Charlotte Laws - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Charlotte Laws is an American author, local Los Angeles politician and talk show host, community activist, and animal rights

Animal rights

Animal rights, also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings...

advocate. As a former actress, some of her credits can be found under her Screen Actors Guild

Screen Actors Guild

The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...

name Missy Laws.

Laws is currently serving her fourth term on the Greater Valley Glen Council in Valley Glen, California. She is the first politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

to run on the platform that she represents all beings in her district, not just the humans whom she maintains are the elite. She publicly promotes moving from a democracy to what she calls an omniocracy, a government with representation for all living beings.

In May 2006, Laws was appointed by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa

Antonio Villaraigosa

Antonio Ramón Villaraigosa , born Antonio Ramón Villar, Jr., is the 41st and current Mayor of Los Angeles, California, the third Mexican American to have ever held office in the city of Los Angeles and the first in over 130 years. He is also the current president of the United States Conference of...

to serve on the city’s 912 Commission. In 1999, the Los Angeles City Charter mandated that a commission would be formed seven years later to review the progress, successes and failures of the city’s Neighborhood Council system.

She is the founder and president of two organizations: the Directors of Animal Welfare (DAW) and the League for Earth and Animal Protection (LEAP). She also sits on the board of the Center on Animal Liberation Affairs

Center on Animal Liberation Affairs

The Center on Animal Liberation Affairs is a scholarly center established to advance the study and discourse of animal liberation principles and practices....

(CALA), a scholarly center created to advance the debate about animal liberation. In 2006, Laws was the recipient of the Los Angeles Animal Humanitarian Award.

Laws is a vegan

Veganism

Veganism is the practice of eliminating the use of animal products. Ethical vegans reject the commodity status of animals and the use of animal products for any purpose, while dietary vegans or strict vegetarians eliminate them from their diet only...

and an advocate of that diet.

From October 2007 - September 2010, Laws hosted her own Los Angeles TV show called Uncommon Sense. Laws and her guests discussed current events.

Laws has also been a weekly commentator on the NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

show "The Filter with Fred Roggin

Fred Roggin

Fred Roggin is the sports anchor at KNBC-TV in Los Angeles, California. He was also a sports talk radio host at KMPC in Los Angeles, and until Fall 2007 hosted a morning sports show on KLAC with Los Angeles Times sports columnist T.J. Simers and Simers' daughter, Tracy Simers...

" since August 2009, and she is a co-host on the Internet show "Every Way Woman."

Education

After completing high school at The Lovett School

The Lovett School

The Lovett School is a coeducational, kindergarten through twelfth grade independent school located in north Atlanta, Georgia.-History:In September 1926, Mrs. Eva Edwards Lovett, an innovative educator who emphasized the development of the whole child, officially began The Lovett School with 20...

in Atlanta, Georgia, Laws attended the University of Florida

University of Florida

The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...

in Gainesville and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

University of Nevada-Las Vegas is a public, coeducational university located in the Las Vegas suburb of Paradise, Nevada, USA. The campus is located approximately east of the Las Vegas Strip. The institution includes a Shadow Lane Campus, located just east of the University Medical Center of...

. She moved to Los Angeles in 1981 and completed bachelor’s degrees in Theatre (1985) and Philosophy (1996) at California State University, Northridge

California State University, Northridge

California State University, Northridge is a public university in Northridge, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, California, United States....

(CSUN). She earned two master’s degrees from the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

(USC) in Professional Writing (1986) and in Social Ethics (1997), as well as a Ph.D. in Social Ethics (2000). In 2003, she completed post-doctoral coursework at Oxford University, England.

Acting and writing career

Laws studied acting at the Academy Theatre of Atlanta and the Estelle Harman

Estelle Harman

Estelle Harman was an acting coach in Los Angeles. She began as an acting instructor at UCLA in the 1950s, then was hired by Universal Studios as Head of Talent to groom their stable of film actors, which included Rock Hudson, Bill Bixby, Tony Curtis and Audie Murphy.As the contract years ended...

Actors Workshop in Los Angeles. She worked as a model and actress in movies and television until her late 20's. She has performed as a stand up comic at The Comedy Store

The Comedy Store

The Comedy Store is a comedy club located in West Hollywood, California, at 8433 Sunset Boulevard on the Sunset Strip. It has a sister comedy club in La Jolla, San Diego, California.-History:...

in Los Angeles.

In 1988, Laws authored a popular book called Meet the Stars, which details how the average person can succeed in the entertainment industry. She promoted the book on Larry King Live
Larry King Live
Larry King Live is an American talk show hosted by Larry King on CNN from 1985 to 2010. It was CNN's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly....

, Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...

, The Late Show and over a hundred radio and television shows throughout America and Canada.

From 1997-2000, Laws wrote for the British magazine Mad Dogs and Englishmen and since then has become a syndicated columnist. Her articles on current events, philosophy and social issues have been published in the "Los Angeles Daily News

Los Angeles Daily News

The Los Angeles Daily News is the second-largest circulating daily newspaper of Los Angeles, California. It is the flagship of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, a branch of Colorado-based MediaNews Group....

," "E the Environmental Magazine," "Opinion Editorials," "LA Times" and "Newsweek

Newsweek

Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

Personal life

Laws was adopted at birth and tracked down her birthparents in her late twenties. She is known for saying, “You can never have too many parents.”
Prior to acting and writing, Laws experimented with a number of jobs. She was a cab driver, private investigator, backup singer for an Elvis imitator, nurse, fashion designer, aerobics instructor and antiques shop owner. Laws has also been a licensed Realtor since 1987.

She married English barrister and California attorney Charles Parselle in the 1990’s and has a daughter named Kayla, who is an actress. She also has six chickens.

Works

Laws, Missy. Meet the Stars. Ross Books, 1988, ISBN 0-89496-002-4.
Laws, Charlotte. "Jains, the ALF, and the ELF: Antogonists or Allies?" Igniting a Revolution: Voices in Defense of Mother Earth, edited by Steven Best
Steven Best
Steven Best is an American animal rights activist, author, talk-show host, and associate professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso...

and Anthony J. Nocella. AK Press, 2006. ISBN 1-904859-56-9.
Laws, Charlotte. ARMed for Ideological Warfare.
Laws, Charlotte. "The Jain Center of Southern California" A Call to Compassion: Religious Perspectives on Animal Advocacy, edited by Anthony J. Nocella and Lisa Kemmerer. Lantern Books, March 2011. ISBN 9781590561829.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Education

Acting and writing career

Personal life

Works

Further reading

External links