Sheryl Lee Ralph Movies and Career Information

Sheryl Lee Ralph (born December 30, 1956 in Waterbury, Connecticut) is an American actress and singer. Raised between Mandeville, Jamaica, and Long Island, New York, Sheryl Lee Ralph was born on December 30, 1956 to an African American father and a Jamaican mother. In 1973, she was crowned Miss Black Teen-age New York. At 19, Ralph was the youngest female to ever graduate from Rutgers University. Also that year she was named as one of the top 10 college women in America by Glamour magazine. Initially she hoped to study medicine, but after dealing with cadavers in a premed class and winning a scholarship in a competition at the American College Theater Festival, she quit medicine for the performing arts. Many years later, she served as the commencement speaker at Rutgers for the Class of 2003. Ralph is married to Pennsylvania State Senator Vincent Hughes. Ralph began her career on the stage and was nominated in 1982 for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Deena Jones in Dreamgirls. In 1984, Ralph released her only album In the Evening, in which the title track hit peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Charts that same year. In 1988, she starred in the Disney movie