Vanessa Williams Biography

In a nutshell

The actress, model and singer-songwriter was primarily famous for becoming the first ever African American Miss America 1984, till the resurfacing of some, ahem, 'arty' pictures taken of her by a photographer two years earlier forced her to resign the title.
Playboy's Hugh Heffner in a rare show of gallantry declined to publish the touted pictures although Penthouse did not have the same moral quibbles and published the photos (despite Williams protests) earning the magazine franchise something in the region of $14 million. Ker-ching!
But Vanessa Williams was more than a pretty face, she was something of a creative multi-tasker and she soon set to work securing a record deal and going on to release eight studio albums (and counting). Her most famous release was R&B torch song Save the Best for Last in 1992 (which, perhaps less glamorously also happened to be the jingle to the TV advert for Bisto gravy granules in the mid 90s.)
If an impressive music career hasn't been enough she's also tread the boards, successfully appearing on Broadway in a revival of Into the Woods (for which she won a Tony Award in 2002) amongst other performances. She's also made some successful dalliances in on screen (most latterly in Hannah Montana: The Movie) and she's even got a star on the Hollywood Walk of fame to prove it. Her most famous role of course is starring as ice queen Wilhemena Slater in the series Ugly Betty, the villainous magazine editor-in-chief who's not opposed to a spot of Botox now and then.
In real life the former model has four children from two separate marriages. The first was to her then manager Ramon Hervey in 1987 and the second was to NBA basketball player-turned -actor Rick Hall who formerly dated the model Tyra Banks. Sadly the couple divorced in 2004 both remaining admirably shtum about the reasons behind it, which fuelled many a tabloid rumour. (Ironically enough Fox also starred in FX's Dirt where he played a famous basketball player experiencing marital problems. Art imitating life perhaps? Or just a scriptwriter running out of ideas?) Vanessa Williams Biography from (http://www.talktalk.co.uk/celebrity/biography/person/vanessa-williams/239)
Despite the split the two have remained amicable enough, with Fox even starring in the second season of Ugly Betty as Wilhemena's bodyguard. Despite her on-screen persona, Vanessa Williams obviously far from an ice queen in real life, and all's the more credit to her.

People Biography

Tuesday, September 27, 2011