Lynn Whitfield (born May 6, 1953) is an American actress and producer. She began her acting career in television and theatre, before progressing to supporting roles in film. She won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie and received a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance as Josephine Baker in the HBO biographical drama film The Josephine Baker Story (1991). Whitfield spent her career after breakthrough performance as Josephine Baker playing the leading roles in a number of made for television movies in the 1990s, and had several starring roles in films, include performances in A Thin Line Between Love and Hate (1996), Gone Fishin' (1997), Eve's Bayou (1997), Stepmom (1998), Head of State (2003), Madea's Family Reunion (2006) and The Women (2008). Whitfield also starred in a number of smaller movies in the 2000s and 2010s. In 2016, she began starring as villainous Lady Mae Greenleaf in the Oprah Winfrey Network drama series, Greenleaf. Whitfield has won five NAACP Image Awards. Whitfield was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the daughter of Jean (née Butler)who is African-American, an officer of a finance agency, and Valerian Smith -who is Creole, a dentist. She is the eldest of four children and a third-generation BFA graduate from Howard University. Her dentist father was instrumental in developing Lynn's initial interest in acting as he was a prime figure in forming community theater in her native Baton Rouge. First garnering attention on the stage by studying and performing with the Black Repertory Company in Washington, D.C, she married one of the company's co-founders and pioneers of black theatre, playwright/director/actor Vantile Whitfield in 1974. She eventually moved to New York and appeared off-Broadway in such shows as The Great Macdaddy and Showdown before earning acclaim in the 1977 Los Angeles production of the landmark play 'for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf' co-starring alongside Alfre Woodard.

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