Michelle Thomas

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For the linguist and language teacher, see Michel Thomas.

Michelle Thomas
Michelle Thomas
Born	September 23, 1969 Boston, Massachusetts
Died	December 22, 1998 New York City, New York

Michelle Thomas (September 23, 1969 – December 22, 1998) was an actress who is best known for her role as Myra Monkhouse, the girlfriend of Steve Urkel, on the long-running American sitcom Family Matters.

Thomas was born in Boston, Massachusetts but grew up in New York City, where she attended the Montclair School of the Arts and the Broadway Dance Center. Her mother was Phynjuar Thomas, a stage performer, and her father was Dennis Thomas, a founding member of the band Kool & the Gang. Although she has many talents, Michelle Thomas' first love was music. With both parents in the entertainment industry it's only natural that she would develop her own performing skills at a young age.

In addition to music, she studied jazz, modern and hip-hop dance at the Broadway Dance Center in New York. While attending an all-girls private school in New Jersey, she was crowned Miss Talented Teen New Jersey in Hal Jackson's Talented Teen Competition, a contest based on talent and academics. She went on to compete in the international pageant in Jamaica and was crowned International Queen in 1985.

At the age of 16, Thomas was offered a recording contract, but decided to move to Los Angeles and focus on her acting career. She landed a national commercial on her very first audition.

She appeared in a variety of television programs during the 1990s including The Cosby Show, Roseanne and The Young and the Restless (for which she was nominated for NAACP Award as outstanding African American actress in a daytime television program). In her spare time, Thomas performed with The Groundlings Theatre group.

In August 1997, Thomas was diagnosed with a rare intra-abdominal desmoplastic small round cell tumor. The illness was unusual in that it is typically found in adolescent boys. Thomas initially refused the treatment but later took treatments after her illness was deemed terminal. On December 22, 1998, Thomas died in New York City at the age of 29 from stomach cancer. Her former boyfriend, actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner, was at her side.