Whats Buzzing in the Streets – Page 19

Sinbad

Sinbad was born on this date in 1956. He is an African American comedian, writer and actor.Born David Adkins in Benton Harbor, MI., he is the son of Rev. Dr. Donald and Louise Adkins. In 1974 and 1978 he attended the University of Denver where he lettered in basketball. Adkins was in the US Air Force as a Boom Operator aboard the KC-135. He almost received a dishonorable discharge for various problems including going AWOL. He joined the military for a vehicle for getting the attention of his idols, the Harlem Globetrotters. His plan was to play basketball in the Air Force, get noticed by the Globetrotters or another pro team and leave; he never made the team.In 1981, things began to change. The comedy bug hit him when he participated in an Air Force Talent Show. He won several contests while stationed in Kansas. Under the professional name Sinbad, he became popular in the late 1980s and 1990s, appearing on several television series and starring in the feature films Houseguest (1995), First Kid and Jingle All the Way (both 1996). Sinbad married Meredith Fuller in 1985. They have two children together. [27] The couple divorced in 1992, then remarried in 2002.He appeared on Star Search and The Redd Foxx Show. At one time, Sinbad hosted his own talk show, VIBE, and portrayed the goofy coach Walter Oakes on A Different World (a spinoff of The Cosby Show). He also had his own show, “The Sinbad Show”, in the early 1990s on Fox. He was also featured in a late 1990s infomercial for Tae Bo, where he claimed that he was successfully using the Tae Bo system to become an action star. He was the host of Showtime at the Apollo (formerly It’s Showtime At The Apollo). He had originally hosted from 1989 to 1991 and was the temporary host in 2005 while regular host Mo’Nique was on maternity leave. During the 1990s, Sinbad guest-starred on an episode of Nickelodeon’s All That. He also made a cameo appearance in the comedy movie Good Burger. Sinbad’s film roles consist of the comedy Houseguest, as well as the films First Kid and Jingle All the Way. In 2004 he was named the #78 greatest stand-up comic of all time on “Comedy Central Presents: 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time”. In 2006 Maxim Magazine ranked Sinbad as the “Worst Comic of All Time”.Sinbad also made a cameo appearance on the television show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia as himself in a rehab center in the episode Dennis Reynolds: An Erotic Life, which originally aired October 23, 2008. Sinbad was the host of Thou Shalt Laugh 3. The DVD was released in 2008. In 2009, Sinbad was placed in the top 10 of the 250 worst tax debtors for the state of California. The comedian owed the State $2.5 million in personal income tax. In 2009, Sinbad filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. In 2010, it was reported that Sinbad put up his 2.5-acre (10,000 m2) hilltop home for sale in order to alleviate his tax burdens.In 2010, he debuted on the Celebrity Apprentice and was fired on the second episode after losing in the Kodak challenge as project manager, placing 13th. In 2011, he was the celebrity speaker of MacWorld Expo 2011. He starred in a reality show on WE tv called Sinbad: It’s Just Family, however it was cancelled in 2011. Sinbad made an appearance on “The Eric Andre Show” in 2012. Sinbad is currently recuperating from a stroke and is mending nicely.

