Judyann Elder | |
---|---|
Born | Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. |
Other names | JudyAnn Elder |
Alma mater | Emerson College |
Occupations |
|
Years active | 1968–present |
Spouses | |
Children | 2 |
Website | judyannelder |
Judyann Elder is an American actress, director, and writer. Elder played Nadine Waters on the FOX sitcom Martin . She also played Harriette Winslow on CBS Family Matters for the remaining eight episodes of its ninth and final season after the departure of Jo Marie Payton. Elder is also a veteran of the stage who has appeared in scores of theatrical productions throughout the United States and Europe. [3]
Born in Cleveland, Elder is the daughter of Edward T. Johnson, PhD. and Camille Johnson (née Russell). Elder attended Shaker Heights High School and graduated from Emerson College in Boston as the first recipient of the Carol Burnett Award in the Performing Arts. Elder began her professional career in off-Broadway in New York as "Judyann Jonsson".[ citation needed ] A founding member and resident actor with the Tony Award-winning Negro Ensemble Company, [4] [5] she originated roles in the premier productions of The Song of the Lusitanian Bogey, Daddy Goodness, Kongi's Harvest , and God is a (Guess What?).
In 1969, she played the role of Russell B. Parker's young love interest in Lonne Elder III's Ceremonies in Dark Old Men and toured with the company to London and Rome. She married the play's Pulitzer Prize nominated author early that same year, thus changing her name to Judyann Elder. [6] Elder and her husband moved to Los Angeles soon after, where she broadened her career to include roles on screen. She made guest star roles in series such as The Streets of San Francisco , Sanford and Son , Wonder Woman , and The White Shadow . In 1976, Elder made her Broadway debut at the Ambassador Theatre as Coretta King [7] opposite Billy Dee Williams in I Have a Dream [8] [9] directed by Robert Greenwald. She subsequently portrayed the role of Bernette Wilson in the television mini-series A Woman Called Moses starring Cicely Tyson. Several roles on screen followed including Forget Paris with Billy Crystal, The Players Club directed by Ice Cube, and Seven Pounds with Will Smith.
In the 1991–92 season of TV's Murphy Brown starring Candice Bergen, Elder portrayed Murphy Brown's obstetrician, Dr. Barton. Her recurring role culminated with the historic season finale where Dr. Barton delivered Murphy Brown's baby. She played Gina's mother, Nadine Waters, on Martin (1992—97), starring Martin Lawrence; Gina was played by Tisha Campbell. [10] In 1998, she replaced Jo Marie Payton as Harriette Winslow in the last episodes of the popular show Family Matters . [11]
Elder has frequently returned to the stage and last appeared at Arkansas Rep as Rose in August Wilson's Fences . She also has many theatre directorial credits including: The Book of the Crazy African (Skylight Theatre), The Meeting [12] (Inner City Cultural Center, LA and New Federal Theatre, NY), Ceremonies in Dark Old Men [13] (Beverly Canon Theatre), and A Private Act (Robey Theatre Company). Her direction of Matthew Lopez' The Whipping Man [14] starring Charlie Robinson at the Skirball Cultural Center for LA Theatre Works radio series was broadcast nationally in 2016. Elder is an alumna of the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women where she produced and directed the short film, Behind God's Back, based on an Alice Walker short story and starring Beau Bridges. She is also the recipient of a Screenwriting Fellowship with Walt Disney Studios. In 2005, Elder was honored with an NAACP Trailblazer Award. Elder is also a 2010 recipient of a Distinguished Alumni Award from Emerson College.[ citation needed ]
Elder has been married twice. Her first marriage to actor and playwright Lonne Elder III, with whom she had two children, including actor Christian E. Elder, was from 1969 to 1994. Elder has been married to her second husband, actor John Cothran Jr. since 1997. She is a breast cancer survivor and former legislative ambassador for the American Cancer Society. Elder resides in Los Angeles, California.[ citation needed ]
