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Leslie Uggams (born May 25, 1943, New York City) is
an Americanactress and singer, perhaps best
known for her Tony Award-winning
work in Hallelujah,
Baby!
Uggams first started in show business as a child in 1950, playing the
niece
of Ethel Waters on the
television series Beulah.
She was a regular on
Sing Along
with Mitch, starring
record producer/conductor Mitch Miller. In
1960, she sang, off-screen, "Give
Me That Old Time Religion"
in the film Inherit
the Wind.
She would audition for the lead part in the film Cleopatra,
but would lose out to Elizabeth Taylor.
Dorothy Dandridge was also in the running, when director Rouben Mamoulian was to direct, but her part
was lost when the director was taken off the project.[1][2]
The
Leslie Uggams Show, a television variety show added to her list
of
credits and a lead role in Roots,
as Kizzy. Uggams also starred
in the 1975 film Poor Pretty Eddy (also called Poor Pretty
Eddie,
Black VengeanceRedneck County), in which she played a
popular
singer who, upon being stranded in the deep South, is abused and
humiliated by
the perverse denizens of a backwoods town. and
Uggams appeared several times on The Ed Sullivan
Show in the 1960s.
Uggams appeared on TV gameshow Hollywood Squares.
After being asked if
Roman legend says that God made the people of the world in a large oven,
fellow
contestant Paul Lynde looked
at her and remarked "Looks like you were overcooked". She made a notable
guest
appearance on The
Muppet Show during its third season in tandem with Big Bird. During
the 1980s she appeared in Blues
in the Night, Jerry's Girls,
and
replaced Patti LuPone as
Reno Sweeney in the Lincoln Center revival of Cole Porter's
musical Anything Goes.
Later Broadway roles include
Muzzy in Thoroughly
Modern Millie and Ethel Thayer in On Golden
Pond at the Cort Theatre. In
1996, Uggams
played the role of Rose Keefer on All My Children.
She is a member of Delta
Sigma Theta Sorority.
Early in 2009, Uggams made an appearance as the legendary jazz singer
Lena
Horne in a production of the
stage musical "Stormy Weather" at the Pasadena
Playhouse in California.