Written by Dianne Washington

Esther Rolle

On this date in 1920, Esther Rolle was born. She was a Black Emmy Award-winning actress.She was born in Pompano Beach, FL, the tenth of 18 children both parents were of Bahamian descent. Rolle attended Booker T. Washington High School in Miami, and then attended Spelman College for a year before moving to New York. She supported herself by working in a pocketbook factory while auditioning for the theater.While taking drama classes at George Washington Carver School in Harlem, she got a scholarship to study acting at New York’s innovative New School for Social Research. During this time she met and became a member of African dance master Shogola Oloba’s dance troupe, Asadata Dafora. She became the troupe’s director in 1960.Two years later, Rolle made her acting debut as Felicity in Jean Genet’s “The Blacks.” During the 1960s” (1964), “Amen Corner” and “Day of Absence” (1965). Rolle’s film debut was in “Nothing But the Man” in 1964, and in 1967, she became an original member of the Negro Ensemble Company. While working in Melvin Van Peeble’s “Don’t Play Us Cheap” in 1972, she was asked to audition for the role of the maid on Maude, a Norman Lear television show being spun off from “All in the Family.” After getting the role, she took it with the understanding that her character, Florida Evans would not be a typical maid. Rolle proceeded to turn Evans into a popular character, and in 1974, her character and the husband of her character were spun off into the television series “Good Times.”She continued to act in other roles on television and on stage throughout the late 1970s and 80s. Rolle won an Emmy award for her performance as a housekeeper in the 1978 TV movie “Summer of My German Soldier.” In 1989, she played a housekeeper in “The Member of the Wedding” at the Roundabout Theater. That same year she played the matriarch in a remake of “A Raisin In the Sun,” as well as the maid in the Academy Award-winning film “Driving Miss Daisy.”In 1990, Rolle became the first woman to win the NAACP chairman’s Civil Rights Leadership Award and one year later she was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. Rolle’s last two films were “Down in the Delta” and “Train Ride.”Rolle’s only marriage was to Oscar Robinson. The two were married from 1955 to 1975. They had no children.Rolle died on November 17, 1998, in Culver City, California, from complications of diabetes, nine days after her 78th birthday. A devout member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Rolle requested that her funeral be held at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. She is buried in Westview Community Cemetery in Pompano Beach, Florida. The cemetery is a historically black burial ground created in 1952, a time when the laws and customs of Florida did not permit white people and black people to be buried in the same cemetery.

Written by Dianne Washington

Minnie Riperton

On this date in 1947, Minnie Riperton, African-American singer with one of widest vocal ranges of any singer in the twentieth century, was born in Chicago.She was the daughter of Daniel and Thelma Riperton, the youngest of eight children. At the age of three she started modern dance lessons, followed by ballet lessons at 5. Her voice lessons began at the age of nine and she was developing her operatic chops at 11.Her goal at a very young age was to become a famous singer. Riperton studied opera under Marion Jeffries. She spent months and months learning how to breathe and listening to and holding vowels. Eventually, she began singing operas and operettas along with a show tune every so often. As a as a freshman she sung in the a cappella choir of Hyde Park High School.She left school early to make $10 a song, singing backup at local studios. Some reports indicate that Minnie signed her first contract at 14, while others report her to be 16. Despite her natural talent (a pure five to six octave soprano) for opera, Riperton was more attracted to “Rock N Roll” and the promise of touring. She would inevitably discontinue her classical training to follow her dream of being a famous vocalist. It would, however, be her classical training, which brought her the success she sought. Riperton signed a recording contract with the “Gems” at Chess Studios, and in 1967 she joined the “rock/jazz/vocal ensemble” Rotary Connection.The style of the Rotary Connection was very progressiv– somewhere between rock, jazz, pop, and experimental. Riperton was with the Rotary Connection when she met the love of her life, her husband, Richard Rudolph. They had two children, Maya and Marc, whose names are included the names of two of her songs. Maya is the name of the girl in the tale of “Love And Its Glory,” and a personal reference to both can be found towards the end of “Lovin’ You.” She sings to Marc in “Wouldn’t Matter Where You Are.” Riperton did backup vocal work with Quincy Jones, Roberta Flack, Freddie Hubbard, and Etta James.In 1969, she recorded the album “Come To My Garden” which was released in 1971, then came “Perfect Angel” and “Adventures in Paradise” in 1974 and 1975. The following year Riperton announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and had undergone a modified mastectomy. Her “experience” (as she referred to her illness) would give her yet another reason for her life … lending her celebrity and compassion for others to become a spokesperson for breast cancer awareness, the need for self-examination, and the benefit of early detection.Within weeks after her surgery, she appeared for the taping of the Ebony Music Awards. When she received her “Ebby,” she later revealed, she was overcome by the knowledge of how lucky she was to have made it through the ordeal she and her family had gone through.Riperton continued on a crusade to get the word out to as many women as possible. Since tennis was her game, you would find her at almost all the celebrity tournaments for charity. In 1977, the) President Jimmy Carter presented her with the American Cancer Society’s “Courage Award.” A year later, Riperton would become that organization’s National Education chairwoman.In addition to being a mother, wife, activist, fund raiser, lecturer, wife, and mother, she signed with Capitol Records, a contract that gave her the creative freedom and production quality that she desired. During the summer of 1978, creating what would be her last album, simply entitled “Minnie.” She passed away in her husband’s arms on July 12, 1979, at 31 years of age.

