Vanessa Williams

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Vanessa Lynn Williams (born March 18, 1965) is an American singer, actress, and fashion designer.

When she was crowned Miss America 1984 in 1983, she first gained fame as the first woman of African-American descent to receive the Miss America award.

However, a controversy arose the following year when Williams learned that Penthouse magazine would print illicit nude photos of her in a forthcoming issue a few weeks before her reign.

Williams resigned as Miss America in July 1984 (under pressure from the Miss America Organization), and was replaced by first runner-up Miss New Jersey Suzette Charles amid increasing media scandal and scrutiny.

Miss America CEO Sam Haskell gave her a public apology (during the Miss America 2016 pageant) for the events of 1984. Williams recovered from the scandal with a fruitful career as a singer and actress.

She began releasing The Right Stuff, her debut studio album, with moderate success until "Dreamin'" hit number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in the United States in 1989.

She earned multiple Grammy Award nominations for her second and third studio albums, "The Comfort Zone (1991) and "The Sweetest Days (1994), as well as her number-one hit (in early 1992) and her signature song, "Save the Best for Last," which she performed live at the 1993 Grammy Awards ceremonies.

Everlasting Love (2005) and The Real Thing (2009) were two of her late studio albums. Williams, a talented actor and actress, gained an NAACP Image Award for her portrayal of Teri Joseph in the 1997 film Soul Food (1998).

Wilhelmina Slater on Ugly Betty (2006–10), for which she was nominated three times for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, and Renee Perry on Desperate Housewives (2010–12).

Early life and education

Vanessa Lynn Williams was born in Bronx, New York City, with a birth announcement that read: "Here she is Miss America." She was born in Millwood, New York.

William A. Feilds, an African-American legislator in the Tennessee House of Representatives, was a paternal great-grandfather. Williams is also of English, Welsh, Irish, Finn, Italian, and Portuguese descent. Helen Tinch's mother Helen Tinch met her father Milton Augustine Williams Jr. (1935–2006), while both of them were music education students at Fredonia State Teachers College in the late 1950s. After marriage, they became elementary school music teachers, but their teaching positions were in separate districts. Milton also served as the assistant principal of his school for a lengthy time.

Williams was raised Catholic, in the faith of her father. As she married, her mother, who had been raised Baptist, converted to Catholicism. Williams was baptized at Our Lady of Grace Church in the Bronx. Williams helped her mother by turning the pages of sheet music at St. Theresa's Church in Briarcliff Manor for weddings and Mass.

Williams and her younger brother Chris (who would later become an actor) grew up in Westchester County, a predominantly white middle-class suburb of New York City. Williams believes she was the first African-American student to move from the first grade to the 12th grade in the Chappaqua Central School District. She attended Robert E. Bell Middle School, as did her children a few years ago. When her children attended kindergarten, Williams revealed that the shop and home economics tutors (Mr. and Mrs. Fink) were still there.

Williams, a child of music teachers, grew up in a musical household, studying classical and jazz dance, French horn, piano, and violin. During the college application period, she was given the Presidential Scholarship for Drama to attend Carnegie Mellon University (one of 12 students to be eligible), but she chose Syracuse University instead on a different scholarship. Williams, therefore, began as a musical theater major at the College of Visual and Performing Arts, Department of Drama in 1981. She stayed at Syracuse for her second year before being named Miss America 1984 in September 1983.

Williams received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Syracuse University in May 2008. "Williams earned the remaining credits for her education through work and her outstanding performances on stage and screen," Syracuse News reported. Williams also spoke at the 2008 convocation address, alerting Syracuse residents to "treasure this moment." These days are irreplaceable and mark the start of your life.

Personal life

You Have No Idea, published in April 2012 by Williams and her mother Helen co-authored a book entitled You Have No Idea. Williams addresses her childhood, ascension to fame, and personal struggles (including the discovery that she was sexually molested by a woman when she was ten years old). She also spoke openly about having an abortion when she was in high school.

