Nia Long Biography
This stunningly beautiful, rising black actress first began her acting career as a teenager, appearing in several stage productions, including “227″, which was the basis for the NBC sitcom of the same name on which she made a guest appearance. She landed a role in “The B.R.A.T. Patrol” (ABC, 1986), a “Disney Sunday Movie” and appearances in music videos before breaking onto the big screen in “Buried Alive” (1990). In John Singleton’s acclaimed “Boyz N the Hood” (1991), Long played the marriage-minded girlfriend of Cuba Gooding Jr.’s Tre. Her three-year stint (1991-1994) as Kathryn ‘Kat’ Speakes on the CBS daytime drama “Guiding Light” garnered her attention and Long used the experience as a springboard to primetime and higher profile features. While still on the soap, she landed the role of Whoopi Goldberg’s daughter in the uneven comedy “Made in America”. Long fared slightly better the following year when she joined the cast of the hit NBC sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”, playing the recurring role of Will’s girlfriend, but when the series returned for its final season, her role had been dropped.
Long wasn’t out of work for long. First time director F. Gary Gray offered her a strong comedic role as Debbie, the foxy neighbor who becomes the object of Ice T’s affection, in the sassy comedy “Friday” (1995). Another novice, Theodore Wicher, gave the actress her first real lead in “Love Jones” (1997), as a photographer who has an on-again, off-again relationship with a writer (Larenz Tate). Long and Tate generated real screen heat and both earned high marks from critics. The actress followed with the sleeper hit “Soul Food” (also 1997), playing the youngest of a trio of sisters, a newlywed struggling with her career as a hair stylist and the demands of her marriage to an ex-con (Mekhi Phifer) trying to go straight. After appearing in a pair of urban-oriented action-thrillers, “Butter” (1998) and “In Too Deep” (1999), Long appeared in the predominantly African American ensemble of writer-director Malcolm Lee’s “The Best Man” as the one-that-got-away old flame who reunites with her otherwise committed ex (Taye Diggs) at the wedding of a mutual friend, played the club hopping best friend of Patricia Arquette in the horror-thriller “Stigmata,” starred opposite Jamie Foxx in the hostage comedy “Held Up” and appeared opposite Colin Firth in the low-profile indie “The Secret Laughter of Women” (all 1999). Long next appeared as Mary McCormack’s lesbian girlfriend in the gay-themed ensemble drama “The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy”; as a empathetic receptionist who shares a bond with Giovanni Ribisi in “Boiler Room”; played a member of a protective circle of lesbians in the HBO telepic “If These Walls Could Talk 2″; and played Martin Lawrence’s love interest/faux granddaughter in the comedy “Big Momma’s House” (all 2000).
After the middling haunted house film “Sightings: Heartland Ghost” (2002) and joining the cast of the NBC drama “Third Watch” in 2003, she scored as Melvin Van Peebles lover Sandra in “Baadasssss!” (2004) writer-director Mario van Peebles’ well-received account of the making of his father’s breakthrough film. She was also enticing in her supporting role in the 2004 remake of “Alfie,” playing the should-be-forbidden girlfriend of Alfie’s (Jude Law) best friend (Omar Epps) who proves too great a temptation. In the family-friendly “Are We There Yet?†(2005), she had a small, thankless role as a devoted mother of two children taken on a road trip by a smooth operator (Ice Cube) intent on getting a date with her. Long’s considerable talents were wasted in a role giving her little to do. And despite being panned by critics, “Are We There Yet?†opened number one at the box office and subsequently filled the coffers at Sony Pictures.
- Born:
on 10/30/1970 in Brooklyn, New York - Job Titles:
Actor, Singer
Family
- Father: Doughtry Long. divorced from Long’s mother in 1974
- Half-sister: Djamila Long.
