Trivia: First role in a feature film was Troy in the 1995 film Crooklyn.First major role in a television series was Bethany in the ABC drama Second Noah from 1996 to 1997.Performed on stage in Tripping through the Car House at New York Stage and Film Playwrights Workshop; and in For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf at Princeton Program of Theatre.Has worked as a full-time teacher and as a coach.

Trivia: Intense, versatile African-American actress Alfre Woodard attended Boston University, then made her stage bow in 1974 with Washington, D.C.'s Arena Stage. After a few minor appearances in films like Remember My Name (1978) and H.E.A.L.T.H (1979), the Tulsa, OK, native was nominated for an Oscar for her performance as Geechee in 1983's Cross Creek. She went on to further television acclaim during the decade, appearing on St. Elsewhere and winning Emmys for her recurring roles on Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law, and an ACE award for the made-for-cable Mandela (1987). In film, the actress consistently shone in roles that featured her as unconventional women who usually had a troubled past; after a memorable appearance in Miss Firecracker (1989), she went on to star in such films as Lawrence Kasdan's Grand Canyon (1991) and John Sayles' Passion Fish (1992), for which she won a Golden Globe nomination. Other notable film appearances included those in Rich in Love (1993), Crooklyn (1994), and Maya Angelou's Down in the Delta, in which Woodard played a single mother with drug and alcohol problems who returns to her family's southern hometown. In 1999, the actress starred in two films, Funny Valentines and Mumford, Lawrence Kasdan's tale of a small-town psychologist.Woodard has also continued to work in television, earning considerable acclaim for her performances. In 1995, she won an Emmy nomination and a Screen Actors Guild Best Actress Award for her performance in the The Piano Lesson, and two years later won an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a SAG Award for her portrayal of the title character of Miss Evers' Boys, a nurse who consoled many of the subjects of the notorious 1930s Tuskeegee Study of Untreated Blacks with Syphilis. In addition, she has done a fair amount of narration, lending her voice to a variety of television documentaries.The actress reteamed with HBO in 2003 for the film Unchained Memories, and took on a starring role on ABC's Desperate Housewives in 2006. In addition to appearing on a variety of popular television shows (Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, The Practice, Homicide: Life on the Street). Woodard played the part of a woman falsely accused of drug trafficking in the 2009 drama American Violet, and was nominated for yet another Emmy in 2010 for her work on HBO's hit drama True Blood.

Trivia: Whether on stage or the big screen, Delroy Lindo projects a powerful presence that is virtually impossible to ignore. Though it was not his first film role, his portrayal of manic depressive numbers boss West Indian Archie in Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992) is what first attracted attention to Lindo's considerable talents. Since then, his star has slowly been on the rise and the actor has had steady opportunity to display his talent in a number of diverse films.The son of Jamaican parents, Lindo was born in London, England, on November 18, 1952. He was raised in Lewisham, England, until his teens, when he and his mother moved across the Atlantic to Toronto. Following a move to the U.S. a short time later, he became involved in acting, eventually graduating from San Francisco's renowned American Conservatory Theater. After graduation, he landed his first film role, that of an Army sergeant in More American Graffiti (1979). He would not appear in another film for a decade, spending the intervening years on the stage. In 1982, Lindo debuted on Broadway in Master Harold and the Boys, directed by the play's author, Athol Fugard. Six years later, he earned a Tony nomination for his portrayal of Harold Loomis in Joe Turner's Come and Gone.Although possessing obvious talent and the potential for a distinguished career, Lindo found himself in something of a rut during the late '80s. Wanting someone more aggressive and appreciative of his talents, he changed agents (he'd had the same one through most of his early career). It was a smart move, but it was director Spike Lee who provided the boost that the actor's career needed. The director was impressed enough with Lindo to first cast him in Malcolm X and then as patriarch Woody Carmichael in his semi-autobiographical comedy Crooklyn (1994), a role for which Lindo earned some long overdue praise. 1995 proved to be another big year for the actor, as he landed substantial supporting roles in two major films, playing a mercurial drug dealer in Barry Sonnenfeld's Get Shorty and another drug dealer in Lee's Clockers. The following year, he could be seen in yet another villainous role in Feeling Minnesota. However, he also proved that he could portray the other side of the law, in the Mel Gibson thriller Ransom, in which he played an FBI agent, and John Woo's Broken Arrow, which cast him as a colonel. He made good as baseball player Satchel Paige in the upbeat Baseball in Black and White that same year, winning himself an NAACP Image nomination in the process.Following a turn as a jaded angel opposite Holly Hunter in Danny Boyle's A Life Less Ordinary (1997), Lindo returned to a more earthly realm, further proving his talent for playing shadesters in The Cider House Rules (1999), in which he portrayed a cider house foreman who impregnates his daughter, and Romeo Must Die (2000), a loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet that cast him as a vengeful mob boss. Following roles in Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000), Heist (2001), and The Last Castle (also 2001), Lindo re-teamed with Romeo star Jet Li for another high-kicking action opus, The One, in late 2001. Supporting roles in such high profile Hollywood films as The Core, Sahara, and Domino kept Lindo in the public eye over the course of the following decade, and in 2009 the actor lent his voice to the character of Beta in the runaway Pixar hit Up.

