Akosua Busia | |
---|---|
Born | Akosua Gyamama Busia 30 December 1966 Accra, Ghana |
Education | Central School of Speech and Drama |
Occupation(s) | Actress, film director, songwriter, author |
Years active | 1979–present |
Known for | Nettie Harris – The Color Purple |
Spouse | |
Children | 1 |
Father | Kofi Abrefa Busia |
Relatives | Abena Busia (sister) |
Website | www |
Akosua Gyamama Busia (born 30 December 1966) [1] [2] is a Ghanaian actress, writer and songwriter. She is known to film audiences for playing Nettie Harris in the 1985 film The Color Purple . She is the daughter of Ghanaian Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia.
Busia was born in Accra in 1966. She is the daughter of Kofi Abrefa Busia, who was prime minister of the Republic of Ghana (from 1969 to 1972) [3] and a prince of the royal family of Wenchi, [4] a subgroup of the Ashanti, making Akosua a princess too. [5] Her sister, Abena Busia, is a poet and academic, who was a professor in English at Rutgers University, [6] and since 2017 has been the Ghanaian ambassador to Brazil. [7]
Busia grew up in Ghana, and began her acting career at the age of 16, attending London's Central School of Speech and Drama on scholarship. [8] Her first acting role was as Juliet in an otherwise white cast, performing Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet at Oxford University, where her siblings were studying. [8]
Busia made her film debut in the 1979 adventure film Ashanti, with Michael Caine and Peter Ustinov. After moving to Los Angeles in the early 1980s, she was cast to play a supporting role in the slasher film The Final Terror , directed by Andrew Davis (The Fugitive). The film was not released until 1983, after several of its actors (including Daryl Hannah and Rachel Ward) had achieved public prominence.
Busia's film roles include a notable performance as Bessie in a 1986 film adaptation of Richard Wright's novel Native Son (with Geraldine Page and Matt Dillon. She also starred in Hard Lessons alongside Denzel Washington and Lynn Whitfield in 1986. [9] Busia played Nettie, the younger sister of Whoopi Goldberg's character Celie Harris, in Steven Spielberg's 1985 The Color Purple , [10] adapted from Alice Walker's novel of the same title, as Ruth in Badge of the Assassin (1985), as Jewel in John Singleton's Rosewood (1997), [11] and as Patience in Antoine Fuqua's Tears of the Sun (2003). [12] She has also appeared on television in the series ER . [4]
Busia is the author of The Seasons of Beento Blackbird: A Novel (Washington Square Press, 1997, ISBN 9780671014094). [13] [14] She was one of three co-writers for the screenplay adaptation of Toni Morrison's 1987 novel Beloved for the 1998 film version of the same name directed by Jonathan Demme. [15] In 2008, Busia directed a film about her father: The Prof. A Man Remembered. Life, Vision & Legacy of K.A. Busia. [16] Busia also co-wrote the song "Moon Blue" with Stevie Wonder for his album A Time 2 Love , released in 2005. [17] Her poem "Mama" is included in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa , edited by Margaret Busby. [18]
After 18-year hiatus to raise her daughter, in 2016 Busia returned to acting in the off-Broadway and Broadway production of Danai Gurira's play Eclipsed , alongside Lupita Nyong'o. [19] For her performance off-Broadway, she received an Obie Award for Distinguished Performance as Rita [20]
On 12 October 1996, Akosua Busia married the American film director John Singleton, with whom she has a daughter [15] — Hadar Busia-Singleton (born 3 April 1997); the couple divorced on 15 June 1997. Their daughter attended school in Ghana, before returning to the US. [4]
She co-founded with her sister Abena Busia the Busia Foundation International, aiming "to provide assistance to the disadvantaged". [21]
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1979 | Ashanti | The Senoufo Girl | |
1983 | The Final Terror | Vanessa | |
1984 | Louisiana | Ivy | TV movie |
1985 | Badge of the Assassin | Ruth | TV movie |
1985 | The Color Purple | Nettie Harris | |
1986 | Crossroads | Woman at Boardinghouse | |
1986 | Low Blow | Karma | |
1986 | Hard Lessons | Cynthia Byers | |
1986 | Native Son | Bessie | |
1988 | Saxo | Puppet | |
1988 | The Seventh Sign | Penny Washburn | |
1991 | New Jack City | Courtroom Spectator | Uncredited |
1997 | Rosewood | Jewel | |
1997 | Mad City | Diane | |
1997 | Ill Gotten Gains | Fey | |
2003 | Tears of the Sun | Patience | |
2007 | Ascension Day | Cherry | |
2024 | In Search of a Blessed Life | Mrs. Johnson | Drama |
John Daniel Singleton was an American director, screenwriter, and producer. He made his feature film debut writing and directing Boyz n the Hood (1991), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, becoming, at age 24, the first African American and youngest person to have ever been nominated for that award.
