- Born
- Birth nameKimberly Monique Hart
- Nickname
- Cat
- Height5′ 11″ (1.80 m)
- Cat Ellington is an American songwriter/composer, casting director, poet, author, voice-over actress, and entrepreneur from Chicago, IL. She is best known for her creative contributions to the diverse industries and fields of music, movies, art, and literature.
Active in the entertainment industry since 1993, Ellington, commissioned through Vital Vision Productions, began her work as an executive casting director on Dual Mania in that same year. And she would later supply original music to the film soundtrack through the Black Jaguar Music Company, including the award-winning track titled "I Do," which Ellington co-produced with multi-talented musician, Princeton Brown.
Through her extended work in the prestigious field of literature, Cat Ellington is also notable for authoring and co-authoring a collection of nonfiction books, including the Reviews by Cat Ellington series, which specializes in literary criticism, and The Making of Dual Mania: Filmmaking Chicago Style, a work on which she collaborated with fellow writer and Chicago theater critic B.J. Patterson, and filmmaker Joseph Strickland, the latter to whom Ellington is married.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Nicole Johnston
- SpouseJoseph Strickland(December 31, 1994 - present) (3 children)
- Children
- Gender / Gender identityFemale
- Pronounsshe/her
- Race / EthnicityBlack / African American
- Nationality / Religious or Ethnic identityAmerican
- Coined the phrase 'Make life a stone groove.'
- Writes in title case.
- Cloché hats, bootcut jeans, and low-top Chuck Taylor All Star sneakers.
- Chunky charm bracelets and jingle charm anklets.
- Has a tendency to address people by both their first and last names.
- Cat Ellington wrote her first song, titled "The Baby's Song", in 1981 when she had been just 10 years old.
- Before it's official name change in 2005, Cat Ellington's Black Jaguar Music Company was named Black Jaguar Songs.
- In her creative hat as a casting director, it took Cat Ellington two years to cast the independent feature film Dual Mania.
- As a poet, Cat Ellington published a poetic production that pays honorable tribute to the South Side of her native Chicago.
- Cat Ellington is the founder of three companies, including The Black Jaguar Music Company in 1982, The Centaur Casting Agency in 1996, and Quill Pen Ink Publishing in 2005.
- Songwriters are the architects of the music industry. Without a songwriter there could not, and would not, be a music industry. We create the blueprint.
- Anytime any filmmaker on the face of the Earth gets a film in the can, he or she did it. Even if they shoot just one scene, they did something. Because as I now know, getting a picture made, especially an independent picture, is a lot of hard, stressful work.
- Because of my husband, director Joseph Strickland, filmmaking, in it's very art form, has become a part of me. I have learned to respect it, admire it, and truly love it. And I am grateful to now be a member of its professional culture and community.
- Show business may be cutthroat and full of overly-ambitious hustlers, but I still love it to the marrow of my bones.
- Diversity is key where my casting duties are concerned. And as a casting director, I will always assemble multi-cultural ensembles. Always.
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