Dream Wired
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Celebrity
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • TV
  • Music
  • Comics
  • Shop
  • Home
  • Celebrity
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • TV
  • Music
  • Comics
  • Shop
No Result
View All Result
Dream Wired
No Result
View All Result
Home Movie

‘Lean on Me’ Actress, Singer Was 79 – The Hollywood Reporter

rmtsa by rmtsa
December 31, 2023
in Movie
0
‘Lean on Me’ Actress, Singer Was 79 – The Hollywood Reporter
74
SHARES
1.2k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter


You might also like

Peacemaker Season 2 Trailer Previews Next DCU Project After Superman Movie

Rebecca Romijn Says ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Script Isn’t Finished

StoryTerra: an interactive map that lets you explore movies(among other things) based on where and when their stories take place!

Sandra Reaves-Phillips, the actress and singer who appeared in the films ’Round Midnight and Lean on Me and portrayed six legendary divas in a one-woman, tour de force stage show, has died. She was 79.

Reaves-Phillips died Friday at her home in Queens, family spokesperson Sandra Lanman told The Hollywood Reporter. She had been in failing health since falling off a stage during a performance of Raisin in St. Louis in 2004 and enduring serious auto accidents in 2014 and ’15 in New York.

The South Carolina native worked opposite Maurice Hines in his 2006 Broadway musical Hot Feet, and she portrayed Mama Younger and Bertha Mae Little, respectively, in Raisin on Broadway and national and European tours and in a 1999 off-Broadway production of Rollin’ on the T.O.B.A.

Reaves-Phillips was featured with saxophonist Dexter Gordon in Bertrand Tavernier’s ’Round Midnight (1986) in the role of Buttercup, and in the Morgan Freeman-starring Lean on Me (1989), directed by John G. Avildsen, she was Mrs. Powers, the music teacher who leads her students in the title song.

The production that best showcased the breadth of her considerable talent was The Late, Great Ladies of Blues & Jazz, where she captured the music and personas of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington and Mahalia Jackson. She toured around the country and abroad with the show for more than two decades.

She also created and toured with three other one-woman shows: Bold and Brassy Blues; Heart to Heart, an R&B revue; and a tribute to Jackson.

Born on Dec. 23, 1944, in Mullins, South Carolina, to a single teenage mother, Rosa Lee, Reaves-Phillips was raised by her grandmother Mathilda, joining her in the fields to pick fruits, vegetables and cotton.

“You go six in the morning, leave six in the evening, and you get up the next morning and do the same thing,” she told an interviewer years later.

When she was 15, she moved to New York to live with her mom and had her first child a couple of years later. She began performing at amateur nights in local clubs and lied about her age in order to earn $15 for three shows a night.

Reaves-Phillips signed a recording contract that never gained traction, but an impulsive decision to sign up for the Al Fann Theatrical Ensemble in Harlem marked a turning point in her career.

Reaves-Phillips also stood out in the national tour of One Mo’ Time and in its 1990 off-Broadway sequel, And Further Mo’; played Smith in Champeen; was in Ain’t Nothin’ but the Blues and the original Paris premiere of Black and Blue; and performed in international jazz festivals and in a gospel concert at the Vatican for Pope John Paul II.

On television, she was on Another World, Law & Order, Homicide: Life on the Street and Strangers With Candy and worked alongside Ann-Margret in the 1994 NBC telefilm Following Her Heart.

Survivors include her son, Lacy Darryl Phillips, a recording artist, director and choreographer, and her daughter, Marishka Shanice Phillips, an actor, singer, writer, director and acting coach.

Two of her last performances came at Marian’s Jazz Club in Bern, Switzerland in 2014 and at the Triad Theater in New York for her son’s birthday celebration in 2019.



Source link

Tags: ActressHollywoodLeanReporterSinger
Share30Tweet19
rmtsa

rmtsa

Recommended For You

Peacemaker Season 2 Trailer Previews Next DCU Project After Superman Movie

by rmtsa
July 27, 2025
0
Peacemaker Season 2 Trailer Previews Next DCU Project After Superman Movie

A new trailer for Peacemaker Season 2 has been released. The first season of Peacemaker premiered on HBO Max in January 2022. Created by James Gunn, the show...

Read more

Rebecca Romijn Says ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Script Isn’t Finished

by rmtsa
July 27, 2025
0
Rebecca Romijn Says ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Script Isn’t Finished

Rebecca Romijn is sharing an update on her return as Mystique in the highly-anticipated Avengers: Doomsday.  At The Hollywood Reporter’s San Diego Comic-Con suite, the Star Trek: Strange...

Read more

StoryTerra: an interactive map that lets you explore movies(among other things) based on where and when their stories take place!

by rmtsa
July 26, 2025
0
StoryTerra: an interactive map that lets you explore movies(among other things) based on where and when their stories take place!

I’ve been working on a project called StoryTerra, an interactive map where you can explore thousands of movies, books, games, and TV shows based on where and when...

Read more

Hot Toys Reveals Mr. Fantastic, The Thing, Sue Storm, and H.E.R.B.I.E. Action Figures — GeekTyrant

by rmtsa
July 26, 2025
0
Hot Toys Reveals Mr. Fantastic, The Thing, Sue Storm, and H.E.R.B.I.E. Action Figures — GeekTyrant

Hot Toys has revealed several new collectible action figures from Marvel Studios movie The Fantastic Four: First Steps. The first round of reveals include Regular and Deluxe versions...

Read more

The Best Superhero Movies Not From Marvel or DC

by rmtsa
July 26, 2025
0
The Best Superhero Movies Not From Marvel or DC

While they may not exactly have a monopoly over the sub-genre, Marvel and DC are undoubtedly the two dominant forces when it comes to superhero movies. Who can...

Read more
Next Post
Will Hayley Atwell Play Live-Action Peggy Again? – TVLine

Will Hayley Atwell Play Live-Action Peggy Again? – TVLine

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Browse by Category

  • Celebrity
  • Comics
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • Music
  • TV
  • Uncategorized

CATEGORIES

  • Celebrity
  • Comics
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • Music
  • TV
  • Uncategorized
No Result
View All Result

Recent News

  • Jax Taylor Quits Los Angeles Bar Partnership After The Valley Exit
  • Today’s 8 Most Important Anniversaries
  • Wrestling legend Hulk Hogan dead at 71 – National

Copyright © 2023 DramaWired.
DramaWired is a content aggregator and not responsible for the content of external sites.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Celebrity
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • TV
  • Music
  • Comics
  • Shop

Copyright © 2023 DramaWired.
DramaWired is a content aggregator and not responsible for the content of external sites.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In