Written by Dianne Washington

Alfre Woodard

Alfre Woodard (born November 8, 1952) is an American film, stage, and television actress, producer, and political activist. Woodard has been named one of the most versatile and accomplished actors of her generation. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Grammy Award, 18 times for an Emmy Award (winning four), and has also won a Golden Globe Award and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.Woodard was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Constance, a homemaker, and Marion H. Woodard, an entrepreneur and interior designer. She is the youngest of three children. She was a cheerleader in high school. Woodard attended Bishop Kelley High School, a private Catholic school in Tulsa and graduated from there in 1970. She studied drama at Boston University, from which she graduated.Woodard made her professional theater debut in 1974 on Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage. In 1976, she moved to Los Angeles, California. She later said, “When I came to L.A. people told me there were no film roles for black actors…I’m not a fool. I know that. But I was always confident that I knew my craft.” Her breakthrough role was in the Off-Broadway play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf in 1977. The next year, Woodard made her film debut in Remember My Name, a thriller written and directed by Alan Rudolph. In the same year, she had a leading role in The Trial of the Moke, a Great Performances television movie co-starring Samuel L. Jackson.She made her film debut in Remember My Name (1978). In 1983, she won major critical praise and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Cross Creek. In the same year, Woodard won her first Primetime Emmy Award for her performance in the NBC drama series Hill Street Blues. Later in the 1980s, Woodard had leading Emmy Award-nominated performances in a number of made for television movies, and another Emmy-winning role as a woman dying of leukemia in the pilot episode of L.A. Law. She also starred as Dr. Roxanne Turner in the NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere, for which she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1986, and for Guest Actress in 1988.In the 1990s, Woodard starred in films such as Grand Canyon (1991), Heart and Souls (1993), Crooklyn (1994), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), Primal Fear (1996) and Star Trek: First Contact (1996). She also drew critical praise for her performances in the independent dramas Passion Fish (1992), for which she won an Independent Spirit Award and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress, as well as Down in the Delta (1998). For her lead role in the HBO film Miss Evers’ Boys (1997), Woodard won Golden Globe, Emmy, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and several another awards. In later years she has appeared in several blockbusters, like K-PAX (2001), The Core (2003), and The Forgotten (2004), starred in independent films, and won her fourth Emmy Award for The Practice in 2003. From 2005 to 2006, Woodard starred as Betty Applewhite in the ABC comedy-drama series Desperate Housewives, and later starred in several short-lived series. She appeared in the films The Family That Preys (2008), 12 Years a Slave (2013) and Annabelle (2014), and has also worked as a political activist and producer. Woodard is a founder of Artists for a New South Africa, an organization devoted to advancing democracy and equality in that country. She is a board member of AMPAS.Woodard lives in Santa Monica, California, with her husband, writer Roderick Spencer, and their two adopted children, Mavis and Duncan. Woodard follows Christian Science. Her daughter, Mavis, served as Miss Golden Globe for the 2010 Golden Globe Awards.In 1989, Woodard is a founder and board member of Artists for a New South Africa, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating the African AIDS pandemic and advancing democracy and equality in South Africa. Her charity has since raised more than $9 million and has provided healthcare to over 3,500 South African AIDS orphans. She is a board member of the Democratic Party. She supported Barack Obama at the presidential elections in 2008 and 2012. Woodard is also a supporter of LGBT rights and same sex marriage. In February 2009, she joined a group of American film directors and actors on a cultural trip to Iran at the invitation of the “House of Cinema” forum in Tehran.On August 9, 2015, Woodard appeared TLC’s Who Do You Think You Are?. The program did research into her father’s genealogy and found out that her great-grandfather Alex Woodard was born a slave in Houston County, Georgia in the early 1840s. At about age 14 or 15, Alex was separated from his family when his master relocated to Jackson Parish, Louisiana. Historians helped Woodard locate evidence that Alex was assessed a poll tax in 1867, indicating that he was registered to vote two years after the Civil War ended. By 1881, Alex had purchased 80 acres of farmland in Jackson Parish. On April 15, 1898, Alex Woodard and his wife Elizabeth sold their 80 acres to her brother, Aaron Stell, as they had moved to Wharton County, Texas, by that time.

Written by Dianne Washington

Kamala Harris

Kamala Devi Harris (born October 20, 1964) is an American attorney and politician. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Harris has served as the junior United States Senator from California since 2017. She had previously served as the 32nd Attorney General of California from 2011 to 2017.

