Alfre Woodard Biography
Born: November 08, 1953
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. Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
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