Denise Nicholas

Born Donna Denise Nicholas on July 12, 1944 in Detroit, Michigan,  she is an African-American actress and social activist who was involved in the American Civil Rights Movement. At age 16, she appeared on the August 25, 1960, cover of Jet magazine as a future school teacher prospect at the National High School Institute at Northwestern University. She graduated from Milan High School in 1961. Nicholas is the middle child of three, with an older brother, Otto, and a younger sister, Michele, who was murdered. She entered the University of Michigan as a Pre-Law major, but she later switched her major to Latin-American politics, Spanish, and English. She subsequently transferred to Tulane University, and majored in Fine Arts. She left college early to join the Free Southern Theater, during the Civil Rights Movement. After spending two years touring the deep South with that theater group, Nicholas went to New York City and joined the Negro Ensemble Company, working in all productions during the first season of that theatre ensemble. From the stage of the St. Mark's Playhouse in New York, Nicholas was cast as Liz McIntyre, the Guidance Counselor on ABC series Room 222 (1969-74).

Another notable role was as Councilwoman Harriet DeLong on the NBC/CBS drama series In the Heat of the Night (1989-1995). Nicholas wrote six episodes of the series, beginning her second career as a writer. When that show was cancelled, she enrolled in the Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California. She has also received her Bachelor of Arts in Drama from USC. She eventually found her way to the Journeymen's Writing Workshop under the tutelage of author Janet Fitch. She worked with Fitch for five years. Nicholas also attended the Squaw Valley Community of Writers Workshop, and the Natalie Goldberg Workshop, in Taos, New Mexico. 

Nicholas began her television acting career in 1968, with an episode of It Takes a Thief.  She landed other roles in television shows such as The F.B.I. (1969), N.Y.P.D. (1967-1969), The Flip Wilson Show (1970),  a Night Gallery episode "Logoda's Heads" (1971), Love, American Style (1972),  Police Story (1975), and Rhoda (1975). Later TV roles include: Marcus Welby, M.D. (1975), Baby, I'm Back (1977-1978), The Love Boat (1980-82), Benson (1980), Diff'rent Strokes (1980), One Day at a Time (1983), Magnum, P.I. (1983), Hotel (1987), 227 (1988), Amen (1988), The Cosby Show (1989), A Different World as well as Law & Order (1990), Hangin' with Mr. Cooper (1992), The Parent 'Hood (1995), and Living Single (1997). Her film roles include Blacula (1972), Let's Do It Again (1975), A Piece of the Action (1977), Marvin & Tige (1983), Mother's Day (1989), Ghost Dad (1990), and Proud (2004).

Her first novel, Freshwater Road, was published by Agate Publishing, in August 2005. it received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and was selected as one of the best books of 2005 by The Washington Post, The Detroit Free Press, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Newsday and The Chicago Tribune. The novel won the Zora Neal Hurston/Richard Wright Award for debut fiction in 2006, as well as the American Library Association's Black Caucus Award for debut fiction the same year. Freshwater Road was reprinted by Pocket Books. Brown University commissioned Nicholas to write a staged adaptation of Freshwater Road, which was presented in May 2008.

In the 1970s, Nicholas married soul singer-songwriter Bill Withers. The couple later divorced. Nicholas later married former football player and CBS sports anchor Jim Hill, whom she divorced in 1984.



(bio via Wikipedia)

Lonette McKee

Born in Detroit, Michigan on July 22, 1954, Lonette McKee is an American film, television and theater actress, music composer, producer, songwriter, screenwriter and director. She is most known for her role as Sister Williams in the original 1976 musical-drama film Sparkle.

McKee began her career in the music business in Detroit as a child prodigy. She started writing music/lyrics, singing, playing keyboards and performing at the age of seven. At age fourteen, she recorded her first record, which became an instant regional pop/R&B hit. McKee wrote the title song for the film Quadroon when she was just fifteen. Several years later, McKee was launched to stardom with her critically acclaimed performance in Sparkle. She has written and produced three solo LPs, including Natural Love which was produced for Spike Lee's Columbia "40 Acres and A Mule" label in 1992. McKee also scored the music for the well-received cable documentary on the Lower Manhattan African Burial Ground, as well as numerous infomercials. She has toured extensively throughout the world for concert performances which include the JVC Jazz Festival at Carnegie Hall. McKee has studied film directing at The New School in New York and apprenticed directing with filmmaker Spike Lee. She also studied singing with Dini Clark and ballet with Sarah Tayir, both in Los Angeles.

McKee won critical acclaim for her Broadway debut performance in the musical The First in 1981, co-starring in the role of Jackie Robinson's wife Rachel. She later became the first African American to play the coveted role of Julie in the Houston Grand Opera's production of Show Boat in 1983 on Broadway, for which she received a Tony Award nomination for Actress in a Musical. Her tragic portrayal of jazz legend Billie Holiday in the one-woman musical drama, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill won critical acclaim, standing ovations, and a 1987 Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Musical. McKee is currently developing plans to establish a performance arts center in the New York tri-state area. McKee performs her one-woman memoir with music on stages throughout the country. She is now working to produce her first feature film Dream Street, which she wrote and will direct.

McKee was married to youth counselor Leo Compton from 1983 until 1990. She later lived in an Upper East Side brownstone with her companion, musician Bryant McNeil. The two had met while they were working together on McKee's Natural Love album. McKee currently teaches a master acting workshop at Centenary College of New Jersey, where she serves as an adjunct professor in the Theater Arts department.

Vonetta McGee

Movie siren Vonetta McGee was born Lawrence Vonetta McGee in San Francisco, California on January 14, 1945. She was an African-American actress best known for her roles in Blaxploitation era movies in the 1970's. McGee graduated from San Francisco Polytechnic High School in 1962, then enrolled later into San Francisco State University, and became involved in acting groups on campus.

McGee appeared in films such as Hammer, Melinda, Blacula, Shaft in Africa and 1974's Thomasine & Bushrod alongside her then-boyfriend Max Julien. In the action thriller Shaft in Africa (1973), McGee took the role of Aleme, the daughter of an emir, who teaches John Shaft (Richard Roundtree) Ethiopian geography. In the 1975 action thriller The Eiger Sanction, she starred alongside Clint Eastwood. She also appeared in an episode of the TV series Starsky & Hutch named "Black and Blue" in 1979.

McGee was in a live-in relationship with Max Julien during the early-to-mid 1970s. In 1987, McGee married actor Carl Lumbly. They had one child, Brandon, born in 1988. McGee died of cardiac arrest on July 9, 2010, at the age of 65. At the age of 17, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, although her death was not related to the disease.

Judy Pace

Born Judy Lenteen Pace on June 15, 1942, she is an African-American actress, known for roles in television and film from the 60's, up until the late 80's. Most notably as Vickie Fletcher on the TV series Peyton Place (1968-1969), and Pat Walters on the ABC drama series The Young Lawyers (1969-1971), for which she won an Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series in 1970.

She appeared in many televisions shows, which include: Batman, Tarzan, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Flying Nun, I Spy, The Mod Squad, That's My Mama, Kung Fu, Sanford and Son, Good Times and What's Happening!! She also appeared in several popular Blaxploitation movies during the 1970's. She was married to her second husband, the late baseball player Kurt Flood, from 1986, until his death in 1997. They met on the TV game show The Dating Game. Her first husband was actor Don Mitchell, who played the character Mark Sanger on the television series Ironside, starring Raymond Burr. Her daughter (with Mitchell) is actress Julia Pace Mitchell, who is best known for her role as Sofia Dupre on the soap opera The Young and the Restless.