Born in Oakland, California, Harris is a graduate of Howard University and University of California, Hastings College of the Law. In the 1990s, Harris worked in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and the City Attorney of San Francisco’s office. In 2004, Harris was elected District Attorney of San Francisco.

Harris was elected California’s Attorney General in 2010 and reelected in 2014. On November 8, 2016, she defeated Loretta Sanchez in the 2016 Senate election to succeed outgoing Senator Barbara Boxer, becoming California’s third female U.S. Senator and the first of Jamaican or Indian descent.

Harris was born on October 20, 1964, in Oakland, California, to a Tamil Indian mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris (1938–2009), and a Jamaican father, Donald Harris. Her mother was a breast cancer researcher, who emigrated from Madras, Tamil Nadu, India, in 1960, and her father a Stanford University economics professor who emigrated from Jamaica in 1961 for graduate study in economics at University of California, Berkeley. Her name, Kamala, comes from the Sanskrit word for lotus. She was extremely close to her maternal grandfather, P. V. Gopalan, an Indian diplomat, and as a child, she frequently visited her family in Besant Nagar, in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. She has one younger sister, Maya.

The family lived in Berkeley, California, where both of Harris’ parents attended graduate school. Harris’ parents divorced when she was 7 and her mother was granted custody of the children by court-ordered settlement. After the divorce, her mother moved with the children to Montreal, Québec, Canada, where Shyamala took a position doing research at the Jewish General Hospital and teaching at McGill University.

After graduating from Montreal’s Westmount High School in Quebec, Harris attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., where she majored in political science and economics.

Written Dianne Washington

Judge Lynn Toler

Lynn Toler (born October 25, 1959) is an American lawyer and the arbitrator (judge) on the court series Divorce Court.Toler earned an undergraduate degree in English and American Literature from Harvard University (1981) and a Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania Law School (1984).Toler served as sole municipal judge in Cleveland Heights Municipal Court for eight years after working as an attorney specializing in civil matters. At 34 years old, she won her first judicial race by just 6 votes in a predominantly Democratic district as a Republican, where Democrats held 5:1 majority. Her cases involved all misdemeanor crimes, traffic, and minor cost civil cases within an inner ring suburb of Cleveland, Ohio of about 50,000 residents. When re-elected in 2000 she garnered 80% of the vote. Toler was known for enforcing nontraditional judgments, such as hand written essays. While on the bench she created and ran a mentoring program for teenaged girls. During this time, she served on many boards including The Juvenile Diabetes Board, The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) and The Cleveland Domestic Violence Center. In 2002, she received The Humanitarian of the Year Award from The Cleveland Domestic Violence Center.While serving as a retired judge between 2001 and 2006, Toler became an adjunct professor at Ursuline College in Pepper Pike, Ohio where she created, and taught, courses on Civil Rights Law and Women’s Rights.As the level-headed arbiter of Divorce Court, Toler is usually seen providing counsel, words of wisdom, and trying to talk sense into the show’s outrageous couples. She has a strident vocal timbre and uses emphasis in much of her speech. Prior to becoming the arbitrator of Divorce Court, she hosted the short-lived court show Power of Attorney. In 2007, while hosting Divorce Court, she expanded her television presence by becoming the host of the prime time television show and MyNetworkTV’s Decision House. In 2008 and 2009, Toler was a bi-monthly contributor on News and Notes, a weekly news show on National Public Radio (NPR). In 2009, she became a co-executive producer of Wedlock or Deadlock, a syndicated limited-city series based on a segment of Divorce Court.Toler has guest-starred on The Ricki Lake Show as a marriage counselor. Toler can now be seen on WEtv’s hit show Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars.Toler is the author of My Mother’s Rules: A Practical Guide to Becoming an Emotional Genius, in which she describes lessons her mother, Shirley (nicknamed Toni), taught her to handle both her father Bill Toler’s erratic behavior and her own inner demons. She describes how this later came in handy when dealing with emotional people from the bench. She also discusses how to apply these rules to everyday life.In 2009, her second book Put it In Writing, co-authored with Deborah Hutchison was published. This book contains agreements for use in common but uncomfortable situations between family and friends such as money lending and grown children returning home.Toler resides in Mesa, Arizona with her husband Eric Mumford (they married in 1989) and has two sons.

