Kay Panabaker

Stephanie Kay Panabaker was born on May 2, 1990, in Orange County, Texas, to Donna (née Mayock) and Harold Panabaker, III.^[3] As children, she and her older sister, Danielle Panabaker, started acting at various community theatres in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. Their family relocated to Los Angeles so the sisters could further their acting careers.

Panabaker graduated from high school, in 2003, at 13 years old and was valedictorian.^[4] She graduated from Glendale Community College with an associate degree when she was 15 and from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a Bachelor of Arts in history when she was 17.^[3][5][6]

Panabaker began her film and TV career in the early 2000s, with guest roles in popular shows like 7th Heaven, ER, and Angel, and small parts in theatrical releases like Monsters, Inc. and Dead Heat.^[7]

As a teenager, Panabaker and her sister found regular work as actors on the Disney Channel. In 2004, she appeared as Debbie Berwick, a friendly cyborg, on Phil of the Future. Her character was written out of the show after the first season. After that, she went onto star in two Disney Channel original films, Life is Ruff (2005) and Read It and Weep (2006), the latter in which she acted opposite Danielle. In 2006, Panabaker appeared in the Disney Channel Games, on the same team as Zac Efron, Anneliese van der Pol, Moises Arias, Dylan Sprouse, and Shin Koyamada. Her final appearance on the Disney Channel came in 2007, with a guest appearance as Amber on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.

From 2004 to 2005, Panabaker starred as Nikki Westerly, a teen girl who moves to the fictional Californian town of Playa Linda to live with her aunt, portrayed by Lori Loughlin, after the death of her parents, on the WB drama Summerland. Panabaker acted alongside fellow teen idols Zac Efron, who played her love interest, and Jesse McCartney, who played her brother. The series ran for two seasons. In a 2016 interview with Naperville Magazine, Panabaker said working on the show wasn't a good experience, and that producers asked her to lose weight, despite her not even weighing 100 lbs at the time.^[8]

Panabaker remained in Los Angeles and continued to act for several years after the conclusion of Summerland, but said her passion for acting never returned. After Summerland, she continued to make one-time appearances in popular TV shows like Grey's Anatomy, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Ghost Whisperer, and returned to theatrical films, starring in Fame, the 1980 teen musical drama of the same name, in 2009, and in Little Birds, which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, in 2011.^[9]

In 2010, Panabaker joined the main cast of the sci-fi drama series No Ordinary Family, playing Daphne, a 16-year-old who becomes telepathic after surviving a plane crash. While the show's early episodes were positively received by audiences and critics, later episodes, which saw Daphne and her family take on more traditional action hero roles and focused less on their family dynamic, weren't as well-received and ABC decided not to renew the show for a second season.^[6][10][11]

Her final acting role was as Rosa in Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3: Viva la Fiesta! (2012).^[12]

Since 2016, Panabaker has been a zookeeper for Disney's Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Bay Lake, Florida.^[13][14]

Panabaker previously held a Seat on the National Board of the Coalition for Quality Children's Media. As of 2020 this was no longer the case.^[16]