With a multifaceted range and vivacious looks, African-American actress Golden Brooks spent years developing an aptitude for stage, television and film roles of all genres. The actress transitioned from an academic track into one of performing, becoming a perennial television series staple in both comedy and drama. After years of show hopping, Brooks finally found her launching pad for success, playing Maya Wilkes, a mother who transitions from legal secretary to author while trying to sustain friendships and a marriage on the long-running UPN sitcom, “Girlfriends” (2000- ).
Brooks was born in San Francisco, CA on Dec. 1, 1970, with an upbringing that carried her across California, from the Bay area to Los Angeles. In her teenage years, she chose to go north, attending school at the University of Southern California, Berkeley. There, she put her energies toward the study of literature and sociology, earning her degree in the latter in 1994 with a focus on the media representation of minorities, along with a minor in theater. As an undergrad, Brooks appeared onstage in diverse stage productions such as “Romeo & Juliet,” Ntozake Shanges’ “For Colored Girls” and Chekov’s “The Brute.” She then went east, heading to Bronxville, NY to obtain a master’s degree in creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College. While in New York, Brooks also indulged her interest in ballet and modern dance, taking classes and studying the methods of Katherine Dunham.
In the mid 1990s, Brooks moved into television, first with an appearance on Nickelodeon’s family comedy “The Adventures of Pete & Pete” (1993-96). In 1997, production began on “Hell’s Kitchen” (1998), a New York crime drama for which Brooks played a character named Gold. The next year, she worked in Petersburg, VA as a series regular on the Showtime comedy, “Linc’s” (1998-2000), inhabiting the life of the sarcastic waitress CeCe Jennings of the titular restaurant. She took a detour into the CBS drama “Promised Land” (1996-99) in 1999 and also began production on the Mike Figgis digital video feature, “Timecode” (2000), playing Onyx Richardson.
After two seasons, in early 2000, “Linc’s” bowed from the airwaves, but Brooks still had a busy year. “Timecode” was released, followed a month later with a guest spot appearance on UPN’s hit sitcom, “The Parkers” (1999-2004). Shortly after that, Brooks segued into a pilot for another possible new series for UPN called “Girlfriends” (2000- ). The series focused on four successful women navigating love and life together in Los Angeles – a kind of African-American version of “Sex in the City” (HBO, 1998-2004) – with Brooks playing the fretful, married mother and legal secretary Maya. Thankfully, the show was picked up, with “Girlfriends” starting its run on the primetime schedule that September. At that time, Brooks found time to squeeze in a guest spot on an episode of “The Jamie Foxx Show” (WB, 1996-2001).
With “Girlfriends” beginning to take off, Brooks began building a solid relationship with the UPN family. Her “Girlfriends” character Maya popped up on a 2001 episode of the network’s Brandy vehicle, “Moesha” (1996-2001) and she was utilized on the network’s short-lived horror/thriller series, “Haunted” (2002). In a change of pace, Brooks – who had dabbled in both drama and comedy – was appearing on multiplex scenes in Miramax’s “Imposter” (2002). As the onscreen sister of Mekhi Phifer, the film reunited her with her “Hell’s Kitchen” co-star.
With the success of her sitcom, Brooks and her castmates were invited to host the NAACP Image Awards in March of 2004, having been nominees by the prestigious organization the year before. Towards the end of “Girlfriends”’ 2003-04 season, she found herself ready to jump into a film again and was cast in an MGM spinoff of the feature comedy “Barbershop” (2002), entitled “Beauty Shop” (2005), in which Brooks took on the role of the tart-tongued stylist, Chanel.
Over the course of the 2004-05 season, Brooks continued to be a prominent figure on UPN’s roster of programming. As “Girlfriends” entered into its fifth season, she helped kick off the fourth season of the network’s wildly-popular “Star Trek” spin-off, “Enterprise” (2001-05), playing Alicia Travers on back-to-back episodes in the fall of 2004. Eager to continue with more feature film work, however, she was soon back in familiar girlfriend territory as Suzette in “Something New” (2006), one of three women helping African-American actress Sanaa Lathan come to terms with her interracial romance with Caucasian hunk, Simon Baker. Back to the small screen, she stopped by for an appearance on another UPN hit, “Eve” (2003-06).
In the fall of 2006, “Girlfriends” was UPN’s highest rated show and made the transition into the era of The CW – the merging of the UPN and The WB networks. As the show entered into a prosperous seventh season, Brooks managed to find a successful balance between her regular television work, feature film roles and the stage, as well as continuing a longstanding affiliation with Los Angeles’ Robey Theatre Company and pursuing her ballet studies.