Written by Dianne Washington

MC Lyte

MC Lyte (born Lana Michelle Moorer; October 11, 1970) is an American rapper who first gained fame in the late 1980s, becoming the first solo female rapper to release a full album with 1988’s critically acclaimed Lyte as a Rock. She has long been considered one of hip-hop’s pioneer feminists.

Lana Michelle Moorer was born in 1970. Raised in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, she began rapping at the age of 12.

She regards Milk D and DJ Giz, the hip hop duo Audio Two, as “totally like [her] brothers”, because the three grew up together. Audio Two’s father Nat Robinson started a label for them called First Priority. After making the label, Robinson cut a deal with Atlantic with one condition, that Lana would get a record contract with Atlantic as well.

Originally, her stage name was Sparkle. At age 14, she began recording her first track, although it took two years before it was able to be released. In 1987, when she was 17, Lyte began publicly outshining other MCs. She was also featured in the remix and music video of “I Want Your (Hands on Me)” by Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor which debuted in May 1988 on MTV. In September 1988, she released her first album, Lyte as a Rock. Written over the course of many years, the album was noted for such hits as “Paper Thin”, its title track, and the battle rap “10% Dis”, a response from then-Hurby Azor associate, Antoinette. Both rappers released battle records against each other. Lyte followed her debut with 1989’s Eyes on This, which spawned the hits “Cha Cha Cha” and “Cappucino”. Both albums were notable for Lyte’s uncensored lyrical matter. She sweetened up a little on 1991’s Act Like You Know, noted for its new jack swing sound and the hit single “Poor Georgie”. Lyte’s fourth album, 1993’s Ain’t No Other, became her first to reach gold status and was notable for her first top 40 pop hit, “Ruffneck”. “Ruffneck” was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Single, making MC Lyte the first female solo rapper ever nominated for a Grammy. She later went on to become a featured artist on hits by Janet Jackson.

Written by Dianne Washington

Nas

Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. His father, Olu Dara (born Charles Jones III), is a jazz and blues musician from Mississippi. His mother, Fannie Ann Little died 2002. She was a Postal Service worker from North Carolina. He has a brother, Jabari Fret, who raps under the name Jungle and is a member of the Bravehearts. His father adopted the name “Olu Dara” from the Yoruba people. “Nasir” is an Arabic name meaning “helper and protector”, while “bin” means “son of” in Arabic. As a young child, Nas and his family relocated to the Queensbridge Houses in the borough of Queens. His neighbor, Willy “Ill Will” Graham, influenced his interest in hip hop by playing him records. His parents divorced in 1985 and he dropped out of school after the eighth grade. He educated himself about African culture through the Five Percent Nation (a splinter group of the Nation of Islam) and the Nuwaubian Nation. In his early years, he played the trumpet and began writing his own rhymes. His great-great-great-grandmother, Pocahontas Little, was a slave who was sold for $830. He owns the marriage certificate of his great-great-great-grandmother, Pocahontas, and great-great-great-grandfather, Calvin. His musical career began in 1991, as a featured artist on Main Source’s “Live at the Barbeque”. His debut album Illmatic (1994) received universal acclaim from both critics and the hip-hop community and is frequently ranked as one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time. Nas’s follow-up It Was Written debuted atop the Billboard 200, and stayed there for four consecutive weeks, and made Nas internationally known. On June 15, 1994, Nas’s ex-fiancée Carmen Bryan gave birth to their daughter, Destiny. She later confessed to Nas that she had a relationship with Jay-Z, also accusing Jay-Z of putting subliminal messages in his lyrics about their relationship together, causing an even bigger rift in the feud between the two hit rap music giants. From 2001 to 2005, Nas was involved in a highly publicized feud with Jay-Z, popularized by the diss track “Ether”.Nas signed to Def Jam in 2006. In 2006, MTV ranked Nas fifth on their list of “The Greatest MCs of All Time”. In 2010, he released Distant Relatives, a collaboration album with Damian Marley, donating all royalties to charities active in Africa. His 11th studio album, Life Is Good (2012) was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards. In 2012, The Source ranked him second on their list of the “Top 50 Lyricists of All Time”. In 2013, Nas was ranked 4th on MTV’s “Hottest MCs in the Game” list. About.com ranked him first on their list of the “50 Greatest MCs of All Time” in 2014, and a year later, Nas was featured on the “10 Best Rappers of All Time” list by Billboard.He is also an entrepreneur through his own record label; he serves as associate publisher of Mass Appeal magazine and the co-founder of Mass Appeal Records. Nas is a spokesperson and mentor for P’Tones Records, a non-profit after-school music program with the mission “to create constructive opportunities for urban youth through no-cost music programs.” He is a cousin of American actress Yara Shahidi. In 2005, he married R&B singer Kelis in Atlanta after a two-year relationship. Kelis gave birth to Nas’s first son on July 21, 2009, the couple’s divorce was finalized on May 21, 2010. In January 2012 Nas was involved in a dispute with a concert promoter in Angola, having accepted $300,000 for a concert in Luanda, Angola’s capital for New Year’s Eve and then not showing up. As of the end of the month, Nas returned all $300,000 and after 49 days of the travel ban, Allocco and his son were both released. On March 15, 2012, Nas became the first rapper to have a personal verified account on Rap Genius where he explains all his own lyrics and commenting on the lyrics of other rappers he admires. In 2013, it was announced that Nas would open a sneaker store in Las Vegas called 12 am RUN as part of The LINQ retail development. In July 2013, he was honored by Harvard University, as the institution established the Nasir Jones Hip-Hop Fellowship, which would serve to fund scholars and artists who show potential and creativity in the arts in connection to hip hop. In 2018, Kelis accused Nas of being physically and mentally abusive during their marriage. Nas replied to the accusations on social media, accusing Kelis of attempting to slander Nas in the time of a custody battle and accusing Kelis of abusing his daughter. Nas has released over twelve studio albums, with seven of them certified platinum and multi-platinum in America. Nas is a fan of the New York Mets and English soccer team Everton FC.

