// ROCKA.CANDY // | THE UNDERRATED CLASSIC

“This moment is so much bigger than me. This moment is for Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll. It’s for the women that stand beside me, Jada Pinkett, Angela Bassett, Vivica Fox. And it’s for every nameless, faceless woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened.”

Seven years after Halle Berry became the first black woman to win a best actress Oscar have things really changed for black actors in Hollywood? There still remain scores of actresses who may never achieve Berry’s stature in Hollywood, but deserve to. Here is a list of some of those woman.

Tracee Ellis Ross – She was raised by not only a diva, but a legend. This alone would cause you to believe she shouldn’t be on this list at all. Yet, Tracee Ellis Ross has walked the rocky road that other black actresses have traversed since the beginning of American cinema. This Brown University graduate started her career as a model and fashion editor. She then had small parts in various films before striking gold as Joan Clayton on the UPN/CW sitcom Girlfriends. While the show was never a cross over hit in white households, it became the number one watched program in black households for eight seasons. Ross was the neurotic, bourgeois, attorney always doing the wrong things trying to find and keep Mr. Right. She played the role to the hilt. However this didn’t guarantee her a spot amongst her white contemporaries.

In 2007 she starred alongside her brother, Evan Ross (ATL, Pride), in HBO’s Life Support starring Queen Latifah. While the role was small, it allowed Ross to truly flex her acting muscles. Maybe there’s a Lady Sings the Blues inside this Ross too.

Sanaa Lathan – Her name in Swahili means “work of art” and truly this Tony-nominated actress is just that. Born into an industry family (father Stan is a producer if such favorites as Sanford and Son and Def Comedy Jam, and mother Eleanor, an actress, performed on Broadway with the likes of Eartha Kitt) and trained at Yale School of Drama, Lathan has the pedigree, talent, and girl next door good looks comparable to a Gwyneth Paltrow. So why haven’t we heard her name at the Oscars yet?

She made us fall in love with her in Love & Basketball in a role that would have made any white actress into America’s newest sweetheart. She rose to the occasion on Broadway and on television as Ruth Younger in Raisin in the Sun (for which she garnered a Tony nomination). She even has shown her bad girl side in Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys and as the sexy Michelle Landau married to Larry Hagman in FX’s Nip/Tuck (one of the best seasons of the show, thanks to her). But like Ruby Dee, who originated the role of Ruth Younger, she somehow gets lost in the mix. She makes all the requisite red carpet and party appearances asked of a young actress in the new millennium. We hope that we don’t have to wait until she’s in her 80s for her to get due recognition.

Regina King – Audiences fell in love with King as the young-but-wise Brenda on televisions 80s sitcom 227. She played Marla Gibbs’ daughter and made young girls want to be her best girlfriend and young boys want to take her home to meet the family. Since then, King’s career has hit some highs and lows. She resurfaced in the mid 90s all grown up in Boyz in the Hood, Higher Learning and who can forget her as Janet Jackson’s drunk crazy friend in Poetic Justice. She made inroads in A Thin Line between Love and Hate and Jerry Maguire and showed us her sexy side with Will Smith in Enemy of the State. Oh, wait Regina never really disappeared, it was Hollywood that never gave her the right role outside of the sassy sidekick or the funny wife/girlfriend.

Audiences, black and white, took notice in 2004 as she powerfully played Ray Charles back-up singer/chick-on-the-side in Ray. This performance left many wondering why she wasn’t nominated for an Oscar that year for she surely matched Jamie Foxx’s bravura performance. Regina’s unconventional beauty, buff body, and home girl attitude have allowed her name to be tossed around as a contender to play Michelle Obama in an Obama biopic, will this be the role that catapults her in the deserved direction?

Vanessa Williams – Miss America. Scandal. Grammy, Emmy, Tony Nominated. Triple Threat. Singer/Songwriter. Someone please remind me why Vanessa Williams is not one of Hollywood’s A-list actresses. She became the first black Miss America in 1983 and dazzled America with her beauty and talent,until it was revealed eleven months into her reign she had posed for nude pictures as an undergraduate student at Syracuse University. She was a fighter and had the tenacity to bounce into the recording studio and put out amazing records in the late 80s and early 90s. Does anyone remember any other former Miss Americas? She also found success on television, in film, and on Broadway.

She’s starred with California’s Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger in the action drama Eraser and who can forget her knife wielding turn as yuppie Terri in 1997’s Soul Food. She was passed over to play Dorothy Dandridge and she gave up the role of Letitia Musgrove in Monster’s Ball before it was offered to Halle Berry. For the last three seasons she has expertly played the nasty but evolving fashion magazine editrix Wilhelmina Slater on ABC’s Ugly Betty and been Emmy nominated for the role twice. However, this still hasn’t placed her in the upper echelons of Hollywood hierarchy. Is it her devotion to her family, her unwillingness to play certain roles, or is she the right person at the wrong time? How is it that this stunning beauty and amazing talent hasn’t received the acknowledgment garnered by lesser stars? Maybe like the aforementioned Dandridge or Lena Horne, Hollywood just doesn’t know what to do with her.

Lynn Whitfield – I recently saw the movie The Women starring Meg Ryan and Annette Bening. While the movie lacked in so many areas and I couldn’t stop looking at Meg Ryan’s transformed face, I was thoroughly dismayed at Lynn Whitfield in the movie. When the cast was announced I was excited to hear her name and thought back to the original 1939 version and thought of all the delicious parts this versatile actress could have played. When I saw the movie and saw she was relegated to two scenes playing a buyer from Saks, my jaw dropped.

Lynn, a Howard theatre graduate, who was one of the first women to appear in Ntozake Shange’ seminal For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuff, is another Emmy winning triple threat. She became known for playing international superstar Josephine Baker in HBO’s The Josephine Baker Story, landing the coveted role that Whitney Houston, Diana Ross, and even Cher wanted. She made audiences hate her for stalking Martin Lawrence in A Thin Line between Love and Hate. But it was her role in Eve’s Bayou that broke hearts, she played a society doyenne whose husband (Samuel L. Jackson) serially cheats on her and is constantly disrespected by her children. She was to be the next Diahann Carroll. Yet, again right person, wrong time. Whitfield pops up in great parts every now and then, but never the part that allows her to display her range and capabilities. She would have been perfect for Sex and the City or any number of cable television projects.

Whenever you think of strong character pieces for women you can insert Lynn Whitfield’s name and the project would only be better. While she is now in her fifties, I refuse to believe we’ve seen the last of her yet.

Jared DeWese is a kick-ass actor and writer. He is the lead character on the soon to be seen on television series Christopher Street and resides in New York City.