Lonette McKee
Lonette Rita McKee (born July 22, 1954) is an American actress and singer. She made her big screen debut starring as Sister Williams in the original 1976 musical-drama film Sparkle. McKee later appeared in films Which Way Is Up?
Also recorded as Lonette Rita McKee
Lonette McKee
- Born
- 1954. · Detroit.
- Nationality
- United States.
- Occupation
- actress, singer, film director and musician.
- Education
- The New School and Saint Martin de Porres High School.
- Languages
- English.
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Lonette Rita McKee (born July 22, 1954) is an American actress and singer. She made her big screen debut starring as Sister Williams in the original 1976 musical-drama film Sparkle. McKee later appeared in films Which Way Is Up?
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wikidata · Q538542 · wikipedia · Lonette McKee
In this article
Early life and education
Early life and education
(1977), The Cotton Club (1984), Brewster's Millions (1985), Round Midnight (1986), Gardens of Stone (1987), Jungle Fever (1991), Malcolm X (1992), Men of Honor (2000), Honey (2003) and ATL (2006). McKee became the first African American to play the coveted role of Julie and received critical acclaim for her performance in Broadway musical Show Boat in 1983, for which she received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical. She also starred in The First and played Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill. McKee also received three Drama Desk and three NAACP Image Awards nominations during her career.
Born in Detroit, Michigan, McKee was the second of three daughters of Dorothy McKee, of Swedish descent, and Lonnie McKee, an African American bricklayer and auto manufacturer employee. Lonette's mother was Scandinavian American. McKee's older sister, Kathrine "Kathy" McKee, is also an actress and performer. McKee attended St Martin De Porres High School, but dropped out after her freshman year, moving to Los Angeles, California, to live with her older sister. As a young girl Lonette performed at record hops, dances, and small night clubs in her hometown of Detroit with help from her mother.
Career
Career
McKee's career began in the music business in Detroit as a child prodigy, where she started writing music and lyrics, singing, playing keyboards, and performing at the age of seven. In 1968, McKee, then aged 14, recorded her first record titled "Stop! (Don't Worry About It)". It became an instant regional pop/R&B hit. McKee wrote the title song for the film Quadroon, in which her sister Katherine McKee starred, when she was fifteen. Several years later, McKee was launched to stardom with her critically acclaimed performance in the hit 1976 musical drama film Sparkle. McKee's career further took off throughout the mid-1970s to late 1980s, with her starring alongside comedy superstar Richard Pryor in the 1977 comedy film Which Way Is Up?, and in the 1985 comedy film Brewster's Millions. During this period, McKee played as an African American woman passing as white in both Julie Dash's 1982 short film, Illusions and in Francis Ford Coppola's 1984 musical crime drama The Cotton Club. She has written and produced three solo LPs. Natural Love was produced for Spike Lee's Columbia 40 Acres and A Mule label in 1992. Ed Hogan, reviewing for AllMusic, wrote, "'Natural Love' shows that the singer/songwriter's muse knows no stylistic bounds. As with her earlier effort, McKee co-writes all of the songs while sharing production credits with Bryant McNeil, Gene Lake Jr., and labelmate Raymond Jones of State of Art." McKee scored the music for the well-received cable documentary on the Lower Manhattan African Burial Ground, as well as numerous infomercials. McKee has toured extensively throughout the world singing concert performances, including the JVC Jazz Festival at Carnegie Hall. McKee studied film directing at The New School in New York and apprenticed directing with the filmmaker Spike Lee. McKee also studied singing with Dini Clark and ballet with Sarah Tayir, both in Los Angeles. She also appeared on the CW sitcom The Game as Mrs. Pitts, the mother of Jason (played by Coby Bell), in 2007. McKee won critical acclaim for her Broadway debut performance in the musical The First in 1981, co-starring in the role of Jackie Robinson's wife Rachel. She became the first African American to play the coveted role of Julie in the Houston Grand Opera's production of Show Boat in 1983 on Broadway, for which she received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical. McKee's tragic portrayal of jazz legend Billie Holiday in the one-woman drama with music, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, won critical acclaim, standing ovations, and a 1987 Drama Desk Award nomination (Outstanding Actress in a Musical). She reprised the role of Julie on Broadway in the 1994 revival of Show Boat directed by Hal Prince. In 2012 she starred in New Federal Theatre’s production of Sowa’s Red Gravy. In 2013, McKee expressed a desire to establish a performance arts center in the New York tri-state area. She performs her one-woman memoir with music on stages throughout the US. She produced her first feature film, Dream Street, which she wrote and directed.
