Tammy O'Rourke
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Tammy O'Rourke (born September 30, 1971) is a former child dancer and actress and the older sister of the late Heather O'Rourke, and was instrumental in Heather's discovery by Steven Spielberg.
She began taking tap-dancing lessons at age three, and this led to her success in local talent shows in the San Diego area. Further encouraged by her instructor, Tammy began auditioning for commercial television and movies and eventually was selected for a dancer's role in Herbert Ross's 1980 film production of Dennis Potter's drama series Pennies From Heaven. It was during this production that her sister Heather was discovered while they lunched at the studio commissary with their mother.
In the fall of 1980, Tammy was selected from an audition of over 350 child dancers, for one of ten coveted spots in the Don Crichton Dancers troupe, which would be appearing regularly on CBS's The Tim Conway Show.
The following year, Tammy was featured as one of the dancing orphans in Columbia TriStar's release of the musical Annie, appearing together with such future starlets as Amanda Peterson and Shawnee Smith.
In 1983, Tammy made her final acting appearances alongside her sister Heather in an episode of Happy Days, and lastly in an ABC Television special entitled Believe You Can, And You Can!, which starred her sister Heather and the late Morey Amsterdam and was a television promotion of the new and updated Fantasyland, one of the "themelands" at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. She retired from performing shortly thereafter.
