Regina Taylor Movies and Career Information

Regina Taylor (born August 22, 1960) is an American actress and playwright. Taylor has won several awards throughout her career including a Golden Globe Award and NAACP Image Award. Taylor was born in Dallas, Texas, but starting at age 12 she went to a newly-integrated school in Muskogee, Oklahoma where she was subjected to an incident of racism by another student. The family later returned to Dallas, where she graduated from L. G. Pinkston High School in 1977. Her earliest professional acting roles were two made-for-television films while she was studying at Southern Methodist University: 1980's Nurse and 1981's Crisis at Central High. In the latter movie, she was praised by critic John O'Connor of The New York Times for her portrayal of Minnijean Brown, a member of the Little Rock Nine, a group of African-American students who braved violence and armed guards to integrate Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Her first role to gain widespread attention was that of Mrs. Carter, the drug-addicted mother of a promising young female student, in the 1989 film Lean on Me. She is well known for her role as Lilly Harper on the early 1990s TV series I'll Fly Away. This role won her a