Trivia: David Patrick Kelly specializes in playing sleazeballs, oily little punks, and crazies in actioners and urban dramas. While Kelly excels at such roles, they do not fully represent his training and potential. A former student of Stella Adler in New York and mime Marcel Marceau in Paris, Kelly first made his name on the New York stage, appearing in everything from musicals to experimental theater. Producer Joel Silver started him down the road to movie villainy when he cast him in Walter Hill's The Warriors (1979) and then 48 Hrs. (1982). Kelly has subsequently appeared in several more Hill films, including Last Man Standing (1997). Kelly also played supporting roles in two Spike Lee films, Malcolm X (1992) and Crooklyn (1994).

Trivia: Supporting actress Joie Lee frequently plays small roles in the films of her distinguished brother, Spike Lee. She made her debut in his She's Gotta Have It (1986).

Trivia: While African-American filmmakers have been a staple of the cinematic landscape since the pioneering work of Oscar Micheaux during the '20s, none have had the same cultural or artistic impact as Spike Lee. As a writer, director, actor, producer, author, and entrepreneur, Lee has revolutionized the role of black talent in Hollywood, tearing away decades of stereotypes and marginalized portrayals to establish a new arena for African-American voices to be heard. His movies -- a series of outspoken and provocative socio-political critiques informed by an unwavering commitment toward challenging cultural assumptions not only about race but also class and gender identity -- both solidified his own standing as one of contemporary cinema's most influential figures and furthered the careers of actors including Denzel Washington, Wesley Snipes, Samuel L. Jackson, Angela Bassett, and Laurence Fishburne. Along the way, Lee even cleared a path for up-and-coming black filmmakers such as John Singleton, Matty Rich, Darnell Martin, Ernest Dickerson (Lee's one-time cinematographer), and Albert Hughes and Allen Hughes.Born Shelton Jackson Lee in Atlanta, GA, on March 20, 1957, he was raised in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. The son of jazz musician Bill Lee, his first love was sports; an obsessive fan of the New York Knicks basketball club, his initial goal was to become a major-league baseball player. Only while attending Atlanta's prestigious Morehouse College did Lee's affection for film begin to surface, and while earning a degree in mass communications he returned to New York to make his first movie, 1977's Last Hustle in Brooklyn, a portrait of the area's Black and Puerto Rican communities shot with a Super-8 camera during the height of the disco craze. Upon graduating from Morehouse, he enrolled in New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, earning his Master of Fine Arts Degree in film production. His senior feature, 1982's Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, was the first student effort ever showcased in Lincoln Center's "New Directors, New Films" series, and also garnered the Student Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The success of Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop encouraged Lee to hire representation at the William Morris Agency, but when no studio contracts were forthcoming, he began exploring alternate means of independent financing. After a series of setbacks, he managed to secure 125,000 dollars to produce the stylish and sexy 1986 comedy She's Gotta Have It, which took the Prix de Jeunesse award at Cannes and earned close to 9 million dollars at the box office. Hollywood soon came calling, and in 1988, he released his major studio debut School Daze; however, it was his third film, 1989's Do the Right Thing, which launched Lee to the forefront of the American filmmaking community. A provocative, insightful meditation on simmering racial tension, it was among the year's most controversial and talked-about films and went on to net an Oscar nomination for "Best Screenplay" (although not a nod for "Best Picture," a slight in and of itself the subject of much outcry). The jazz world was the subject of '90s Mo' Better Blues, which opened to lukewarm press; however, with his next effort, the following year's Jungle Fever, Lee was again at the center of controversy over the picture's subject matter, interracial romance. Upon the movie's completion, he began work on his long-awaited dream project, 1992's Malcolm X. Shot at various points across the globe (including Mecca), the three-hour biopic of the slain civil-rights leader reached theaters in its intended form only after celebrities including Bill Cosby, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, and Prince helped defray financing costs in the wake of Warner Bros.' mandate that Lee trim the film's running time by half an hour. After so many politically charged pictures, Lee next shot the change-of-pace Crooklyn, a relatively light serio-comedy based largely on his own experiences growing up in Brooklyn in the early '70s and written in tandem with his sisters Joie and Cinqué.Next up was 1995's Clockers, a highly regarded urban crime drama based on the novel by Richard Price. In 1996, Lee released two very different features. The first, Girl 6, looked at the world of a young actress forced to accept work as a phone-sex operator, while the other, Get on the Bus, paid tribute to the historic Million Man March on its one-year anniversary, with financing courtesy of figures