Series “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” Hallmark Channel Original Movie “Northpole,” the animated series “Bounty Hunters” (CMT), “Cyberbully “(ABC Family), “Reviving Ophelia” (Lifetime), “Secrets of The Mountain” (NBC), “Christmas With Tucker” (Hallmark Movie Channel), “One Kill” (Showtime), “About Sarah” (CBS/P&G), “Shredderman Rules” (Nickelodeon) and “Searching for David's Heart” (Disney Channel), to name a few.
His most recent projects include the 6-hour event series “Tut” for Spike TV and the Disney TV movie “Bad Hair Day.”
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STEVE VALENTINE (Executive Producer) – With over 250 hours of television and film under his belt, Steve Valentine has carved out a unique place for himself in show business, constantly changing and morphing into a myriad of wild, quirky, funny, dangerous and always unique characters. His roles have ranged from rock stars to serial killers, cross dressers to criminologists, Victorian singing and dancing mustache twirling villains to knights in shining armor. It is Valentine’s morphic skill in character and voice that has kept him so much in demand in the highly competitive world of TV and film.
Valentine has guest starred on NBC’s “One Big Happy,” played the Egyptian priest Aye in “Mr. Peabody & Sherman,” a dysfunctional director on “The Big Bang Theory,” a cannibal on “CSI,” a ghostly doctor on “Perception,” a billionaire/beast on “Beauty and the Beast,” a cross-dressing
(more) HALLMARK MOVIES & MYSTERIES/ ‘GOURMET DETECTIVE’ – Production Bios – Page 4 actor in love with Jane Leeves on “Hot In Cleveland” and the evil Les Camembert in Disney’s massive hit “Teen Beach Movie.” In addition, Valentine has voiced “Turbo FAST” for Netflix, “Jake and the Neverland Pirates” and Bioware’s “Dragon Age III,” in which he recreated his award-winning role of King Alistair.
Valentine has also found time for recurring roles on four television series, including playing the slimy lawyer on “Major Crimes,” Melissa McCarthy’s acerbic book publisher on “Mike and Molly,” the charming lothario Francis on Patrick Stewart’s “Blunt Talk” and Charlie Sheen’s nemesis on “Anger Management.” Valentine also just completed the role of Barry Greenhouse in the Robert Zemeckis film, “The Walk” alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Valentine is also a critically acclaimed magician. He was recently named the winning Lecturer of the Year at the world famous Magic Castle in Hollywood, and continues to create mind- blowing magic tricks for professional magicians. Valentine was elected to the Board of Trustees for the Academy of Magical Arts, and has also written a live one man show, Naked With a Deck of Cards. In addition, Valentine is the author of a graphic novel, CRIMEWORLD.
As a producer and writer, Valentine recently sold “The Believers,” the absolutely almost true adventures of Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to NBC as co-creator and executive producer. He has also found success with the period drama “Forty Elephants,” sold to Lionsgate Television, with Simon West attached to direct and Valentine writing, creating and executive producing with his partner, Canadian film writer Chris Philpott.
Born in Scotland and raised near London, Valentine has been performing since the age of five, when he started theater and dance training and took a passionate, lifelong interest in magic. His first job was playing the child Prince Chulalongkorn in The King And I. From those humble beginnings, Valentine has appeared in over 250 hours of television, a dozen movies, countless commercials, two multi-award-winning video games and four TV series: “Crossing Jordan,” “Nikki,” “I’m in the Band” and “Estate of Panic.”
In addition, Valentine has performed stand-up in Las Vegas at the Riviera, Harrah’s Hotel and Casino and Hollywood’s world famous Magic Castle, where he was awarded the coveted Close- Up Magician Of The Year two years in a row. He has also had the honor of entertaining troops from all over the world and recently made a splash re-inventing himself to play the role of ex- pro wrestler E.K.O. in the Pulitzer West Coast Premiere of The Elaborate Entrance Of Chad Deity at the Geffen Theatre in Los Angeles.
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SCOTT SMITH (Executive Producer & Director) – Scott Smith is the director of two acclaimed dramatic feature films, “rollercoaster” (2000, winner Best Narrative Feature SXSW) and “Falling Angels” (2004), starring Miranda Richardson, and adapted from the novel by
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Barbara Gowdy. He has been nominated for both Genie and Gemini Awards for his work in film and television, as well as a Director's Guild nomination for Best Director - Feature Film for “Falling Angels.” His first feature length documentary, “As Slow As Possible,” was nominated for the Don Haig Award in 2008.
Scott’s recent television work includes directing the pilot for MTV’s American remake of British teen hit “Skins” (nominated for Best Dramatic Series Gemini in 2011), the pilot and 13 episodes of hit HBO Canada comedy series “Call Me Fitz,” starring Jason Priestley (for which he won the Gemini Award for Best Direction in a Comedy Series in 2011 and DGC Award for Best Comedy in both 2011 and 2013).
Most recently, Scott directed the pilot for the Hallmark Channel Original Series “Signed Sealed Delivered,” created by Martha Williamson and starring Eric Mabius and now serves as an Executive Producer and Director.
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PETER KING (Author) – British mystery fiction author Peter King published his first novel, The Gourmet Detective, in 1991. The cozy mystery about a chef-turned-culinary sleuth who solves mysteries in the kitchen launched a series of seven more books including Dying on the Vine (1998) and Roux the Day (2002). In 2001 King also released Jewel of the North, the first of three historical mysteries starring Jack London.
A Cordon Bleu–trained chef himself, King settled in Florida after retiring as a metallurgist. His career carried him around the world where he oversaw the establishment of South America’s first steel processing plant, operated a tungsten mine and prospected for minerals across the globe.
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