Williams is a practicing Catholic, as she described it on ABC News' Faith with Fr. Edward L. Beck.

Williams is involved in a variety of humanitarian causes. She is a promoter of LGBT rights and same sex marriage, as well as being a member of the New Yorkers for Marriage Equality in 2011. Dress For Success, a company that sells professional clothing to low-income women seeking jobs, is partnered with her. Williams is also enrolled in The San Miquel Academy of Newburgh, a boys' school at risk.

Williams has been married three times. Ramon Hervey II, a girl who gave up her Miss America crown a few years ago, gave birth to her first child at that time. Hervey was hired to resuscitate her work after she resigned. Melanie, Jillian, and Devin were their three children when they divorced in 1997. In 1999, she married NBA basketball player Rick Fox. Sasha Gabriella Fox, the couple's one child, and they divorced in 2004. After receiving a Church annulment of her first marriage, she married Jim Skrip, a businessman from Buffalo, New York, at St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in 2015.

Jillian Hervey's daughter Jillian Hervey is an American singer, dancer, and member of the band Lion Babe.

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Career

Williams first gained national recognition for her musical skills when she performed "Happy Days Are Here Again" in the Miss America pageant's preliminary talent portion. (Williams will later be named Miss America 1984). Williams' debut album, The Right Stuff, was released four years ago in 1988. The first single, "The Right Stuff," found success on the R&B charts, while the second single, "He's Got the Look," found similar success on the R&B chart. "Dreamin'" was Williams' first top ten hit on the 1989 Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 3. 8, the first single on the Hot R&B/Hip Songs chart, and her first number one single on the Hot R&B/Hip Songs chart. The album earned her an NAACP Image Award and three Grammy Awards, one for Best New Artist.

Her second album, The Comfort Zone, was her best in her music career. On October 5, 1991, the lead single "Running Back to You" climbed to the top of the Hot 100 and the top spot of the Hot R&B/Hip Songs chart. "The Comfort Zone" (#2 R&B), "Just for Tonight" (#26 Pop), and The Isley Brothers' "Work to Do" (#3 R&B) were among the album's top hits, as well as "Get Free!)" (Get Free!) "Save the Best for Last" is the album's most popular song on the record, as well as her best hit to date. It reached No. 1 in the United States. In the United States, where it stayed for five weeks as well as No. 1; Australia, the Netherlands, and Canada are among the top five in Japan, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. At the time of release, the album was sold in the United States and has since been awarded triple platinum in Canada by the CRIAA, gold in Canada by the CRIA, and platinum in the United Kingdom by the BPI. At the 1993 Grammy Awards Ceremony, Williams performed the song live. Williams received five Grammy Award nominations for the Comfort Zone.

The Sweetest Days, her third album, received raves in 1994. Williams was able to sample other genres of music on the album, including jazz, hip hop, rock, and Latin-themed songs such as "Betcha Never" and "You Can't Run," which were all written and produced by Babyface. The adult-contemporary and dance hit "The Way You Love" and the title track were among the album's other singles. The album was named platinum in the United States by the RIAA and has two Grammy Award nominations to prove it.

Two Christmas albums, Star Bright in 1996, and Silver & Gold in 2005; Everlasting Love in 2005; and a number of other compilations have been released over the years; and a few others. "Love Is," a duet with Brian McKnight, the Golden Globe and Academy Award-winning "Colors of the Wind," "Where Do We Go from Here," was among the chart performances from subsequent albums, motion picture, and television soundtracks. "Oh How the Years Go By" and "Oh How the Years Go By."

Williams performed the national anthem at Super Bowl XXX in 1996.

She revealed in April 2018 that she was working on a new studio album in the fall that would include her R&B, pop & Broadway influences.

