Leslie Uggams
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Leslie Uggams (born May 25, 1943 in New York City) is American actress and singer, best known for her Tony Award-winning work in Hallelujah, Baby!
Uggams first started in show business as a child 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. In 1960 she sang "Give Me That Old Time Religion" in the film Inherit the Wind.
She would audition for the lead part in the film Cleopatra, but would lose out to Elizabeth Taylor. (Actress Dorothy Dandridge was also in the running, when director Rouben Mamoulian was to direct, but her part was lost when the director was taken off the project).[1][2]
Since then, Uggams 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 (also called 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.
Uggams appeared on TV gameshow Hollywood Squares. After being asked if Roman legend says that God made the people of the world in a large oven, fellow contestant Paul Lynde looked at her and remarked "Looks like you were overcooked".
During the 1980s Uggams appeared in Blues in the Night, Jerry's Girls, and replaced Patti LuPone as Reno Sweeney in the Lincoln Center revival of Cole Porter's musical Anything Goes. Later Broadway roles include Muzzy in Thoroughly Modern Millie and Ethel Thayer in On Golden Pond at the Cort Theatre. In 1996, Uggams played the role of Rose Keefer on All My Children. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.
In the cartoon series The Simpsons it is revealed in one episode that Marge is a fan of Leslie Uggams, much to the confusion of her children.
She will appear as Lena Horne in the stage musical "Stormy Weather" in January and February 2009 at the Pasadena Playhouse in California.
She had a small role in the Alvin and The Chipmunks movie.
She will be featured in The First Breeze of Summer, performed by the Historic Negro Ensemble Company and produced by Signature Theatre Company
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Official Web Site
- Leslie Uggams at the Internet Movie Database
- Leslie Uggams at the Internet Broadway Database
- Leslie Uggams - Downstage Center interview at American Theatre Wing.org