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1972 | Melinda | Gloria | |
1973 | Blume in Love | Lulu | |
1978 | A Woman Called Moses | Bernette Wilson | Television mini-series |
1981 | The Oklahoma City Dolls | Helen | Television movie |
1982 | In the Custody of Strangers | Marni Blake, Prosecutor | Television movie |
1987 | Right to Die | Television movie | |
1989 | Those She Left Behind | Counselor | Television movie |
1995 | Forget Paris | Ivy | |
1997 | Sweet Temptation | Teak | Television movie |
1997 | The Pest | Mrs. Kent | |
1998 | The Players Club | Mrs. Armstrong | |
1998 | Dead Man on Campus | Guidance Counselor | |
2008 | Seven Pounds | Holly | |
2016 | Viral | Mrs. Toomey |
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1968 | N.Y.P.D | Barmaid | Episode: "Deadly Circle of Violence" |
1971 | Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law | Episode: "Nothing Personal" | |
1972 | Sanford and Son | Darlene Edwards | Episode: "A Pad for Lamont" |
1973 | The Streets of San Francisco | Vi Hoskin | Episode: "No Badge for Benjy" |
1978 | Wonder Woman | Marge | Episode: "Light-fingered Lady" |
1978 | Lou Grant | Mrs. Hatch | Episode: "Babies" |
1979 | The White Shadow | Dr. Chatton | Episode: "Me?" |
1982 | Today's F.B.I. | Episode: "Bank Job" | |
1982 | Benson | Patty Stiles | Episode: "Quest for Retire" |
1982 | The Devlin Connection | Episode: "Allison" | |
1984 | The Yellow Rose | Episode: "Land of the Free" | |
1984 | Matt Houston | Ann Hoyt | Episode: Vanished" |
1984 | Webster | Irene Chambers | Episode: "Knock, Knock" |
1985 | V | Mrs. Caniff | Episode: "The Hero" |
1985 | St. Elsewhere | Elodie Haber | Episode: "Santa Clause is Dead" |
1986 | The Young and the Restless | Karen Olsen | 6 episodes |
1988 | Amen | Sarah Crawford | Episode: "The Minister's Wife" |
1989 | Hard Time on Planet Earth | Mrs. Tillman | Episode: "All That You Can Be" |
1989—1990 | Paddington Bear | Additional Voices | 2 episodes |
1990 | Star Trek: The Next Generation | Lt. Ballard | Episode: "The Offspring" |
1990 | Captain Planet and the Planeteers | Additional Voices | 1 episode |
1990 | Midnight Patrol: Adventures in the Dream Zone | Voice | 13 episodes |
1991 | Roc | Pilot | |
1991—1992 | Murphy Brown | Dr. Barton | 3 episodes |
1992 | The Powers That Be | Estelle | Episode: "How Sharper Than a Servant's Tooth" |
1994 | Beverly Hills, 90210 | Nora Touissant | Episode: "Hate Is Just a Four Letter Word" |
1996 | In the House | Florence | Episode: "To Die For" |
1992—1997 | Martin | Nadine Waters | 6 episodes |
1997 | The Steve Harvey Show | Ms. Crabtree | Episode: " I'm Not a Chauvinist, Piggy" |
1998 | Home Improvement | Diane Peck | Episode: "From Top to Bottom" |
1994; 1998 | Family Matters | Harriette Winslow / Sister Bernadette | 9 episodes |
1996—1999 | Mad About You | Nurse Lily | 4 episodes |
2001 | Family Law | Judge | Episode: "The Quality of Mercy" |
2001 | Becker | Judge Miriam Reinhold | 2 episodes |
2002 | First Monday | Darla Collins | Episode: "Court Date" |
2003 | Wanda at Large | Mrs. Hawkins | Episode: "Alma Mater" |
2004 | That's So Raven | Nana Loretta | Episode: "Leave It to Diva" |
2005 | ER | Debra Graham | Episode: "Refusal of Care" |
2005 | Blind Justice | Judy Dwyer | Episode: "In Your Face" |
2006 | NCIS | Marny Mathers | Episode: "Escaped" |
2007 | Desperate Housewives | Dr. Brody | Episode: "Gossip" |
2008 | Cold Case | Cecilia | Episode: "Sabotage" |
2011 | Love That Girl! | Phyliss | Episode: "Break of Dawn" |
2014 | Castle | Melinda Parish | Episode: "Bad Santa" |
2012—2017 | Family Time | Beverly Stallworth | 10 episodes |
2016 | Grey's Anatomy | Angelica Paulson | Episode: "You’re Gonna Need Someone on Your Side" |
