VH1 Before They Were Rock Stars III

VH1 Before They Were Rock Stars III
August 25, 1998

On Tuesday, August 25, 1998 (and many times after that), VH1 in the U.S. aired a program called Before They Were Rock Stars III. They had a surprisingly long and fascinating look at Tori which lasted for about 5 minutes. They showed all kinds of old video footage of Tori from as early as 1979. I was thrilled that VH1 gave her so much time during this one hour program (Though I am not sure if Tori will be thrilled to see this old stuff on TV!) I have a brief summary of what they showed and several photos. This show has been shown again a huge number of times on VH1!

The show featured lots of photos of Tori when she was a little girl and a teen-ager. Many of these photos are in her authorized biography, though a few looked new to me. There were several interview clips with her parents that were incredible. It was fun to hear her proud parents talking about her and it was really cute when her mother said she used to enjoy shocking them and her dad added, "She still does..."

There was not much recent footage of Tori. There was a brief interview clip with her from the BBC which looked like it was taped in 1992. She talked about getting kicked out of the conservatory. They also ended Tori's segment which a short 1998 clip of her singing the song "Cooling" live in concert which sent shivers down my spine. But the highlight of this show was the old video footage VH1 managed to dig up, and it was fascinating!

They showed some color photos and black & white video footage of Tori performing in a high school production of the play "Gypsy" where Tori had the lead role as a stripper in 1979. I was sad to see that the film footage was in pretty bad shape. (Someone needs to preserve this!) They showed Tori singing the song "Baltimore" on TV (local TV in Baltimore I assume) in 1980. They must have interviewed her after she sang Baltimore because they showed some interview footage with the then 17 year old Tori talking about how tough the music business is and then smiling really big when the interviewer said she had singing talent. Seeing her at such a young age was amazing and so cute!

As if that was not enough, they also showed segments of Tori's 1985 Just Right commercial for Kelloggs, complete with short hair and way too much enthusiasm for the cereal ;) Then they showed scenes from the TV show "Trial By Jury" where Tori appeared on the program in 1989 as a character named Carrie Hadler, who was on trial for murder. She was found innocent. (I don't know any details about this show or how often Tori was on there. I never knew Tori had the acting bug!) They also showed part of the infamous "Big Picture" video from the Y Kant Tori Read album.

I did not notice until the summer of 1999 that Tori was also briefly mentioned on Before They Were Rock Start II on VH1. Basically they showed a photo of her from a high school yearbook (which is in Tori's authorized bio) along with 2 other celebrity high school yearbook photos and had you place next to their photo the award they received in school, such as "most likely to succeed."

Kim H. reports the following about the show Trial By Jury:

Trial by Jury was on in the late 1980s. I used to watch it fairly often ! It was kind of unusual, in that it used actors to re enact real trials. It was kind of the precursor to shows like Judge Judy i guess, and probably a reaction to the popularity of Judge Wapner on "The People's Court". I wish i could remember more, the show wasn't on for very long, a few years at the most. It was kind of fascinating to watch, though. They didn't use people more than once though, i don't think, so, Tori was most likely on it only once.

Click on any thumbnail below to see a larger image.

Tori singing "Cooling" Live - 1998

Tori in 1980 singing "Baltimore" & being interviewed

Tori in The Play "Gypsy" in 1979. In the first black & white photo above Tori is on the far left and in the second black & white photo she is the one on the far right.