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Monique Coleman as Taylor McKessie

Monique Adrienne Coleman, born on November 13, 1980 in Orangeburg, South Carolina began her career at an early age in Columbia, South Carolina. She began training at the Workshop Theatre School of Dramatic Arts, where she worked on over 15 plays. In an acting class taught by a guest teacher, she landed her first commercial. Since then, she started auditioning for various stints in the Southeast region. She was later educated at The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago, where she earned a degree in acting.

Coleman's first lead role was in the independent feature film, Mother of the River, which won awards in various film festivals in Chicago. Her breakout performance was in Disney's hit made-for-TV film, High School Musical, where she played Taylor McKessie, a role she reprised in the film's second installment.

Star Scoop spoke with Coleman in October 2006, and the young actress shared her views on the successful Disney hit. She said, "High School Musical is definitely the best thing that's happened to my career and I walked away with great friends from it. Coming into it, I think everyone was kind of skeptical, because Disney Channel puts out a lot of movies, and none of them have been as successful as High School Musical. It was a life changing experience. It was so much fun to shoot and it was difficult. Through High School Musical, I learned a lot about press, everything. It really felt like, not only a launch pad, but also a training ground as well for how to be on the business side on the industry. I was the character that really was, in some ways, the backbone of the story, in terms of revealing the peer pressure that teens go through in terms of people telling them that they should do one thing and not the other."

Since then, Coleman appeared as guest on other series such as The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Forever Plaid, Not So Suite 16, and Neither a Borrower Nor a Speller Bee. She also had guest appearances in Boston Public, Gilmore Girls, Malcolm in the Middle, Strong Medicine, 10-8: Officers on Duty, Married to the Kellys, and Veronica Mars.

In the third season of Dancing with the Stars, Coleman paired up with professional dancer Louis van Amstel to be one of the eleven contending teams. However, she and her partner were eliminated in the season's eighth week.







(Photos courtesy of Disney)