Versatile black player with stage, TV and film experience who appeared on Broadway in "Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music" (1981) and gained notice for two quite different but equally impressive performances in 1991: as the attractive, intelligent Bensonhurst woman who dates John Turturro in Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever", and as the harried mother who favors one son (Morris Chestnut) over the other (Ice Cube) in John Singleton's forceful coming-of-age drama, "Boyz N the Hood".
Education
-
Houston High School of Performing Arts, Houston, Texas
Milestones
-
1984 Feature film debut, Gimme an F
-
1986 First TV role, Are You My Mother? For ABC s Afterschool Specials
-
1987 Regular role on TV series, Bronx Zoo
-
1987 First feature appearance, Nuts
-
1988 First major role in a feature, School Daze
-
Appeared in stage productions including, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music (1981) and Ain t Misbehavin on Broadway and the national touring company of Dreamgirls
-
Moved from Houston to New York after high school
-
Moved to Los Angeles
-
While a high school senior, played Portia in a University of Texas at Austin production of The Merchant of Venice