Williams has had a fruitful career in television. Her first television appearance was on a 1984 episode of The Love Boat, followed by guest appearances on several popular shows. In 1995, Williams appeared as Rose Alvarez in a television adaptation of the 1960 Broadway musical Bye Birdie and played the nymph Calypso in the Hallmark Entertainment miniseries The Odyssey. Williams appeared in the Lifetime cable movie The Courage to Love, Henriette DeLille, and in 2003, Williams read excerpts from the WPA's Unchained Memories. Williams' 2006 debut in the ABC comedy series Ugly Betty garnered a lot of media attention for her comedic/villainess work as former model/magazine creative director and editor-in-chief Wilhelmina Slater. Her appearance on the series culminated in a nomination for outstanding supporting actress at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards, and in 2008 and 2009, she was nominated in the Outstanding Support actress category for Ugly Betty. Renee Perry, an old college "frenemy" of Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman), was Williams next to appear in Desperate Housewives for her seventh season. In 2016, she appeared on The Librarians as General Rockwell, a recurring villain. During its one season in 2017, Maxine appeared in the VH1 television series Daytime Divas.

Williams has appeared in a number of feature films. She was named Best Actress in a Motion Picture by the NAACP for her role as Teri Joseph in the 1997 film Soul Food. She appeared in My Brother, the independent film festival in Vancouver, and the Santa Barbara African Heritage Film Festival, among others. She also appeared in Eraser, Samuel L. Jackson's 2000 soft reboot of Shaft, the characters from Sesame Street in The Adventures of Trash, as the Queen of Trash) and Hannah Montana: The Movie, alongside Miley Cyrus.

Williams began performing in 1985 as one of "the women" on stage. In 1989, she became "Laura" in Checkmates, and she maintained it.

When she replaced Chita Rivera as Aurora in the Broadway production of Kiss of the Spider Woman in 1994, she expanded her ascendant music career into a dramatic role. In 1998, she portrayed Della Green in the revival of St. Louis Woman, as well as Carmen Jones in the 2002 Kennedy Center Special Performance of Carmen Jones. She was also recognized for a Tony and Drama Desk Award-winning revival version of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods last year, in the same year, for which she was also nominated for a Tony and Drama Desk Award. Songs for her were also revised for her. Vanessa appeared in a recent Broadway musical revue called Sondheim on Sondheim, a look at Stephen Sondheim through his music, film, and videotaped interviews. Sondheim performed at Studio 54 in New York City from March 19 to June 13. In 2013, she appeared as Jessie Mae Watts in the Horton Foote film The Trip to Bountiful, which was later turned into a 2014 television film. Julie La Verne appeared in Broadway's After Midnight in 2014, and in 2015 she appeared in a PBS production of Show Boat. Margaret Williams will appear in POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass POTUS: Alive on Broadway, with seven people Trying to Keep Him Alive on Broadway, beginning on April 14, 2022 at the Shubert Theatre.

In 1994, Williams was host of the Essence Awards, co-host of the Carnegie Hall Salutes the Jazz Masters, host of the 4th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, host of the 2004 Grammy Awards, and finally host of the documentary Dreams Come True: A Celebration of Disney Animation (2009).

Williams is the first African-American spokesmodel for L'Oréal cosmetics in the 1990s, and he was the first African-American spokesmodel for Proactiv Solution. Williams resurfaced as a spokesmodel for L'Oréal in 2018 as part of their 'Age perfect' campaign with fellow ambassadors Helen Mirren, Julianne Moore, and Jane Fonda. She appeared on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in 2000 as a contestant, and then as a celebrity guest on the show's tenth anniversary prime-time special editions on August 10, 2009, winning $50,000 for her charity.

Williams introduced the new character Ms. Brown, a brown M&M, in a commercial that debuted during Super Bowl XLVI in 2012.

Williams won episode 2 of RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race in 2020 and donated $20,000 to the LBGTQ charity The Trevor Project.

Williams introduced V. by Vanessa Williams in March 2016, which was designed for EVINE Live.

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