Weldon Sipe

Weldon Sipe is most known for developing the Newhall Ranch (a 38,000 acre parcel just north of Los Angeles) into the largest and most used movie ranch in the history of cinema. During his seven year management, more than 15 movie sets became permanent locations and movie activity reached more than 300 shoots per year and as many as 9 companies a day. The largest set ever build was for The Thornbirds, and the Little House on The Prarie town was located on the ranch for 9 years. He started out his career as a Location Scout and Manager and worked for all major studios except Disney before relocating to Los Angeles. Weldon officially an actor in 1979 after studying acting for 2 years on the Warner Ranch at the Film Actors Workshop, but his first speaking part was with Larry Hagman in Up In The Cellar (1970). He has speaking roles in Supercross The Movie (1987) (originally titled Winners Take All) and in a TV movie: Great American Traffic Jam. Today he teaches video production in North Carolina, manages a community access channel that he founded, takes acting parts only for college film production classes, and continues writing screenplays -recently completing his 7th.