Della Reese Movies and Career Information

Delloreese Patricia Early, known professionally as Della Reese (born July 6, 1931), is an American actress, singer, game show panelist of the 1970s, one-time talk-show hostess and ordained minister. She started her career in the 1950s as a gospel, pop and jazz singer, scoring a hit with her 1959 single "Don't You Know?" In her four decades of acting, she later gained a whole new generation of fans, in the 1990s, playing Tess, the leading role on the television show Touched by an Angel. In the late 1960s, she hosted her own talk show, Della, which ran for 297 episodes. In more recent times, she became an ordained New Thought minister in the Understanding Principles for Better Living Church in Los Angeles, California. Reese was born Deloreese Patricia Early in Detroit, Michigan to African American steelworker, Richard Thaddeus Early, and Nellie Mitchelle, a Native American (Cherokee) cook. Deloreese's mother also had several older children, before her birth, all of whom didn't live with her, hence, she was an only child. At only six years old, she began singing in church. From this experience, she became an avid Gospel singer. As a young lady of the 1940s, on the weekends, she and