Chaney Kley

Biography: Chaney Kley (Minnis) was born on August 20, 1972 in Manassas, Virginia near a military base where his father was stationed. Soon after he moved to Denver, Colorado, where he was raised. Kley "spent a good eight years taking food orders" before he got any real acting jobs. His first experiences with acting were at Colorado University, where he graduated from in 1996 with a degree in theatre. He was a break dancer during high school, but his first actual role in anything was in a play called "Picnic." His role wasn't very big, but he was just happy to be doing what he loved-acting. "I just rode on stage, talked a little smack to this girl and rode off and that was it," Chaney said during an interview. In the process of playing small parts in school productions, and being a two-year varsity basketball player, all this during his sophomore year at Boulder, he was conducting a life check. "I was living in a fraternity house, having a great time, but my greades slipped. I asked myself 'Am I going to do something with my life, or keep doing this?'," Chaney reflected. Of course, he decided to do something with his life and become a full-fledged actor. "I knew it was important to commit and go all the way. If I commit and go all the way, maybe the world will respond accordingly." After graduating, he decided to move, not to Hollywood, but to Chicago which led to his first televised guest appearance on the CBS series "Early Edition." He moved there because he wasn't completely sure of himself as an actor and because his then-girlfriend wanted to move there too. When the episode aired, the other staff at the restaurant where he worked carried him around the place and cheered for him while they were watching it. Later on, he got his first leading role- not in a movie but in, yet another, play- the Chicago Dramatist's Production of "The Angels of Lemnos." Chaney Kley's great portrayal of Nathan Spandrel won him the 1998 Joseph Jefferson Award, which is Chicago's greatest drama honor, for best actor. Among his fellow nominees was the actor who eventually got cast in "Steppenwolf Troupe," a show which Chaney auditioned for, but didn't get cast in. When his name was called, Kley, whose mother died when he was just 4 years old, thanked his father, Dr. Robert Minnis, a dentist in Littleton, Colorado, for raising him alone. Also that night at the black-tie affair, Chaney said that he heard a noise that he thinks he'll never hear again come from his dad's mouth when his name was called. In 2000, Chaney Kley Minnis decided that he was sure enough of himself as an actor to move to Los Angeles, California. He got a noticeable guest spot on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in October of that year. Later on, when his managers set up a meeting at Revolution Studios, he met Jonathan Liebesman, the director of the horror/thriller "Darkness Falls." "I told him I was definitely somebody who believed that reality was fluid and that there are a lot of things out there that other people don't believe, but that I do believe. He fought for me; told the studio 'This is the guy I want.'" In 2001, on the day he was cast in "Darkness Falls," he quit his day job in a restuarant called "The Warehouse Restaurant" (He quit at "Rock Bottom" a year earlier) to be completely focused on acting. He is now filming "The Skin Horse," a low budget film, which was filmed in Portland, Oregon, and is set to be released in film festivals this fall (2003). (From ChaneyKleyOnline.cjb.net - Permission from Website)… Expand