Leslie Uggams

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search
Leslie Uggams
Leslie Uggams 1971.JPG
Uggams in 1971.
Born Leslie Marian Uggams[1]
(1943-05-25) May 25, 1943 (age 81)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Nationality American
Education Juilliard School
Occupation Actress, singer
Years active 1950–present
Spouse(s) Grahame Pratt (m. 1965)
Children 2
Awards Theatre World Award
1967 Hallelujah, Baby!
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical
1968 Hallelujah, Baby!
Emmy Award for Outstanding Hostess in a Variety Series
1983 Fantasy
TV Land Anniversary Award
2007 Roots
Website leslieuggams.com

Leslie Marian Uggams (born May 25, 1943) is an American actress and singer. She is known for her work in the 1967 broadway musical Hallelujah, Baby! for which she won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical and a Theatre World Award (1967); as Kizzy Reynolds in the 1977 television miniseries Roots.

Life and career

Early life

Uggams was born in New York City, the daughter of Juanita (Smith), a Cotton Club chorus girl, and Harold Uggams, an elevator operator and maintenance man.[2] Her father was a singer with the Hall Johnson choir and her mother was a dancer.[3] She attended the Professional Children's School of New York and Juilliard.[3][4] She met her husband, Grahame Pratt while she was performing in Sydney; they married in 1965. After their wedding, the couple decided to reside in New York, in part to avoid Australia's racial segregation laws of that time.[4]

Early work

Uggams started in show business as a child in 1950, playing the niece of Ethel Waters on Beulah. Uggams made her singing debut on the Lawrence Welk Show and was a regular on Sing Along with Mitch, starring record producer-conductor Mitch Miller.[3] In 1960, she sang, off-screen, "Give Me That Old Time Religion" in the film Inherit the Wind. Uggams came to be recognized by TV audiences as an upcoming teen talent in 1954 on the NBC/CBS hit musical quiz show series Name That Tune (1953–59), along with child hitmaker Eddie Hodges. Her records "One More Sunrise"(an English-language cover of Ivo Robic's "Morgen", 1959) and "House Built on Sand" made Billboard magazine's charts.

Television and film

She appeared in her own television variety show, The Leslie Uggams Show in 1969. This was the first network variety show to be hosted by an African American since "The Nat 'King' Cole Show" of the mid-1950's. [5] She had a lead role in the 1977 miniseries Roots, for which she received an Emmy nomination, as Kizzy.[6] In 1979, she starred as Lillian Rogers Parks in Backstairs at the White House, a miniseries for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Actress. She also made guest appearances on such television programs as Hollywood Squares, Fantasy, The Muppet Show, The Love Boat and Magnum, P.I.. In 1996, Uggams played the role of Rose Keefer on All My Children.[3] Her film career included roles in Skyjacked (1972), Black Girl (1972) and Poor Pretty Eddie (1975), 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.[7] She later appeared in Sugar Hill (1994) opposite Wesley Snipes, and was cast as Blind Al in Deadpool in July 2015.[8]

Stage

Uggams was picked to star in Hallelujah, Baby! after Lena Horne declined the role of Georgina. The musical premiered on Broadway in 1967 and "created a new star" in Uggams.[9] She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a musical (in a tie with Patricia Routledge).[10] She appeared on Broadway in the revue Blues in the Night in 1982 and in the musical revue of the works of Jerry Herman, Jerry's Girls in 1985.[11] Uggams replaced Patti LuPone as Reno Sweeney in the Lincoln Center revival of Cole Porter's musical Anything Goes on Broadway in March 1989. She had played Reno in a US tour in 1988–1989.[12] Later Broadway roles include Muzzy in Thoroughly Modern Millie (2003–2004) and Ethel Thayer in On Golden Pond at the Kennedy Center in 2004[13] and on Broadway at the Cort Theatre in 2005.[14] In 2001, she appeared in the August Wilson play King Hedley II,[15] receiving a nomination for the Tony Award, Best Actress in a Play.[16] In January 2009, Uggams played Lena Horne in a production of the stage musical Stormy Weather at the Pasadena Playhouse in California.[17] In June 2012, Uggams played Muzzy in a production of Thoroughly Modern Millie at The Muny in Saint Louis, Missouri.[18] In 2014, she starred as Rose in Connecticut Repertory Theatre's Nutmeg Summer Series production of Gypsy.

Discography

  • The Eyes of God (Columbia CS8174, 1959)
  • So in Love! (Columbia CS8871, 1963)
  • A Time to Love (Atlantic 8128, 1966)
  • What's An Uggams? (Atlantic SD8196, 1968)
  • Just to Satisfy You (Atlantic SD8241, 1969)
  • Leslie (Columbia CS9936, 1970)
  • Try To See It My Way (Sonday SL8000, 1972)
  • Leslie Uggams (Motown M6846S1, 1975)

Awards and nominations

Supersisters trading card set

  • 1979: (one of the cards featured Uggams's name and picture)[19]

Ovation Awards

Honorary Degrees

References

<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />

Cite error: Invalid <references> tag; parameter "group" is allowed only.

Use <references />, or <references group="..." />

External links

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

  1. ↑ [1]
  2. ↑ http://www.filmreference.com/film/35/Leslie-Uggams.html
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "Leslie Uggams Biography" allmusic.com, accessed July 15, 2015
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ "The Leslie Uggams Show" museum.tv, accessed March 4, 2012
  6. ↑ "Roots" museum.tv, accessed March 4, 2012
  7. ↑ " 'Poor Pretty Eddie' Synopsis" tcm.com, accessed March 4, 2012
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Siegel, Naomi. "Theater Review; Of Its Moment: 1967" The New York Times, October 24, 2004
  10. ↑ "Tony AWards, 1968" broadwayworld.com, accessed March 5, 2012
  11. ↑ Rich, Frank. "Theater: 'Jerry's Girls,' A Musical Entertainment" The New York Times, December 19, 1985
  12. ↑ Nemy, Enid. "On Stage" The New York Times, March 17, 1989
  13. ↑ Jones, Kenneth. "James Earl Jones and Leslie Uggams Open in 'On Golden Pond' Oct. 2" playbill.com, October 2, 2004
  14. ↑ Jones, Kenneth. "Jones and Uggams Face Facts of Family Life in Broadway Return of 'On Golden Pond' " playbill.com, April 7, 2005
  15. ↑ Brantley, Ben. "Theater Review: The Agonized Arias Of Everyman In Poverty and Pain" The New York Times, May 2, 2001
  16. ↑ "Tony Award, 2001" broadwayworld.com, accessed March 5, 2012
  17. ↑ Jones, Kenneth. Stormy Weather, Musical of Horne's Life, Starring Uggams, Begins West Coast Premiere" playbill.com, January 21, 2009
  18. ↑ "Press Release, Thoroughly Modern Millie " muny2.org, accessed March 4, 2012
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Retrieved from "https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=Leslie_Uggams&oldid=4525068"