Holly Valance

Holly Rachel Candy (née Vukadinović; born 11 May 1983), known professionally as Holly Valance, is an Australian actress and singer. Valance began her acting career on the Australian soap opera Neighbours, as Felicity Scully (1999–2002, 2005, 2022). She released her first album, Footprints (October 2002), which provided her top 3 singles, "Kiss Kiss" (April 2002), "Down Boy" (September) and "Naughty Girl" (December). By that time she had relocated to Los Angeles. Her second and final album, State of Mind, appeared in November 2003. Her film roles include, DOA: Dead or Alive (2006), Pledge This! (2006), Taken (2008) and Kambakkht Ishq (2009). Valance has lived in her mother's native United Kingdom since 2009 and became a contestant on the BBC One dance competition Strictly Come Dancing in 2011. In 2013, she was a mentor and judge of fashion competition, Shopaholic Showdown. In September 2012, Valance married British property developer Nick Candy; the couple have two children. Holly Valance was born on 11 May 1983, as Holly Rachel Vukadinović, in Fitzroy, Victoria to a Serbian father, Rajko Vukadinović, and a British mother, Rachel (née Stephens), of English and Spanish descent. Her father was a former pianist and model in his native Belgrade, Serbia, former Yugoslavia. Her mother, whose father was a relative of Benny Hill, was a model in the United Kingdom. Valance's parents divorced in 1986 and she has a sister, Coco. Rajko later remarried, and Holly has a half-sister, Olympia, who has also acted in Neighbours (2014–2018). In Melbourne Rajko ran a "trendy imported European clothes store". She started modelling as a teenager, when "she posed for supermarket catalogues and ad campaigns and by 14 she was earning $200 an hour modelling children's clothes and teenage lingerie." Valance grew up in Melbourne and moved to the UK when she was 18; she holds both Australian and British citizenship. After two years she moved to Los Angeles, where she spent seven years before returning to the United Kingdom. In 1999 at age 16, Valance was cast in the Australian TV soap opera, Neighbours, as Felicity "Flick" Scully. Soon after gaining the role she left her Catholic school, "where girls were given detention for wearing make-up or having a hem above the knee." She appeared in Human Nature's music video for "He Don't Love You" (November 2000), "in a raunchy shower scene." Valance left Neighbours in 2002 to start her music career.