William December Williams Jr. is an American actor, novelist and painter. He has appeared in over 100 films and television roles over six decades. He is most known for portraying Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars franchise and has also appeared in critically acclaimed and popular titles such as Mahogany (1975), Scott Joplin (1977), and Nighthawks (1981), as Harvey Dent in Batman (1989) and The Lego Batman Movie (2017), The Last Angry Man (1959), Carter's Army, The Out-of-Towners (1969), The Final Comedown and Lady Sings the Blues, Hit! (1973), Fear City and Terror in the Aisles, Alien Intruder (1993) or The Visit (2000).
Jo Marie Payton is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles as Harriette Baines Winslow on the ABC/CBS sitcom Family Matters (1989–1998), a role she originated on its forerunner series Perfect Strangers. From 2001 to 2005, Payton provided the voice for Suga Mama Proud on Disney Channel's animated series The Proud Family and reprised the role in the 2005 TV Movie The Proud Family Movie and also on Disney+’s revival The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder. The role earned her an NAACP Image Award nomination in 2005. Payton also had recurring roles as the personal assistant to Gregory Hines' character, Ben Doucette, during season two of Will & Grace (1999–2000).
Ruby Dee was an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and civil rights activist. Dee was married to Ossie Davis, with whom she frequently performed until his death in 2005. She received numerous accolades including two Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, a Obie Award and a Drama Desk Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award. She was honored with the National Medal of Arts in 1995, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2000, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004.
Robert Hooks is an American actor, producer, and activist. Along with Douglas Turner Ward and Gerald S. Krone, he founded The Negro Ensemble Company. The Negro Ensemble Company is credited with the launch of the careers of many major black artists of all disciplines, while creating a body of performance literature over the last thirty years, providing the backbone of African-American theatrical classics. Additionally, Hooks is the sole founder of two significant black theatre companies: the D.C. Black Repertory Company, and New York's Group Theatre Workshop.
Glynn Russell Turman is an American actor, director, writer, and producer. First coming to attention as a child actor in the original 1959 Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun, Turman is known for his roles as Lew Miles on the prime-time soap opera Peyton Place (1968–1969), high school student Leroy "Preach" Jackson in the 1975 coming-of-age film Cooley High, math professor and retired Army colonel Bradford Taylor on the NBC sitcom A Different World (1988–1993), and Baltimore mayor Clarence Royce on the HBO drama series The Wire. He received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his role on the HBO drama series In Treatment.
The American Negro Theatre (ANT) was co-founded on June 5, 1940 by playwright Abram Hill and actor Frederick O'Neal. Determined to build a "people's theatre", they were inspired by the Federal Theatre Project's Negro Unit in Harlem and by W. E. B. Du Bois' "four fundamental principles" of Black drama: that it should be by, about, for, and near African Americans.
Lonne Elder III was an American actor, playwright and screenwriter. Elder was one of the leading African-American figures who informed the New York theater world with social and political consciousness. He also wrote scripts for television and film. His best known play, Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, won him a Drama Desk Award for Most Promising Playwright and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. The play, which was about a Harlem barber and his family, was produced by the Negro Ensemble Company in 1969.
