Angela Robinson, a self-described "drama geek in high school," grew up in Los Angeles. After earning an undergraduate degree in theater at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, she moved to New York. There, she worked at Playwrights Horizons and Second Stage. She was also the co-artistic director for an off-Broadway queer theater company.

However, her aspirations changed after watching an episode of the television series Friends in which Ross's lesbian ex-wife gives birth to their son. That night she realized, along with tens of millions of viewers, that the episode did more for gay rights in a half hour than most protesting had done in a decade. Therefore, she decided film would be a better medium than stage to accomplish her goals and applied for the film program at New York University. After NYU, she moved back to Los Angeles to begin her career in film.

The first short Robinson made was called Chickula, Teenage Vampire (1995), a mock '50s horror trailer about a lesbian vampire seducing/making vampires of local high school students. Next she did a 10-minute documentary called Ready, Okay, which focused on the Long Island High School Cheerleading Championships. It was completed a couple of years before the Hollywood film Bring it On (2000) about cheerleading was released. Following that she did The Kinsey Three, which was an Austin Powers-like short about a trio of bisexual art thieves. Since films similar to her shorts were appearing on the big screen, Robinson figured she was moving in the right direction. However, she needed financing.

In 2002, Robinson won a grant from Power Up, a Los Angeles networking organization for gay women in the entertainment industry, to finance her short. With this money, she produced a short film called D.E.B.S. (2003), based on a comic book she had created about lesbian Charlie's Angels-types. The film won numerous awards, including the 2003 Jury Prize at the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Audience Awards at the 2003 L.A. Outfest and 2003 Dublin Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and the 2003 New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival's Best Short award.

A year later, Robinson made her feature film debut with a full-length version of D.E.B.S. (2005), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. This led to her landing a big budget film for Disney -- Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005), starring Lindsay Lohan.

Robinson lives in Los Angeles with her girlfriend of four years. Theater is still her first love and she intends to return to it one day.

Credit: tribute.ca