- Mother: Talita Long. divorced from Long’s father in 1974
- Son: Massai Zhivago Dorsey. born on November 26, 2000
Significant Others
- Companion: Chris Webber. no longer together
- Companion: Massai Dorsey. engaged
- Companion: Peter Thomas. born c. 1961
Education
- Westchester High School, Los Angeles, California, 1989
- Santa Monica College, Santa Monica, California
Milestones
- 1977 Moved with family to L.A. at age 6 (date approximate)
- 1986 First major role in a TV-movie, “The B.R.A.T. Patrol,” an ABC “Disney Sunday Movie”
- 1990 Appeared in first feature, “Buried Alive”
- 1991 Played Kathryn ‘Kat’ Speakes on CBS daytime soap “Guiding Light”
- 1991 Breakout role as the love interest to Cuba Gooding Jr. in John Singleton’s “Boyz N the Hood”
- 1994 Joined cast of NBC sitcom “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” in recurring role of Will’s girlfriend
- 1995 Co-starred in the film comedy “Friday”
- 1997 Co-starred in the festival-screened “Hav Plenty”; screened at Sundance in 1998
- 1997 Formed own production company
- 1997 Had first leading role in “Love Jones”; also performed two songs; screened at Sundance
- 1997 Was in the ensemble cast of the hit film “Soul Food”
- 1998 Starred in the pilot “Black Jaq”, exefcutive produced by Forest Whitaker
- 1999 Co-starred in “The Best Man”
- 2000 Played Giovanni Ribisi’s girlfriend in “Boiler Room”
- 2001 Had recurring role as a love interest for Richard T Jones’ character on the CBS drama “Judging Amy”
- 2003 Became a regular on the drama series “Third Watch”
- 2004 Played Lonette, the ex-girlfriend of Alfie’s best friend in “Alfie” a remake of the 1966 classic
- 2004 Starred in “Baadasssss!” Mario Van Peebles’ homage to his father Melvin’s 1971 film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song
- 2005 Starred opposite Ice Cube in the comedy “Are We There Yet?”
- 2006 Co-starred with Martin Lawrence in the comedy “Big Momma’s House 2″
- Began acting career with appearances on TV shows and in theatrical productions (including the stage version of TV’s “227″, on which she appeared)
- Born in NYC
Gail Fisher Biography
Gail Fisher helped break several barriers as a young black actress in television during the 1960s. She was the first black performer to get dialogue in a nationally aired commercial, and as Peggy Fair on Mannix, only the second black woman (the first being Nichelle Nichols of Star Trek) cast as a regular character in a dramatic hour-long network series, a role for which she won an Emmy award in 1970. Fisher was one of five children born in Orange, NJ. She was later a beauty pageant winner and became a model, using the money she earned in the latter profession and from her regular job in a local factory in New Jersey to take acting lessons in New York. Fisher studied with Lee Strasberg and was later a member of the Repertory Theater at Lincoln Center, where she worked with Elia Kazan and Herbert Blau, among other directors. It was Blau who gave Fisher her significant stage credit, portraying a major role in a production of Danton’s Death. She had already picked up some television work, including commercials, and it was her spot for All detergent that marked a breakthrough for black performers in that field. In 1968, the producers of the series Mannix, starring Mike Connors, revamped the series from its original format, transforming him from an employee of a high-tech security firm into a more traditional private detective, with an office and a secretary. Fisher won the latter role, which allowed her to do far more than answer phones and serve coffee, frequently putting her into the action and the drama. Along with Nichelle Nichols, Greg Morris of Mission: Impossible, Robert Hooks of N.Y.P.D., Don Mitchell of Ironside, and Diahann Carroll of Julia, Fisher was one of the most visible black actors on television during this period, and her Emmy in 1970 confirmed the quality of her work. She took great pride in having helped raised the presence of black performers on television from near invisibility in the early 1960s to major prominence at the end of the decade. After the cancellation of the series in 1975, Fisher’s chaotic personal life — which included several marriages and problems with substance abuse — caused her to leave acting for a time, although she did play a major role in the 1987 feature film Mankillers and appeared in the made-for-television movie Donor in 1990. Fisher died of kidney failure late in 2000 in Los Angeles.