including Danny Glover, Wesley Snipes, and Johnnie Cochran. While a long-planned biography of baseball great Jackie Robinson continued to languish in limbo, in 1997, Lee did realize another dream with 4 Little Girls, a documentary about the racially motivated bombing of a Birmingham, AL, church that killed four pre-teens in 1963. Upon signing a three-year, first-look production contract with Columbia, he then began work on He Got Game, a study of the politics of high-school basketball starring his frequent leading man Denzel Washington. The film opened to mixed reviews, which did little to diminish the anticipation surrounding Lee's next film, Summer of Sam. Set in Brooklyn during the long, hot summer of 1977 when serial killer David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz terrorized the city, the film looks at the murders through the eyes of various borough inhabitants, played in part by Adrien Brody, Jennifer Esposito, Mira Sorvino, and John Leguizamo. The film generated mixed responses, eliciting the love-it or hate-it reactions so common among critics when reviewing Lee's work. The director's subsequent project, Bamboozled (2000), incurred a similar reaction: an excoriating satire on the images of blacks in (predominately white) popular culture. The film won over a number of critics even as it alienated others, yet it was another testament to Lee's status as one of the most complex and divisive filmmakers of both the late 20th century and the early 21st century.In the following years Lee would tackle a quartet of more personal projects with A Huey P. Newton Story, Come Rain or Come Shine, Jim Brown: All-American, and a ten-minute segment of Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet before again turning to feature films with The 25th Hour. A rare film for Lee in that it basically eschewed his usual topic of racial issues for a rather straightforward adaptation of David Benioff's popular novel, The 25th Hour. The film found Lee branching off to surprising effect, even if it didn't score a direct hit at the box office. After stepping behind the camera to direct the Showtime gang drama Sucker Free City in 2004, Lee moved back into feature territory with the 2004 comedy drama She Hate Me. In 2006 Lee enjoyed his biggest box office success in a few years with the crime thriller Inside Man, and earned critical raves for When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, a documentary about Hurricane Katrina that he followed up four years later with the sequel If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise. Lee returned to Brooklyn for Red Hook Summer (2012). He directed the English-language remake of Oldboy in 2013, but was reportedly unhappy with the studio edit of the film and removed his trademark "Spike Lee Joint" from the movie. Lee helmed Amazon Studio's first film, Chi-Raq, released both in theatres and online in 2015.

Trivia: A respected actor who became one of the more prominent figures in the growing African American cinema of the 1990s, Isaiah Washington has made his name in gritty crime dramas and romantic ensemble comedies alike. A native of Houston, Texas, Washington spent four years in the Air Force before studying drama at Washington, D.C.'s Howard University. Following graduation, he won a role in playwright Ntozake Shange's Spell 7 and then moved to New York to further pursue his career. He appeared in a number of stage productions, and he became one of the founding members of CityKids Repertory, a theatre group that visits high schools and community centers throughout New York.Washington began his screen career on television, appearing in the soap operas As the World Turns and One Life to Live. He made his big screen debut in Spike Lee's Crooklyn (1994), and he subsequently appeared in Lee's Clockers (1995), Girl 6 (1996), and Get on the Bus (1996), the last of which cast him as a gay man on his way to the 1995 Million Man March in Washington, D.C.Some of Washington's other memorable credits during the '90s included the Hughes brothers' Dead Presidents (1995), the warmly received ensemble romantic comedy Love Jones (1997), Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight (1998), in which Washington gave a memorable turn as a scheming con's violent brother-in-law; Warren Beatty's Bulworth (1998), and Clint Eastwood's True Crime (1999), which cast Washington as a man awaiting execution on death row after being falsely accused of murder. In 2000, Washington could be seen starring opposite Chinese action star Jet Li in Romeo Must Die, an urban update of Romeo and Juliet set between rival Asian and African American gangs in Oakland, California.In 2005, Washington was cast as Dr. Preston Burke, one of the leads on the ABC medical-drama Grey's Anatomy. The show quickly became a runaway hit, garnering a large and loyal audience as well as Emmys and Golden Globes. However, through the show, Washington would soon gain a great deal of unwanted notoriety. In late 2006, a controversy exploded after an onset altercation between Washington and costar Patrick Dempsey, wherein the former allegedly used an anti-gay epithet to describe castmate T.R. Knight. Months of media coverage followed, and in June 2007, ABC announced that Washington was being cut from the show.Despite the controversy, it wasn't long before Washington was fielding offers from other networks. In July 2007, NBC announced that they'd nabbed him for an extended arc on the remake of The Bionic Woman.

