Lynn Whitfield

Lynn Whitfield

Active - 1982 - 2023  |   Born - May 6, 1953 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States  |   Genres - Drama, Mystery, Comedy

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Biography by AllMovie

African American leading lady Lynn Whitfield made her film bow in 1983's Dr. Detroit. Three years later, the Louisiana born and bred Whitfield played the title character in the fact-based TV movie Johnnie Mae Gibson: FBI, the story of the first black female FBI agent. After gaining recognition for her work in a number of TV dramas, including The Women of Brewster Place (1990), Whitfield won an Emmy award and international acclaim for her starring performance in the HBO biopic The Josephine Baker Story in 1991. Whitfield subsequently split her efforts between TV and film, doing particularly strong work in Kasi Lemmons' much-feted Eve's Bayou (1997) as a family matriarch struggling with her husband's infidelity. In 1999, she earned an NAACP Image Award nomination for her work in Oprah Winfrey Presents: The Wedding, a 1950s drama in which she was cast as the wealthy mother of a young woman (Halle Berry) intent on marrying a poor white musician.

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Factsheet

  • Father founded a community theater in Baton Rouge.
  • Third-generation graduate of Howard University and member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
  • Was a member of D.C. Black Repertory Company for three years, during which time she performed in stage productions of Owen's Song and Changes.
  • Starred in a national tour of Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Not Enuf opposite Alfre Woodard during the late 1970s.
  • Began acting in television series in the early 1980s, appearing in Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, Miami Vice and other popular shows.
  • Won the 1993 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama for her starring role in the HBO movie The Josephine Baker Story.
  • Participated in Essence magazine's empowerment panel alongside her daughter in 2015.