Leslie Uggams

Emmy Award-winning actress/singer Leslie Uggams most recently thrilled Broadway audiences performing as Ethel Thayer opposite James Earl Jones in the revival of Ernest Thompson’s On Golden Pond. That performance came on the heels of her stunning portrayal of the off-beat society heiress Muzzy Van Hossmere in the Tony-award winning musical Thoroughly Modern Millie.

That’s just the latest accomplishment for a woman who has been captivating stage, screen and television audience since her national television debut at age six on the TV series Beulah, portraying the niece of Ethel Waters. Appearances on Your Show of Shows, The Milton Berle Show and The Arthur Godfrey Show led to center stage at the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem where 7 year-old Leslie opened for such legends as Louise Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dinah Washington. Leslie attended the New York Professional Children’s School, and, at 15, she appeared on the CBS-TV series Name That Tune.

Her appearance proved to be fortuitous. Mitch Miller, head of recordings for Columbia Records, was so impressed by her vocal talents that he signed her to a recording contract and then made her a regular on Sing Along With Mitch, TV’s first pre-recorded music show. As such, Leslie Uggams became one of the first African-American performers to be regularly featured on a prime-time television show.

Concurrent with her musical composition and theory studies at the Juilliard School, Leslie released her first of 10 albums she was to record for Columbia Records, including her first hit single, "Morgan". Alternating major nightclub appearances with her stage work, Leslie appeared in the musical The Boyfriend in Berkley, California. Soon she won the Broadway lead in Hallelujah, Baby!, which had originally been written for Lena Horne, and earned the 1968 Tony Award for Best Actress In A Broadway Musical Comedy.

Two years later, she had her own musical variety television series on CBS-TV, The Leslie Uggams Show, and a new recording contract with Atlantic Records. In 1970, Leslie made her dramatic film debut in the MGM thriller Skyjacked. However, it was Leslie’s portrayal of "Kizzy" in the most watched dramatic show in TV history, Alex Haley’s Roots, that won her worldwide recognition as a dramatic actress - including the Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1978, her Emmy nomination for Best Leading actress and a coveted Golden Globe Nomination from the Hollywood Foreign Press association.

She also starred in the mini-series Backstairs in the White House, Sizzle, an ABC-TV movie of the week, and the HBO special, Christmas at Radio City Music Hall. Leslie went on to win an Emmy as co-host of the NBC-TV series Fantasy.

In addition to ongoing concert dates, Leslie returned to Broadway to star in the musical Blues in the Night and enjoyed a two year run in the hit musical Jerry’s Girls. In 1987, she toured with Peter Nero and Mel Torme in The Great Gershwin Concert, for which she received rave reviews. In 1988, she starred as Reno Sweeney in the National Company of the Lincoln Center Production of Anything Goes and later reprised the role at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater on Broadway.

In 1991, Leslie toured in Stringbean, a new play with music based on Ethel Waters’ rise to fame in the twenties and thirties.

Leslie was featured in the all-star tribute to the legendary Jerry Herman in the production Jerry Herman’s Broadway at the Hollywood Bowl. She also starred in the revival of Play On at New Jersey’s Tony Award-winning Crossroads Theater in New Brunswick and tackled the demanding dramatic portrayal of opera diva Maria Callas in Terrence McNally’s Master Class at TheatreFest, also in New Jersey.

When not performing in the theater, Leslie Uggams can be found touring the country playing her acclaimed concerts. She has appeared with The Cincinnati Pops and The Washington Symphony Orchestra to name a few and The Memorial Day Concert on Washington Mall, which took place before more then 300,000 people and was televised live to millions more by PBS.