Trivia: A co-founder of the Negro Ensemble Co., character actress Frances Foster spent most of her career on stage, but also occasionally appeared on the screen and on television. She made her film debut in Philip Leacock's Take a Giant Step (1959). In the '90s, Foster appeared in three Spike Lee films, Malcolm X (1992), Crooklyn (1994) and Clockers (1995). Her television work includes appearances on soap operas such as All My Children and Ryan's Hope. Foster was born in Yonkers. Foster made her professional debut on stage in 1955 following studies at the American Theater Wing. Between 1967 and 1986, she appeared in over 25 shows with the Negro Ensemble Co, receiving an Obie award in 1985 for excellence of performance. In 1978, she won an Andelco Award for her achievements in black theater as an actress. She won the same award for best director in 1983. Foster died June 17, 1997 of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 79.

Trivia: A longtime actor turned director whose memorable turn as a suicidal drag queen endeared him to viewers of ER in the mid-'90s, Vondie Curtis-Hall would subsequently essay a role on the other side of the doctor-patient relationship as Dr. Dennis Hancock on ER rival series Chicago Hope. Though he would later step behind the camera, Curtis-Hall remained a recognizable fixture on both film and television with appearances in such high-profile films as Die Hard 2 (1990) and William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996). A native of Detroit, Curtis-Hall made his television debut in the short-lived Spenser: For Hire spin-off A Man Called Hawk. Though he had only a vocal role in the 1988 actioner Shakedown, his proper film debut came with a minor role in 1988's Coming to America, followed shortly thereafter with an appearance in director Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train (1989). A series of minor film roles, as well as an appearance in the short-lived television police musical Cop Rock followed, and through the mid-'90s Curtis-Hall's film roles were mostly of supporting status. Shortly after his sympathetic turn as troubled transvestite Roger McGrath on ER, he embarked on a four-year stint as a doctor on Chicago Hope. Simultaneously appearing in supporting roles in Broken Arrow and Heaven's Prisoners (both 1996), his eagerness to get on the other side of the camera would soon get the best of the struggling actor. Though Curtis-Hall had warmed to the role of director by helming an episode of ER, he was soon putting pen to paper to write a gritty addiction comedy drama about two addicts attempting to kick heroin. A scathing attack on America's healthcare system, Gridlock'd (1997) offered solid performances by Tim Roth and Tupac Shakur and a smart script, but the film was ultimately relegated to obscurity due largely to the fact that its innovative story line proved extremely difficult to market. Though Gridlock'd didn't fare well at the box office, it would prove nowhere near as disastrous as Curtis-Hall's sophomore effort, the Mariah Carey vanity project Glitter (2001). Tanking immediately as it took unrelenting blows from critics and audiences alike, the film's flogging did little to help singer Carey's fragile mental state, let alone boost Curtis-Hall's fledgling directorial career. Undaunted by the failure of Glitter, he nevertheless soldiered on to helm an episode of the short-lived sci-fi television series Firefly the following year.Back in front of the cameras, the tireless actor/director was in very high demand, and in addition to directing a pair of ER episodes in 2001, Hall made a notable impression as sympathetic transvestite on the long-running medical series. Additional roles on such shows as The Sopranos, Soul Food, LAX, and Law & Order proved that even when his directorial career was on shaky ground, he could always find firm footing on the small screen. In the years that followed it wouldn't appear that Curtis-Hall would be having too many concerns about either aspect of his career though, and after directing Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx in the role of Crips founding father Stan "Tookie" Williams in Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams story in 2004, the increasingly strong director turned his lens towards the action genre with Waist Deep two short years later. An urban Bonnie and Clyde tale for the gangster set, Waist Deep told the tale of an ex-con who, along with his girlfriend, sets out to get his kidnapped son back from a vicious gangster while simultaneously sparking a street war that will seriously diminish the ranks of the ruthless kingpin.

