Date of Birth

17 December 1989, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Birth Name

Chord Paul Overstreet

Height

6' (1.83 m)

Mini Biography

Chord Overstreet was born in Nashville, Tennessee, to Julie (Miller), a make-up artist, and Paul Overstreet, a country musician and songwriter whose own father was a pastor. Chord and his five siblings were raised in a creative and music-filled environment, with their father highly involved in the music industry. His brother, Nash Overstreet, is in the band Hot Chelle Rae.

After Chord graduated from high school in 2007, he decided to pursue performing as a career from the encouragement and support of his parents, and from his talent of singing, acting, and playing instruments. Unfortunately, the first two to three years after high school were unsuccessful for Chord; only making small guest appearances on various television shows such as iCarly (2007) and Private (2009).

In early 2010, Chord received a call from his manager, urging him to audition for an open casting call for the FOX television series Glee (2009). After several callbacks and audition performances, Chord got the role of quarterback turned glee club member, Sam Evans, for the hit show. Since Chord's debut performance on the season premiere of the 2nd season of Glee (2009), he has received critical and commercial praise and success for his performance on the show, along with a large following of dedicated and loving fans.

Trivia

• Parents: Julie and Paul Overstreet.
• Siblings: Nash (older brother), Summer (older sister), Harmony (younger sister), Skye (younger sister), and Charity (younger sister).
• He modeled in advertisements for Famous Footwear and Gap when he was a teenager.
• His brother, Nash, is also a musician, and is a member of the band Hot Chelle Rae.
• Loves to play the mandolin, flute, drums, and guitar.
• Participated in football, baseball, soccer, hockey, and basketball while growing up.
• His father, Paul, is a musician and songwriter and his mother, Julie, is a make-up artist.
• Named one of People Magazine's 'Sexiest Men Alive' (2010).
• Was offered $100,000 to appear in 'Playgirl', but turned it down.
• Appeared in the music video "Tonight, Tonight" by the group Hot Chelle Rae, which his brother Nash is a member of.
• Friends with Taylor Swift.
• He landed the role of Sam Evans on Glee (2009) after auditioning with The Commodores' "Easy" and Gavin DeGraw's "I Don't Want to Be". He later sang "Billionaire" by Travie McCoy featuring Bruno Mars as a studio test, and eventually sang this in the season premiere of the show, along with "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" by Bret Michaels.
• Appeared in the opening skit of the 2011 CMT Music Awards (2011), featuring good friend, Taylor Swift and Shania Twain.
• Good friends with Glee (2009) co-stars, Dianna Agron, Chris Colfer, Lea Michele, Naya Rivera, and Cory Monteith.
• Childhood friend of Demi Lovato.
• He is of English, German, and Scots-Irish (Northern Irish) ancestry.
• Distant cousin of actress Sarah Jessica Parker. Both descend from the Samuel Elwell and Esther Dutch who lived in Salem Massachusetts during the witch trials. Their common ancestor Esther was actually almost tried as a witch.
• His father Paul Overstreet co-wrote the country song 'When You Say Nothing At All', made famous by Ronan Keating.

Trademarks:

• His full lips
  

Quotes

• [on the meaning of his first name] My dad is in the music business in Nashville. I was the third child born in my family, and there are three notes in a chord, so that's how they came up with my name.
• [on how he landed his role on Glee (2009)] Well I originally auditioned for Sue Sylvester's (Jane Lynch's) stand-in because we have the same color hair....No, I'm kidding! I actually got a call from my agent and he asked if I could come down and do an audition for Glee (2009) in like 30 minutes. So I grabbed my guitar and ran over there, and there were so many people in the casting office that they weren't even having people read the lines, they were just having people play a song. So I played one, and they asked me to come back and talk to the casting agent. Then I played the same song again and they asked me to walk out and "discreetely" get my lines, and come back and read. I was there for like five hours. Then I went home and they called and asked me to come back and sing two songs acapella. So then I sang two songs for the studio test and two for the network test and this was all at like 9:30 at night. A week later, I found out I got the part.
• I got my first instrument for Christmas when I was three or four years old. My parents got me a mandolin because it was the only instrument that would fit me because I was so small. I went straight from that into the drums when I was six, and then I started playing guitar when I was seven or eight.