Ama Ata Aidoo was a Ghanaian author, poet, playwright, politician, and academic. She was Secretary for Education in Ghana from 1982 to 1983 under Jerry Rawlings's PNDC administration. Her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost, was published in 1965, making Aidoo the first published female African dramatist. As a novelist, she won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1992 with the novel Changes. In 2000, she established the Mbaasem Foundation in Accra to promote and support the work of African women writers.
Kofi Abrefa Busia was a Ghanaian political leader and academic who was Prime Minister of Ghana from 1969 to 1972. As a leader and prime minister, he helped to restore civilian government to the country following military rule.
Raphael Nii Amaa Ollennu was a jurist and judge who became a Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana from 1962 to 1966, the acting President of Ghana during the Second Republic from 7 August 1970 to 31 August 1970 and the Speaker of the Parliament of Ghana from 1969 to 1972.
The Color Purple is a 1985 American epic coming-of-age period drama film that was directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Menno Meyjes. It is based on the Pulitzer Prize–winning 1982 novel of the same name by Alice Walker and was Spielberg's eighth film as a director, marking a turning point in his career as it was a departure from the summer blockbusters for which he had become known. It was also the first feature film directed by Spielberg for which John Williams did not compose the music, instead featuring a score by Quincy Jones, who also produced. The film stars Whoopi Goldberg in her breakthrough role, with Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey, Margaret Avery, and Adolph Caesar.
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The Color Purple is a musical with music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray, based on the 1982 novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker and its 1985 film adaptation. The musical follows the journey of Celie, an African American woman in the American South from the early to mid-20th century.
Obed Yao Asamoah is a Ghanaian lawyer, academic and politician. Asamoah was the longest serving foreign minister and Attorney General of Ghana under Jerry Rawlings from 1981 to 1997. Asamoah was educated at King's College London and at Columbia University.
Victor Owusu was a Ghanaian politician and lawyer. He served as Attorney General and Minister for Justice on two occasions which were under the NLC and then Busia regime and also became Minister for Foreign Affairs under the Busia regime. He was the Popular Front Party's presidential candidate for the 1979 Ghanaian general election.
Ghana–Nigeria relations are the bilateral diplomatic relations between Ghana and Nigeria.
Abena is an Indian (Gujarati) surname; the Gujarati અબેના (Abēnā) possibly came from the Arabic name أبين (Abyan). As a given name, it is a girl's name of Ghanaian origin and means born on Tuesday. Day names are a cultural practice of the Akan people of Ghana. Although some might believe it is mostly practised by Ashanti people, it is actually practised by all Akan people who follow traditional customs. People born on particular days are supposed to exhibit the characteristics or attributes and philosophy, associated with the days. Abena has the appellation Kosia or Nimo, meaning friendliness. Thus, females named Abena are supposed to be friendly.
Akosua Adoma Owusu is a Ghanaian-American filmmaker and producer. Her films explore the colliding identities of black immigrants in America through multiple forms ranging from cinematic essays to experimental narratives to reconstructed Black popular media. Interpreting the notion of "double consciousness," coined by sociologist and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois, Owusu aims to create a third cinematic space or consciousness. In her work, feminism, queerness, and African identities interact in African, white American, and black American cultural spaces.
Florence Abena Dolphyne is a Ghanaian linguist and academic. She was the first female professor and first female pro-vice chancellor of the University of Ghana.
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Abena Pokua Adompim Busia is a Ghanaian writer, poet, feminist, lecturer and diplomat. She is a daughter of the former prime minister of Ghana, Kofi Abrefa Busia, and is the sister of actress Akosua Busia. Busia is an associate professor of Literature in English, and of women's and gender studies at Rutgers University. She is Ghana's ambassador to Brazil, appointed in 2017, with accreditation to the other 12 republics of South America.
Amerley Awua-Asamoa is a Ghanaian diplomat, corporate and non-profit executive. A member of the New Patriotic Party of Ghana, she served as Ghana's Ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark from 2017 to 2021. As ambassador, she had concurrent diplomatic accreditation to Finland, Iceland and Sweden.
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Ama Bame Busia was a Ghanaian politician and a former member of the council of state. She was the sister of the late Kofi Abrefa Busia, former Ghanaian prime minister.
Akosua is an Akan given name to a female child born on Sunday (Kwasiada). Although some might believe it is mostly practised by the Ashanti people, it is actually practised by all Akan people who follow traditional customs. People born on particular days are supposed to exhibit the characteristics or attributes and philosophy, associated with the days. Akosua has the appellation Dampo meaning agility. Thus, females named Akosua are supposed to be agile.