Leslie Uggams

Leslie Uggams (born May 25, 1943, New York City) is an American actress and singer, perhaps 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 had auditioned for the lead role in the film Cleopatra, but lost out eventually to Elizabeth Taylor. (Actress Dorothy Dandridge had also been in the running, while Rouben Mamoulian was slated to direct, but lost her part when Mamoulian was taken off the project.) The Leslie Uggams Show, a television variety show, added to her list of credits and a lead role in the TV saga 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". Uggams guest-starred on The Muppet Show during its third season. During the 1980s she 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. Early in 2009, Uggams will make an appearance as legendary jazz singer Lena Horne in a production of the stage musical Stormy Weather at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. Official website: www.leslieuggams.com