By Kenneth Books
When local resident Kevin Gaddie retired from the Navy after 20 years, he realized he had a lot of life ahead of him. He needed something to do.
“I said to myself, I’m too young to sit on the porch,” remembers Kevin, now 63. Possessed of a rich baritone voice, he decided to try his hand at voice-over work. “I ended up going to the University of West Florida and taking a class called ‘Getting Paid to Talk,’” he says.
“There were maybe 20 people in the class. They gave us scripts to read and we played them. When I played mine, I heard some ohs and ahs from the crowd.” Kevin was no stranger to using his voice. His two decades in the Navy were spent as a broadcast journalist, a job that won him several awards. The first thing to do was to get an agent. So, he sent his demo tape out. “I got signed around Christmas,” Kevin says. “It was the best present I got.”
The ball was rolling. Voice Coaches, out of Albany, N.Y., called and gave him a voice test, which went well, so they decided to train Kevin. He participated in four Saturday sessions over the phone on script reading and interpreting copy. “I pretty much breezed through it,” he says. He also got 50 CDs with his demo on them. Next, Kevin attended an acting academy run by Ann Marie Crouch, a model and actress who lives in Fort Walton Beach by way of Enid, Okla., and Los Angeles. She runs AMC Talent and is best known for her role as Princess Shayla in Power Rangers: Wild Force. “When I moved from LA, I wondered, what do I do now?” says Ann Marie. “All I’d ever done through life is act. So I started teaching. I like to help the next generation of actors along this great path.” Ann Marie liked Kevin’s voice, but saw greater things for him. “I said, why don’t we put him on camera?”
Six weeks later, Kevin was cast in the movie “Atlantic Rim” as an extra. Ann Marie was the casting director and fellow actor Steve Marlow said he liked Kevin’s voice, which earned Kevin an invitation to her open call designed to meet new talent. Local voice actor Johnny Alexander brought his boom box and they played Kevin’s demo. She signed him on the spot. So far, Kevin has had roles in about 30 movies, including seven as the lead actor. He has completed more than 150 voice-over projects as well.
One of his proudest voice-over gigs was as a volunteer for WUWF 88.1’s Sightline program.
“We read stories – cold, no rehearsal – from the Pensacola News Journal to our blind and visually impaired audience,” he says. “I also narrated 55 children’s books for WUWF’s ‘The Children’s Hour.’ In nine years, I logged a total of 770 volunteer hours with WUWF. I admit to being proud of that. Volunteering at WUWF was a way I found to give back to the community for all the good fortune I’ve had in my life.”
Later, he saw an ad on Facebook for automated recording – dubbing – working with award-winning director Benh Zeiten, who won an Oscar for “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” “He was the nicest, sweetest guy,” Kevin remembers. One of Kevin’s favorite roles was that of Mr. X in a short indie film titled “X’s and O’s.” An actress played Mrs. O in the film, which won the audience award at the 2015 Kite Film Festival in Destin. “It was very good exposure,” he says.
While acting looks easy, sometimes it’s difficult. Kevin’s toughest role was in a series out of Milton called “Kookville.” “I got two days’ notice,” Kevin said. “An actor had dropped out and I got his role.”
On top of that, he says, “The script was so wordy, there was so much to say. It was hard for me to retain all the lines.”
What does the future look like for Kevin?
“I hope to keep working,” he says. “As you get older, parts are few and far between on camera, but voice is alive and well.” To that end, he has acted in several audio drama series, the newest of which is “The East Haven Eight.” “All I have to do is get the scripts, do my lines and send it in,” Kevin says. The series is about eight teens who, caught in an exploding building, develop superpowers. He plays the hard-boiled news reporter constantly grilling the kids about their powers.
He’s also signed for an upcoming local documentary about a man who helps people. He’s not well-to-do, but has made helping others his life work.
It’s been an interesting trip for Kevin Gaddie, from two decades as a Navy journalist to voice-over actor to the silver screen. But it’s not over yet. “I’d like to say I’m thankful and humble for all the good fortune I’ve had in film and voice-over in these last 10 years,” he says. “I wish I had found this years ago, but it’s not too late.”
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