Pamela Edwards McClafferty is a writer, bestselling author, award winning producer and designer. From the museums and opera halls of Europe to the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera and LACMA to 7th Avenue Fashion, she has been exposed and influenced by the world’s artists and their art.
At eleven years old, Pamela began training as a singer while always having a journal nearby to write down her thoughts. Two trips in her teens influenced the course of her life. In her thirteenth year, she traveled to Europe to visit family friends, the English BBC broadcaster/author Kenneth Allsop’s family. She would never forget Kenneth picking her up at the airport and his questions and advice about her life and future. “Write every day. Sing everyday and design those clothes. You’re young. Have fun with all the arts! They will lead you where you need to go.” That summer the Allsops enriched Pamela’s education, introducing her to art, design and music in London, Paris and Rome!
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Four years later, via New York, seventeen year old Pamela was back in Europe, on a singing scholarship performing with the California Youth Chorale. The group sang in spectacular acoustically pure opera houses and churches in fifteen European countries including in Czechoslovakia and East Germany, countries at that time behind the Iron Curtain.
At the East Berlin Checkpoint Charlie, enigmatic armed soldiers approach their bus. The Berlin Wall wasn’t just a wall. It was miles of extended barbed wire fences, buildings with crushed glass and beds of nails on rooftops while soldiers patrolled trenches below with their dogs. Soldiers guarded barriers and soldiers on buildings guarded those soldiers while soldiers in guard towers watched “everyone watching”. Their bus was searched. Passports were reviewed. Mirrors on wheels rolled under their vehicle to make sure no one was sneaking in or out as the Chorale group came and went. In Berlin and Prague, she befriended singers/musicians who spoke of the restrictions on their artistic freedom. In her journal, she wrote about her new friends’ feelings and thoughts. When the Youth Chorale tour ultimately stopped in Olso, Norway, Pamela spent her downtime at the Vigeland Park Sculpture Garden. Little did Pamela know that one day the Vigeland Park would become a magical park in her musical, Artland, a tribute to her friends left behind the iron curtain, and the cities of New York, London and Rome and the artists and denizens living there, would one day become the focal point of her bestselling novel, In The Name of Todd.
In between her studies at the University of Arizona where she majored in music and later at UCLA, she received two scholarships to the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. On her days off from her studies, she paid her bills modeling for print ads for Milk Billboards, hair products and catalogues. She also sang with various pop groups touring from the Las Vegas Hilton, Desert Inn, Sahara Hotels to national theatres across the United States. When in Los Angeles, she appeared on the Sonny and Cher show and recorded an album with the singing group, The Unusual We, which lead to an appearance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and an appearance at the Hollywood Bowl. The soft rock, Unusual We album, was re-mastered in 2006 and produced by Harold Battiste on the Beatball/Shagadelic Label. It is still selling in Japan and South Korea and recently has been listed on Amazon.
While singing, Pamela continued writing in her journal and a story began to form which began to take up more and more of her time. Writing placed Pamela off stage and behind the scenes, a life which Pamela had to admit she loved. Kenneth’s words came to her mind. ”Have fun with the arts! They will lead you where you need to go.” Her new path was set. Pamela focused on her writing for six years to create her first novel. She submitted In The Name of Todd to Owen Laster, the head of the literary department at William Morris Agency. He agreed to represent her, and they became lifetime friends. Owen placed In The Name of Todd with Warner Publishing while Sam Weisbord, Chairman of William Morris in Beverly Hills, closed a deal for all visual rights of In the Name of Todd for a miniseries with Producer/Actor, Michael Landon. At her writing studio, Pamela also had a designated space to design clothes. One day Mark McClafferty, her future husband and partner, surprised Pamela when he dropped by the studio with his old friend Ruth Lutz who worked in the New York fashion industry. Once seeing Pamela’s designs, Ruth insisted she introduce Pamela to Alan Quinn, a noted 7th Avenue New York Fashion Sales Representative. Pamela’s writing studio expanded to 7000 square feet to accommodate a studio design/manufacturing plant which suddenly housed pattern makers, cutters, sample makers and seamstresses. 35 employees in all. Her Resort Line of Ready to Wear fashions and her novel, renamed Inherit The Storm (Tudor Publishing), debuted simultaneously. The Pamela Edwards Line was sold at Bloomingdales and Bonwit Teller, and over 90 US specialty Boutiques and was presented in Women’s Wear Daily’s “Best of New York,” as her novel, Inherit the Storm, hit the best seller list at number 5.
