Chelah Horsdal:
‘i have certainly followed in his footsteps’
Actor Chelah Horsdal didn’t see a lot of her father, singer-songwriter Valdy, as a child, but she says she wouldn’t change a day of that relationship.
“That would maybe imply regret, or wanting things to be different today, and I don’t,” Horsdal said.
Valdy came to fame in the 1970s with such acoustic hits as Play Me A Rock And Roll Song and Renaissance. Four decades later, he still tours, while his daughter is a recurring regular on the Alberta-shot AMC Western series Hell On Wheels, and has just started a recurring role on the Vancouver-shot series The Man In The High Castle for the Amazon streaming service.
She was born on her father’s farm near Sooke, a place he called “Head Acres.” It was the early 1970s, and the farm became a magnet for fans.
“Hippies would make their pilgrimage across Canada and pitch their teepees on Head Acres.”
Within a year of Chelah’s birth, Valdy moved her and her mom, Lindsay Whalen, across the country to a boat on the Newfoundland coast.
After a year and a half, they moved back to Sooke, but the nomadic life and Valdy’s constant touring had taken a toll. By the time Horsdal was four, her parents had split up and she moved with her mom to Vancouver.
Valdy married a woman with two small children and moved to Saltspring Island.
“I was there some weekends and in the summertime, but he was still touring tons,” Chelah said. By the time she was 11, her father was single again and the two of them took an extended trip to the Cayman Islands.
“It was a really magical trip, actually. It set the foundation for the friendship that my dad and I have today.”
Her father remarried when she was 13 — to the woman who remains his wife — but initially the marriage led to some distance between father and daughter.
It took a song to bring them closer together. Nineteen-year-old Chelah and a couple of friends were getting a ride in Valdy’s van when he played the cassette of his latest album.
“He wrote a song called First Time Around. It was basically a ballad saying, ‘I’m your dad and I’m sorry for the mistakes I’ve made but I’m right here and I want to try.’ ”
She started crying as she listened to the words, as did her dad. “We’re passing around a roll of toilet paper, all of us crying and blowing our noses. It was a really precious experience.” Horsdal was taking wary steps into a creative life of her own. She did modelling as a teen and acted in school plays. At 18, she landed a role on a TV series but resisted the pull to acting.
“I have certainly followed in his footsteps,” she said. “I didn’t even admit I was an actor until I was 28, probably because I saw ... his life involved being pulled in different directions, and being away a lot of the time.”
Like her father, Horsdal’s life can be a whirlwind of travel, odd hours and sudden changes of plan.
“My dad has always dealt with that with such grace. I have been trying to learn that from him, just to roll with the punches,” she said.
Valdy still lives on Saltspring. They stay in touch via Skype and visit when schedules allow.
“Part of me sometimes gets concerned about the amount of travelling, the driving he does on his own,” she said. “I want him to be safe.”