Personal life
Personal life
McKee has been married once and has no children. She dated the actor and stand-up comedian Freddie Prinze for a time during 1976, while he was still married and after his wife had given birth to their son. McKee was married to Leo Compton, a youth counselor, from February 1983 to 1990. In the mid-1990s, she lived in an Upper East Side brownstone with her companion, the musician Bryant McNeil. They met while they were working together on McKee's Natural Love album. McKee teaches a master acting workshop at Centenary College of New Jersey, where she is an adjunct professor in the Theater Arts department.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1992
Lonette McKee - Watch the Birds (1992) (1992) is digitised and catalogued by Internet Archive.
Discography
Lonette (Sussex, 1974) Words and Music (Warner Bros., 1978) Natural Love (40 Acres and a Mule/Columbia, 1992)
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Gilbert Valarie C., Women and Mixed Race Representation in Film, McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers, 2021
- 2.Library of Congress, Catalog of Copyright Entries Third series, Library of Congress. Copyright Office, 1971
- 3.McCann, Bob. Encyclopedia of African American Actresses in Film and Television. McFarland and Company. 2007. 978-0-7864-5804-2.
- 4.Stark, John. "After Singing Her Own Blues, Lonette Mckee Finds a Perch as Off Broadway's Billie Holiday" People, November 3, 1986
- 5.Who Sang what on Broadway, 1866–1996: The singers (L-Z) - Ann M. Savage (ed), Women's Rights: Reflections in Popular Culture – The Women of Brewster's Place (1989)
- 6.Lonette McKee – Broadway Cast & Staff | IBDB. www.ibdb.com.
- 7.Jones, Charisse. AT HOME WITH: Lonette McKee; A Life Between, On Stage and Off. The New York Times. December 29, 1994.
- 8."Lonette McKee Biography (1954?-)", Film Reference
- 9.Gilbert, Valerie C. Women and mixed race representation in film: eight star profiles. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. 2021. 978-1-4766-6338-8.
- 10.rtmadminmc, "Spotlight: Lonette McKee". The Michigan Chronicle, February 8, 2012
- 11.Sangweni, Yolanda. "Lonette McKee on Being in 'Luv' with Common, and What She Really Thought of the 'Sparkle' Remake" Essence, December 5, 2012
- 12.Johnson Publishing Company. Lonette McKee Knows The Way Up: 1.5 Million Deal. JET. June 29, 1978.
- 13.Fraser, C. Gerald. New Face: Lonette McKee Another Shade of Black. The New York Times. January 20, 1978.
- 14.Sparkle, TCM. Retrieved January 16, 2016. https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/91005/sparkle
- 15.Hogan, Ed. "Lonette McKee Natural Love", Allmusic. Retrieved January 16, 2016.
- 16."Lonette McKee", Playbill. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
- 17.Show Boat, Playbill. Retrieved May 10, 2020 - Jessie Carney Smith, Black Firsts: 4,000 Ground-Breaking and Pioneering Historical Events, Visible Ink Press, 1983
- 18.Gates, Anita. Otherworldly People With Earthy Tastes. The New York Times. 2012-10-31. 0362-4331.
- 19.Lonette McKee: Taking Control of Her Destiny.
- 20.Catching up with Lonette McKee. April 15, 2011.
- 21.David Henry, Joe Henry, Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World that Made Him, Algonquin Books, 2013
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