Written by Dianne Washington

Aunt Esther

LaWanda Page (October 19, 1920 – September 14, 2002), born Alberta Peal, is an American actress and comedian best known for her role as Aunt Esther in the popular 1970s television sitcom Sanford and Son. She later reprised this role in the television shows Sanford Arms and Sanford.LaWanda Page was born on October 19, 1920 in Cleveland, Ohio, but was raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She began her show business career working small nightclubs billed as “The Bronze Goddess of Fire,” an act which included Page eating fire and lighting cigarettes with her fingertips. She performed the cigarette feat on an episode of Sanford and Son titled “The Greatest Show in Watts” in Season 5 of the series, in which Fred Sanford held a circus in his front yard. On “Sanford and Son,” she played Esther Anderson–better known to audiences as Aunt Esther–the older sister of Elisabeth Sanford, the mother of her nephew Lamont Sanford and the late wife of Lamont’s father Fred G. Sanford.After paying dues on the club circuit, where she shared stages with noted comedians such as Foxx and Richard Pryor, Page moved to Los Angeles in the 1960s where she became a member of the comedy group Skillet, Leroy & Co. In Los Angeles, Page started honing the feisty approach to comedy that would make her famous. LaWanda Page and Redd Foxx, who portrayed Fred Sanford, were very close friends from the time they were pre-teens, having attended school and growing up together in St. Louis. Eventually, both entered the field of comedy separately and performed their own stage acts. Page recorded several live comedy albums for the Laff Records label in the late 1960s and early 1970s under her LaWanda Page stage name. One release, a gold-selling album called Watch It, Sucker!, was titled after one of her Aunt Esther character’s catchphrases in order to capitalize on her newfound television fame. During her tenure as a stand-up comic, a career she continued into the 1990s, she was often called “The Queen of Comedy”, or “The Black Queen of Comedy”. Other than the relatively clean Sane Advice album, released two years after the run of Sanford and Son, most of Page’s albums and stand-up material were raunchy in nature.On Sanford and Son, Aunt Esther was the sister of Fred Sanford’s late wife Elizabeth. Page had been performing her comedy routine in nightclubs in St. Louis and then Los Angeles for several years, but had planned to leave show business to move back to St. Louis to take care of her ailing mother. When Redd Foxx was offered a sitcom in Los Angeles, he brought his childhood friend Page to the attention to one of the show’s producers, who was already familiar with Page and her act. Foxx subsequently asked Page to read for the role of Aunt Esther; she auditioned and was offered the role. However, prior to taping, producers became concerned when Page, whose experience was limited primarily to nightclub stages, seemed to have difficulty working in a sitcom format. Eventually, one of Sanford and Son’s producers told Foxx that Page would need to be fired and that another actor would need to be cast before the show could begin taping. Foxx responding by insisting that Page keep the part, even threatening to walk away from the show if Page were fired. The producers relented, and Page’s Aunt Esther went on to become one of the most popular TV sitcom characters of the 1970s.Page’s Aunt Esther was a combination of devout churchgoer and tough-as-nails realist, unafraid to state whatever was on her mind. While her relationship with Foxx’s character Fred Sanford was usually confrontational, she betrayed a tender side through her love of her nephew Lamont. Common issues between brother- and sister-in-law were his lack of business success and his lukewarm religious faith. Sometimes, primarily because of their shared love for Lamont and the late Elizabeth, the two adversaries managed to find common ground. Although “Sanford and Son” was clearly Foxx’s vehicle, Page’s Aunt Esther could hold her own against the show’s star. (Ironically, the church-going Esther was a great contrast to the raunchy, expletive-filled material of Page’s live act and records.)In 1977 Page appeared in an episode of The Love Boat entitled “Oh Dale”, alongside Sherman Hemsley. Page also appeared on several episodes of The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts, and over the next two decades occasionally guest-starred in episodes of other popular television shows, including Amen, Martin, 227, Family Matters, and Diff’rent Strokes. She appeared on Circus Of The Stars as a fire eater. In the early 1990s she appeared on several tracks of the debut album by RuPaul entitled Supermodel of the World, most notably the hit song “Supermodel (You Better Work).” She also appeared in several music videos from the album. Shortly before her death she appeared in a series of comical Church’s Chicken television commercials featuring the catchphrase “Gotta love it!” Among her movie credits are an appearance in the Steve Martin film My Blue Heaven; as an extremely foul-mouthed clown in Bobcat Goldthwait’s 1991 comedy Shakes the Clown; and had a recurring role on the 1990s TV sitcom Martin and a cameo appearance in the 1995 movie Friday, stealing the opening scene with a one-liner.Page died of complications from diabetes on September 14, 2002. She is interred in an outdoor crypt at Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.Her daughter, the evangelist Clara Estella Roberta Johnson, died on June 4, 2006, in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 69.

