Actress/singer Lonette McKee

Lonette McKee was one of the breakout stars of the late 1970s.

The daughter of a black father and a Swedish mother, she grew up in Detroit as a child musical prodigy, and it turned out she could act too.  She first gained notoriety in Sparkle, as a singer in a fictional girl group inspired by the Motown groups of yore. 

She made indelible impressions in two jazz-related films of the 1980s, 1984's The Cotton Club and 1986's 'Round Midnight, and in between she played for laughs in 1985's Brewster's Millions, a Richard Pryor comedy about a minor-league baseball player who stands to inherit $300 million provided that he can spend $30 million in thirty days.  Ms. McKee played the paralegal in charge of observing his spending.

Since then, Ms. McKee has played numerous rules, such as a lesbian in the 1989 miniseries "The Women of Brewster Place," about a sisterhood of black women in an urban tenement, and in 1992's Spike Lee movie about Malcolm X (called Malcolm X, of course), she played Louise Little, Malcolm's mother; her association with Lee included roles in other films of his, including the 1998 basketball drama He Got Game.

Lonette McKee has also made record albums, never forgetting her talent as a singer.  Her most recent LP, 1992's Natural Love, was released by Spike Lee's production company.  Her theater work includes a performance as Billie Holiday in the off-Broadway production Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill.  And, she's had many one-shot roles in television shows. 

These days, Lonette McKee is more into educating than performing, serving as an adjunct theater arts professor at Centenary College in New Jersey and working on establishing a performing-arts school in the New York City area.  However, she has done a one-woman show looking back at her career as well. Whatever she does, Lonette McKee is sure to distinguish herself beautifully.

Fin fact: Although she's vegetarian, she has a weakness for Twizzlers.