Gracie Gillam

About

Grace Phipps (born May 4, 1992), known professionally as Gracie Gillam, is an American actress, singer, and dancer. She is best known for starring in the Disney Channel Original Movies Teen Beach Movie and Teen Beach 2 as Lela, as well as starring in the fourth season of The Vampire Diaries as April Young.

Gillam was born in Austin, Texas, to Kate (née Van Gelder) and Gilliam Phipps. She has a younger brother named Liam.
She was raised in Boerne, Texas and San Antonio, Texas. She graduated from Robert E. Lee High School’s North East School of the Arts, where she majored in musical theater and graduated summa cum laude. As of 2016, she was an undergraduate student at Columbia University.
In 2010, she won the Las Casas Performing Arts Scholarship Competition. A Los Angeles agent signed Gillam after seeing her star as Rizzo in a theater production of the musical Grease.

Following her 2010 high school graduation, Gillam moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting. After seven days there, she landed the prime role as Bee in the DreamWorks 2011 major movie remake of the 1985 comedy horror film Fright Night. That year, she also originated…