Lois Arlene Smith is an American character actress whose career spans eight decades. She made her film debut in the 1955 drama film East of Eden, and later played supporting roles in a number of movies, including Five Easy Pieces (1970), Resurrection (1980), Fatal Attraction (1987), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Falling Down (1993), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), Dead Man Walking (1995), Twister (1996), Minority Report (2002), The Nice Guys (2016), Lady Bird (2017), and The French Dispatch (2021).
A Soldier's Play is a play by American playwright Charles Fuller. Set on a US Army installation in the segregation-era South, the play is a loose adaptation of Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd, and follows the murder investigation of the Sergeant in an all-black unit. The play uses a murder mystery to explore the complicated feelings of anger and resentment that some African Americans have toward one another, and the ways in which many black Americans have absorbed white racist attitudes.
The Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) is a New York City-based theater company and workshop established in 1967 by playwright Douglas Turner Ward, producer-actor Robert Hooks, and theater manager Gerald S. Krone, with funding from the Ford Foundation. The company's focus on original works with themes based in the black experience with an international perspective created a canon of theatrical works and an audience for writers who came later, such as August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, and others.
Barbara Montgomery is an American stage, television and film actress, and theatrical and film director. She is best known for her performance in Amen (1986-1990).
Graham Brown was an American actor known for his work in theatre.
Douglas Turner Ward was an American playwright, actor, director, and theatrical producer. He was noted for being a founder and artistic director of the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC). He was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play in 1974 for his role in The River Niger, which he also directed.
Ceremonies in Dark Old Men is an American two-act play by Lonne Elder III that premiered Off Broadway in 1969 at St. Mark's Playhouse in a production by the Negro Ensemble Company. Later in the 1969 season, it was given a commercial production that was a long-running success. It was the runner-up for the 1969 Pulitzer Prize in drama and was adapted for a television movie in 1975.
Anna Lucasta is a 1944 American play by Philip Yordan. Inspired by Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie, the play was originally written about a Polish American family. The American Negro Theatre director Abram Hill and director Harry Wagstaff Gribble adapted the script for an all African American cast, and presented the first performance on June 16, 1944. The play moved from Harlem to Broadway's Mansfield Theatre, running August 30, 1944 – November 30, 1946. The Broadway cast included Hilda Simms, Canada Lee, and Alice Childress.
Billie Allen was an American actress, theater director, dancer and entertainer. Allen was one of the first black actors and performers to appear on television and stage in the United States, at a time when those venues were largely closed to African Americans. During the 1950s, Allen became one of the first black entertainers to have a recurring role on network television when she was cast as a WAC on staff on the CBS army base comedy The Phil Silvers Show, from 1955 to 1959. She was one of the first African Americans to appear on television commercials in the U.S. She was also one of the earliest African-American actors on daytime soap operas as she appeared in the mid-1950s as the character Ada Chandler on the popular daytime soap opera The Edge of Night. Allen was also known for her work on Broadway and off-Broadway.
David Downing was an American stage, film, and television actor. He was one of the original members of the Negro Ensemble Company in New York City.
Stella Holt was an American theater producer. She served as managing director of the off-Broadway Greenwich Mews Theater in New York City for 15 years.
Ciera Payton is an American actress and writer. She has appeared in television series such as The Walking Dead, General Hospital, Graceland, and NCIS. She also had a supporting role as Sylvia in Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral. She currently stars in the BET soap opera The Oval.
The Prom is a 2020 American musical comedy film directed by Ryan Murphy from a screenplay by Chad Beguelin and Bob Martin, based on the 2018 Broadway musical of the same name by Martin, Beguelin, and Matthew Sklar. The film stars Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, Keegan-Michael Key, Andrew Rannells, Ariana DeBose, Tracey Ullman, Kevin Chamberlin, Mary Kay Place, and Kerry Washington, and introduces Jo Ellen Pellman in her film debut as Emma Nolan. Logan Riley Hassel, Sofia Deler, Nico Greetham, and Nathaniel J. Potvin also appear in supporting roles.