Written by Dianne Washington

Fix my life Iyanla

Iyanla Vanzant (born Rhonda Eva Harris; September 13, 1953) is an American inspirational speaker, lawyer, New Thought spiritual teacher, author, life coach and television personality. She is known primarily for her books, her eponymous talk show, and her appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show. She can currently be seen on television as the host of Iyanla: Fix My Life, on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network.Vanzant was born on September 13, 1953, in the back of a taxi in Brooklyn, New York, as Rhonda Eva Harris. She is the daughter of Sarah Jefferson, a railroad car maid, and Horace Harris, who was largely absent from her life. Her mother died from breast cancer in 1955, when Vanzant was two years old. She was then raised by paternal relatives, one of whom raped her at the age of nine. Her first husband was physically abusive, and she left him in 1980, taking her three children with her. In 1983, she was given the title “Iyanla”, which means “great mother”, after being initiated and ordained as a priestess in the Yoruba tradition (as mentioned in her television interview on the Conn Jackson show). She attended Medgar Evers College and Virginia Union University. Vanzant holds a Juris Doctor degree from the City University of New York School of Law. She currently resides in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. She is also an ordained New Thought minister.In 2000, she was named one of the “100 most influential Black Americans” by Ebony magazine, which said that “Her books, lectures and television appearances have made her a multimedia high priestess of healthy relationships.” In 2012, Vanzant was listed at #7 on Watkins’ Mind Body Spirit magazine list of the 100 most spiritually influential living people.” In 2014, she was co-speaker in Oprah’s the “Life You Want Weekend” tour, which travelled to eight cities, also featuring Deepak Chopra, Mark Nepo, Elizabeth Gilbert and Rob Bell. In 2016, Vanzant was named to Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul 100 list of visionaries and influential leaders.Vanzant is an honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. On Christmas Day 2003, Vanzant’s 30-year-old daughter, Gemmia, died from a rare form of colon cancer. Vanzant and her husband, Yemi, divorced in 2007.

Written by Dianne Washington