Cassandra Rae "Cassie" Steele (born December 2, 1989) is a Canadian actress and singer who is best known for portraying Manny Santos in Degrassi: The Next Generation until the ninth season. She has released two albums, How Much For Happy (March 15, 2005 in Canada and April 26, 2005 in United States) and Destructo Doll (July 21, 2009).
Cassie Steele appeared in the 2007 MTV movie, Super Sweet 16: The Movie. Steele is currently living in Los Angeles in order to concentrate on her music career. She is a former member of the band KaraMel. She attended London School of Dance in Scarborough, Ontario and trained in ballet and jazz.
Steele began crafting her own made-up songs to go with her poetry when she was in first grade, then began taking singing lessons. She has been a regular cast member on Degrassi: The Next Generation, playing the character of Manny Santos since the age of 11. At the age of 13, Steele wrote and recorded the song “Prayer,” which was used nationally to promote HIV/AIDS awareness. She has been on My Babysitter's a Vampire as the girl (Rochelle) in the Twilight parody movie.
Steele is close friends with her former co-stars Miriam McDonald, Shenae Grimes, and Nina Dobrev. She also is close friends with Sara Paxton. She is the older sister of Alex Steele, who played Angela Jeremiah, Joey Jeremiah's daughter and Craig Manning's half-sister, and Class of 2016 member, Tori Santamaria.
Steele was starring in The L.A. Complex with Kate Todd, who portrayed Natasha in Degrassi: The Next Generation, and Dayo Ade who portrayed B.L.T. Thomas from Degrassi Junior High / High.
Discography
- How Much for Happy (2005)
- Destructo Doll (2009)
- Shifty EP (2012)
- Patterns EP (2014)
Trivia
- Steele is a Sagittarius.
- In 2003, Cassie Steel co-starred as Julie in the Disney Channel Original Movie “Full Court Miracle”.
- She is Eurasian. her mother is of Filipino descent, while her father is British-Canadian.
- Cassie and Alex Steele are two out of ten actresses on Degrassi to be related. The others were Christopher Charlesworth (Scooter Webster) and Sarah Charlesworth (Susie Rivera), Anais Granofsky (Lucy Fernandez) and Lea-Helen Weir (Norah-Jean Rivera), Duncan Waugh (Arthur Kobalewscuy) and Annabelle Waugh (Dorothy), and Angela Deiseach (Erica Farrell) and Maureen Deiseach (Heather Farrell).
- It was revealed in an interview that Steele's favorite Degrassi character is Holly J. Sinclair.
- Steele stated in interview that she could be friends with her character Manny Santos.
- Her YouTube channel is joined.
- Her Degrassi co-star and close friend, Shenae Grimes, directed the music video for her new single "Mad."
- Steele starred alongside Daniel Kelly as Valerie Vont in the Lifetime movie Sorority Surrogate in 2014.
- She was the youngest member of the original cast of Degrassi: The Next Generation and the youngest regular to join the cast at the age of 11.
- She was the first actor to be younger than their character. The second was Dante Scott. Although Steele was four months younger than Manny, Scott is two years younger than Vijay.
- Her mother Lily Steele emigrated from the Philippines to Canada in 1982 with her parents and seven siblings.
- Our Lips Are Sealed (1) is the last episode in which she and her sister Alex both appear.
- She originally had the role of Gabriella in the Disney Channel Original Movie High School Musical, due to scheduling issues filming had to leave the project, she was also the first choice to play the voice of Raya in the computer-animated movie Raya and the Last Dragon, before leaving the project in 2020 and replaced by Kelly Marie Tran.
- In November 2023, she gave birth to her first child, a boy whose name she has yet to reveal.