Leslie Uggams

Leslie Marian Uggams (/ˈʌɡəmz/; born May 25, 1943) is an American actress and singer. Her career began as a child in the 1950s and she has since received acclaim for her role in the Broadway musical Hallelujah, Baby!, winning a Theatre World Award in 1967 and the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1968. She is perhaps most recognized for her role as Kizzy Reynolds in the television miniseries Roots (1977), for which she received Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations. Her later roles include Blind Al in the Deadpool superhero films, Leah Walker on the Fox musical drama series Empire, Agnes Ellison in the comedy-drama film American Fiction, and Betty Pearson in the Amazon Original series Fallout.

Uggams was born in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City to Juanita Ernestine (Smith), a Cotton Club chorus girl/dancer, and Harold Coyden Uggams, an elevator operator, maintenance man, and singer with the Hall Johnson choir. She attended the Professional Children's School of New York and Juilliard. Her early work includes being a child performer at the famed Apollo Theater in Harlem, alongside Ella Fitzgerald, and her professional debut at the age of six on Jack Barry's NBC show Stars And Stardust. Her breakthrough came on The Lawrence Welk Show. She was the first black person to host a network variety show since the mid-1950s with The Leslie Uggams Show in 1969. Her roles in film include appearances in Skyjacked, Black Girl, Poor Pretty Eddie, and Sugar Hill. She won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1983 for hosting the NBC game show Fantasy. She has been married to Grahame Pratt since 1965 with whom she shares two children, Danielle and Justice.