Leslie Uggams

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Leslie Uggams (born May 25, 1943 in New York City) is an African American actress and singer, best known for her Tony Award-winning work in Hallelujah, Baby!

Uggams first started in show business in 1950, playing the niece of Ethel Waters on the television series Beulah. She was a regular on Sing Along with Mitch, starring record producer/conductor Mitch Miller. Since then, she has had a variety show added to her list of credits (The Leslie Uggams Show) as well as one of the lead roles in Roots, as Kizzy. Uggams also starred in the 1975 film Poor Pretty Eddy (a.k.a. Poor Pretty Eddie, Black Vengeance and Redneck County), in which she played a popular singer who, upon being stranded in the deep South, is abused and humiliated by the perverse denizens of a backwoods town. In the movie, co-starring Shelley Winters and Slim Pickens, her character is violently raped (in a scene intercut with images of dogs copulating), whipped by a psychotic Elvis impersonator (played by Michael Christian), and is forced to perform oral sex upon a drunk hillbilly.

She has appeared on Hollywood Squares, and fell victim to one of Paul Lynde's more famous quips. After being asked if Roman legend says that God made the people of the world in a large oven, Lynde looked at her and remarked "Looks like you were overcooked."

During the 1980s she replaced Patti LuPone as "Reno Sweeney" in the Lincoln Centre Theatre revival of Cole Porter's musical Anything Goes. Later Broadway roles include Muzzy in the 2002 Tony Award winning musical Thoroughly Modern Millie and Ethel Thayer in the play On Golden Pond at the Cort Theatre (4/7/2005 - 6/26/2005).

In 1996, she played the role of Rose Keefer on All My Children.

Preceded by: Barbara Harris for The Apple Tree	Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical 1968 for Hallelujah, Baby!	Succeeded by: Angela Lansbury for Dear World