Local 12-year-old Vivie Myrick a star on the rise

Local 12-year-old Vivie Myrick a star on the rise

Bragg Elementary 6thgrader starts with small ‘ Million Dollar Quartet’ part

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Elizabeth Myrick knew she had a future singing star on her hands the moment her daughter Vivie first picked up a little toy microphone.

By the time she was two, Vivie was putting on shows in the living room for the whole family to see.

“She would make all of us sit on the couch — grandparents and everybody — and watch her show,” Elizabeth said. But it was after a Miley Cyrus concert at the FedEx Forum in Memphis that a then five-year old Vivie told her mother that someday it would be her up on that stage that all the people would be coming to see, that her mother knew she was serious about a career in show business.

“We were coming out of the FedEx and she looked at me as serious as she could and said ‘Mama, when I do my show here are you going to come see me?’,” Elizabeth said. “I was like, ‘well, yeah.’ She was all serious.”

Vivie used to watch a lot of Disney and musicals on TV and liked going to concerts.

“I was like three when I started to sing,” Vivie said.

“I would tell my mom ‘I want to do that.’ So I started getting an interest in that.”

The 12 year-old sixth grader at Bragg Elementary in West Memphis has already racked up quite an impressive singing and acting resume.

Vivie takes voice lessons from noted coach Bob Westbrook, who helped launch an 8 year-old Justin Timberlake on his path to singing stardom, and is currently in rehearsals for Shrek Jr. in Memphis.

She’s had parts in Memphis productions of “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” “Lifetime of Christmas,” movie roles in productions by Columbia University film students, was a finalist for the third year in a row in “Star of the Fair” competition at the Delta Fair and Music Festival, and was the only child invited to sing solo at the popular holiday spectacular “Starry Nights” at Shelby Farms.

“It’s just a passion of hers,” Elizabeth said.

Last summer, Vivie went to New York City with Westbrook for auditions and got some acting and voice lessons from Broadway star Laura Michelle Kelly of “Finding Neverland.”

“It was really fun,” Vivie said. “I got to do a lot of masters classes with people from Broadway.”

She’s also been out to Los Angeles with Westbrook, where she met with an agent who is interested in signing her to a contract and getting her into some roles when next summer’s television pilot season starts.

“It was really fun,” Vivie said. “I keep telling my mom that we are moving out there.”

Elizabeth said the agent wants Vivie to take nine more months of voice and acting lessons.

“She spent a week in LA and had auditions with all kinds of people,” Elizabeth said. “Bob Westbrook is really hopeful her time will come. He knows the industry and which ones will make it. He’s always been very supportive and encouraging of her. He said she will end up somewhere, some day getting paid to act.”

Television audiences will soon get to see her on the small screen.

Vivie was an extra in three scenes in CMT’s production of “Million Dollar Quartet which was filmed in and around Memphis.

“The first scene I did was at a carnival,” Vivie said.

“That was a long experience. We were there from seven at night until three in the morning. I was an extra in that but they pulled me aside and did some close up scenes.

“The other scene I did I was supposed to be an extra, but then I became a featured extra. The director pulled me aside and said I want you in the wedding. I was a bride’s maid. And then I did a church scene and we went to Marion to film that.”

Vivie originally thought that she wanted to focus on a stage and Broadway career, but after being on the set and in front of the camera she has decided that she likes TV and movies better.

“At first I liked Broadway

music and the acting,”

Vivie said. “But when I filmed “Million Dollar Quartet” I found that I liked being around the camera.

That was really fun for me.”

The aspiring actress said she would love to act in movies like “Into the Woods” but could also see herself in a big budget superhero movie as well.

“I wouldn’t turn down a theater job,” Vivie said.

“But I like film more. I like Disney and mostly movies like “Into the Woods” — something that has some music in it. I love that kind of movie.”

Mom Elizabeth is excited for Vivie and will probably move to LA to help Vivie launch her career. But don’t expect her to be one of “those” type of stage moms.

“She’s really determined,” Elizabeth said. “The whole time she was in LA she was text messaging me pictures of apartments that were for rent. But I always say I am not going to be Lindsay Lohan’s mother. I’m not like that. I don’t even tell her she has got to practice.”

By Mark Randall