Pamela Edwards Enterprises took Pamela on an amazing journey, with lots of success. Yet, the time came to reassess her life. Working eighteen-hour days, creating, manufacturing and shipping her line for five seasons a year for five years, Pamela’s life was consumed with fashion. There was no time for family or her writing. She talked it over with Mark, now her husband. She had explored her three passions. Her heart and soul kept returning to writing and music. The idea came up that they should work together. She had a remarkable bond with Mark, one that seldom comes along in a lifetime. Although she would keep many of her patterns and continue to design her clothes for herself and family and friends as she had done before, Pamela decided to sell her line and partner with the talented creative executive writer/producer Mark McClafferty.
They co-founded Spellbound Pictures and created an international consortium, raising 60 million dollars with Canal +/Ellipse Programme to produce 12 Family Films, including the highly acclaimed film, The Climb, starring John Hurt, David Strathairn and Gregory Smith. Directed by American Bob Swaim who had received the César Award for Best Picture for his film La Balance, The Climb received six international film festival awards including the Golden Bear Unicef Award in Berlin.
Work continued for Pamela with Kenny Rushing on his non-fiction book, House Hustling Manifesto. A drug-kingpin at twenty years old, Kenny was convicted and ultimately incarcerated for seven years. When he left prison, he carried with him a GED and a clear vision for his future. After eight years as a free man, Kenny had built a multi-million dollar Real Estate company in Florida. His book is a unique look at the business acumen of the Street translated to every towns’ Wall Street. Pamela co-produced/executive produced Katt Williams Live, a comedy special which was one of the top grossing Platinum DVDs of 2008 and still is shown on Amazon Prime, YouTube and other streaming systems. She and Mark added a five minute documentary to the Comedy DVD about the racial unrest in Cincinnati. Pamela also edited the novel Blue written by Walter Jones, which Spellbound published and became a best seller on Amazon. Walter wrote in the acknowledgment of Blue.
Without Pamela, the story of Blue would never have come to fruition. She is my friend, my mentor, my editor, my advocate, and my publisher. She has worked tirelessly for years. In return for her labor, she only asked that I do the same for another unknown author whose voice must be heard. She is a guardian of the arts and of those things that inspire and enlighten humanity. She is rare and precious.
Then a surprise turned Pamela’s life full circle. Mark read her short story about her travels as a teenager behind the Iron Curtain. At the end of the story, she had made a note. She was seventeen years old. “I hope I can make this story into a musical.” Mark introduced Pamela to multi Grammy Award Winner Stanley Clarke. They sat together and Pamela told Stanley the story of Artland and what had influenced her to write it. They all had tears in their eyes. A bond had been formed.
For well over a decade, Pamela and Stanley have worked on Artland. Whether in town or away on tours or productions; whether on Skype and Facetime or working in the studio; whether rehearsals and/or rewrites and re-recordings galore, they have persevered through 5 readings, 4 workshops and 6 months as the first original musical to enter the curriculum at the Los Angeles High School for The Arts. Pamela found working with the student/actors exciting. Artland characters came alive with such wonderful, touching and bold interpretations. Music and lyrics were explored in detail and performed with amazing thought and feeling. The Artland plot was reworked and reworked and with each new draft magic was always there. At semester’s end, a group from The Festival of New American Musicals, attended Artland rehearsals at LACHSA and recommended Artland to their subscribers to attend the Artland Workshop performances at the Caroline Leonetti Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. Pamela applauds everyone at LACHSA for their belief in and support of Artland.
In between her collaborative sessions with Stanley, Pamela and Mark have written the movie, Class War, now in development at Spellbound along with Pamela’s series of children’s books, Dipperland. She continues to champion Walter Jones’s legacy, and is launching BLUE in 3rd Edition on Amazon in May 2024 along with Shades of Black and White, from Pamela’s concept Album, NOW. Pamela’s bestseller, In the Name of Todd, is being rewritten and will be released at Christmas 2024. Spellbound has several projects in development and preproduction including a comedy written by Mark and his writing partners Clint Smith and Mark Corry and an optioned superhero series with creator Hunter Barella with Executive Produced/Produced by Mark McClafferty, Pamela Edwards McClafferty and David Garber. To top off the 5th Month of 2024, Pamela and Stanley have recently put the finishing touches on Artland and it is with their representatives in New York.
Pamela Edwards McClafferty is an Emeritus member of SAG, AFTRA & AGVA and a member of ASCAP. Pamela’s designs were in In Style and WWD and on Star Search and received accolades from the likes of Mr. Blackwell! She has won Three Film Festival Awards for The Climb. A portion of her funds earned from Blue will be donated to the Cancer Research Society and she will continue to donate a portion of her funds from her song, Silent Soldiers, to Veterans organizations again starting on Memorial Day 2024. Pamela collects art and has donated William Merritt Chase paintings to the Los Angeles Museum of Art in Los Angeles. Tristan Allsop is still her friend, and she thanks her parents and the Allsops every day for the summer of her 13th year when she was given the advice to explore all her passions.