Trivia: A strikingly handsome actor who projects an image of strength whether playing drama or comedy, Bokeem Woodbine was born in Harlem, NY, on April 13, 1973. A solid student, Woodbine attended the prestigious Dalton School in New York before transferring to the LaGuardia School of Music and Art in the city. At the suggestion of his mother, Woodbine tried to land a job as an extra on a film shooting near his neighborhood; he picked up work as a stand-in, and he attracted the attention of a casting agent who gave him a role as a police informant and drug dealer in the made-for-cable drama Strapped. Woodbine's strong performance won him several key supporting roles in noted films, including Crooklyn, Jason's Lyric, and Dead Presidents. A few years later, Woodbine got to show off his lighter side in the comedies Almost Heroes and Life, as well as the witty action film The Big Hit. Woodbine also began working in episodic television, first with an appearance on The X-Files, and later with guest shots on New York Undercover and The Sopranos, as well as a weekly role on the short-lived series Battery Park and a recurring role on City of Angels.

Trivia: Mildred Clinton is an American character actress who has appeared on stage, screen, radio, and in early television. She has also worked in industrial films and has dubbed films into English. She spent five months working for the State Department in Africa during the early 1960s.

Trivia: Known for an effective series of supporting roles that commenced in the early '90s, Hispanic-American character actor Gary Perez made frequent guest appearances on the prime-time series dramas NYPD Blue and Law & Order (where his generic countenance enabled him to play various characters from episode to episode). He also landed a series of bit parts and supporting roles in low-budget features at about the same time, including Leslie Harris' critically lauded indie hit Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. (1993), The Tavern (1999), and The Love Machine. In 2007, Gary Perez signed to appear opposite Wanda De Jesus and Manny Perez in Illegal Tender, a sensitively handled crime drama by Franc Reyes about a young man who teams up with his mother to take on a cadre of homicidal gangsters.

Trivia: Fusing tall, dark, and handsome with exaggerated femininity, the 6'7" celebrity drag queen RuPaul was born in San Diego, CA, as RuPaul Andre Charles. He attended Northside School for the Performing Arts but dropped out to get his GED and work for his brother-in-law's car lot. His first television appearance was in 1982 on the public access show "The American Music Show" as the leader of "RuPaul and the Uhauls." In the late '80s he and electroclash pioneer Larry Tee moved to N.Y.C. to hang out in dance clubs and make records. When he perfected his "black hooker drag" look, RuPaul was voted the Queen of Manhattan on the party scene and appeared in the B-52's music video for "Love Shack." During this time, he released his debut album on the Funtone label and continued his recording career on Tommy Boy Records. In 1994, he made his feature film debut in Spike Lee's Crooklyn as a woman with an amazing blonde afro. The next year saw lots of cameos in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, Smoke, Blue in the Face, and Wigstock: The Movie. He started getting actual roles with the TV movie A Mother's Prayer, the comedy Red Ribbon Blues, and both Brady Bunch movies. In 1996, he began hosting the dance-music morning show on WKTU with Seduction vocalist Michelle Visage. Soon, VH1 took notice and gave him his own series, the celebrity talk show and variety program The RuPaul Show. In the late '90s, he started appearing as a man under his full name RuPaul Charles. He played camp counselor Mike in But I'm a Cheerleader, Stockard Channing's friend Jimmy in the Lifetime movie The Truth About Jane, and guest-hosted the PBS series In the Life. He also briefly appeared in the crime comedy Who Is Cletis Tout? and narrated the documentary The Eyes of Tammy Faye. In 2003, he began filming Rob Howard's Skin Walker. He went on to host the reality TV show RuPaul's Drag Race.

Trivia: Though the credits of bespectacled Hollywood character actor Dan Grimaldi extend back to 1980, with appearances in such low-rent drive-in pictures as Don't Go in the House (1980) and The Junkman (1982), he failed to gain substantial attention until the mid-'90s, when he found his niche with guest appearances on a number of blockbuster crime and cop series. These included Law & Order and NYPD Blue. Grimaldi is best known, however, for his portrayal of notorious hitman Patsy Parisi, a "soldier" for Junior who pulled a turncoat and joined the "family" of Paulie Gualtieri, on David Chase's cable-series phenomenon The Sopranos (1999-2007).