Short Biography

Victoria Principal (born January 3, 1950) is an American actress, best known for her role as Pamela Barnes Ewing on the long-running CBS nighttime drama Dallas from 1978 to 1987. Principal was born Vicki Ree Principal, in Fukuoka, Japan, the older of two daughters of Ree Veal and Victor R. Principal. Principal gave a 1950 year of birth in a 2007 interview with the official Dallas website. She stated that she "...felt that was the only way to clear this up once and for all. My name is my real name; my age is my real age. Someone on the internet, years ago, printed a different age than I am and I’m in the process legally of clearing that up, because I have never lied about my age." However she did say that she was the first baby born after the war (which ended in 1945). Her paternal grandparents were immigrants from Italy and her mother was born in Georgia and is of English descent. Her father was a sergeant in the Air Force and like most military brats, Principal moved often, growing up in London, Florida, Puerto Rico, Massachusetts, and Georgia, among other places, and attending 17 different schools. She studied at the Royal Academy of Ballet while in England.

When Principal signed her Dallas contract, she omitted the clause that would have given the network the right to consent and profit from her outside endeavors. She explained, "As a result that’s why, you can only notice in hindsight, I was the only person in the cast who did commercials, who was doing movies of the week, who wrote books and these all belong to me. I retained the control and ownership of my image. No one owns me." When she left the show in 1987, she began her own production company, Victoria Principal Productions. In the mid-1980s, she became interested in natural beauty therapies and promoted a self-named line of skin care products called Principal Secret, and has also written three books about beauty and skin-care.

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