CLAY STAFFORD
ABOUT

             Clay sold his first story at age ten, but it was a school play at Spring Creek Elementary in East Ridge, Tennessee that changed his life.  Following his fourth grade performance in H.M.S. Pinafore, Clay was asked to audition for the nationally recognized Dance-Theatre Workshop under the direction of Nancy Lane Wright.  He was accepted and given a full scholarship as an actor, dancer, singer, and mime until he graduated at age eighteen.

            By age twelve, Clay had already built a strong performing résumé in commercials, TV, and stage, winning several regional awards in Tennessee and Georgia.  By the haggard age of thirteen, he began traveling to New York and Los Angeles to auditions and classes with such notables as Martha Graham, Frank Pietri, and Luigi.

            Clay has always shown an interest in business and at age fifteen, he formed his production company:  The Clay Stafford Company.  The company is still going strong today as American Blackguard, Inc.

            A Valedictorian scholar, Clay entered the University of Tennessee on full music and academic scholarship.  He began writing and performing music, including compositions for a full orchestra.  He continued to travel to Los Angeles until he was twenty, when he dropped out of college with a 4.00 GPA and moved to Nashville to work as a songwriter and performer.  Following two years of inconsistent work, he sold everything he owned and moved to Los Angeles with his dog.

            He was in Los Angeles only three weeks, living in a one-room efficiency in Van Nuys and working a job at Arbitron (a marketing research company), when he followed up on an ad in Dramalogue and won an audition for a California touring company.  He toured in original and off-Broadway productions for the next three years.

            Following the first tour he also began appearing on television shows including the soap opera Days of Our Lives and the Paramount Pictures television special Clue: Movies, Murder, and Mystery with Martin Mull.  He served as the master of ceremony for the Chongqing Acrobatic Troupe of China (as featured on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson) appearing in 238 performances with over 1,071,000 documented ticket sales.  And he was offered a temporary job at Universal Studios (Los Angeles) backlot as a typist.  In a short time, Clay became a freelance Executive Floater—a loanout of The Clay Stafford Company—and gained a valuable education in the studio support areas of development, accounting, casting, legal, personnel, publicity / advertising, transportation, and union relations, working behind-the-scenes in supervisory and non-supervisory positions.

            At the age of twenty-five, Clay formed a sub-company of The Clay Stafford Company with a partner to produce live “mystery and adventure” theatrical productions in Los Angeles.  The performances were a critical and financial success, and the series eventually went on tour to several states beyond California.  Universal Studios (Orlando) then made Clay an offer he could not refuse as a development and production executive at their backlot in Orlando.  On the way there, however, he was offered a job by PBS as Assistant Director of Program Development for national programming.  Not only would he greenlight development and production projects for PBS out of Miami, he would also be able to produce, direct, and write his own national programming.

            Upon completing his B.A. in Film and Video and his M.F.A. in Motion Pictures from the University of Miami, Florida, Clay left PBS to devote his time to growing The Clay Stafford Company and to teaching or consulting at such schools as The University of Miami, The University of Tennessee, Nova Law School, and UECU.  He also co-designed the two-year Associate Degree film curriculum used by Miami-Dade Community College, Florida (A.A. Film Production / A.S. Film Production Technology).

            In early 1993, following Hurricane Andrew’s devastation of South Florida (and part of Clay’s house), Clay returned to Los Angeles as a post-production consultant for a Beverly Hills production company.  He continued to build The Clay Stafford Company and continued expanding it to include public relations and unit publicity.  In that capacity, he personally served as a still photographer on photo shoots for the likes of Jane Seymore, Dale Evans, Roy Rogers, and organizations such as USAir and Smith & Wesson.  Clay and a couple of partners also developed a nighttime television series for Republic Pictures, again forming a sub-production company to The Clay Stafford Company.  Clay continued to work out of The Clay Stafford Company’s Beverly Hills office until the Northridge earthquake intervened in 1994 and encouraged him back to his boyhood state.

            Today Clay lives in Franklin, Tennessee (called “Tennessee’s Handsomest Town”), just twenty miles southwest of Nashville where he writes full time and develops projects for film and television.  The Clay Stafford Company was incorporated in 2002 as American Blackguard, Inc.  In addition to his creative duties, Clay serves as President / CEO.

Contact Clay Stafford for more information.

© 1978-2007