Bassett has built her career around playing some of the most celebrated real-life, pioneering black women of the twentieth century. She was Oscar-nominated and won both the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture-Comedy/Musical and the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Motion Picture for her star-making performance as Tina Turner/Anna Mae Bullock in What's Love Got to Do with It (1993). She won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for her work as the late-Dr. Betty Shabazz (widow of the slain civil rights pioneer Malcolm X) in Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992). She would later play Dr. Shabazz in a cameo appearance in Mario Van Peebles' Panther (1995). She delivered the only three-dimensional performance in the 1992 ABC miniseries about The Jackson Five and their family, The Jacksons: An American Dream (1992) (TV). In 1999, she played Janet Williams--the principal of the school where Roberta Guaspari taught in Music of the Heart (1999). She was also in the running to play Dorothy Dandridge, until Halle Berry beat her to the punch with the HBO telefilm, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999) (TV).
She was once employed as a photo researcher at U.S. News & World Report magazine.
In 1974 she began to consider acting as a career choice after an 11th-grade class trip to Washington, DC during which she saw actor James Earl Jones perform in a Kennedy Center production of the play "Of Mice and Men".
Turned down the role of Leticia Musgrove in Monster's Ball (2001) because she did not want to perform nude.
Won the 2002 Lena Horne Award for Outstanding Career Achievements in the Field of Entertainment.
Played Muslim activist Betty Shabazz in two different movies: Malcolm X (1992) and Panther (1995).
Graduated from Boca Ciega High School in St. Petersburg, Florida, Class of 1976.
Born on the same day as Madonna.
As of 2005, she is the first and only African American recipient of the Golden Globe award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, as Tina Turner in What's Love Got to Do with It (1993).
Graduated from Yale with a B.A. in African-American studies (1980)
Graduated from Yale drama school with a Master of Fine Arts Degree (1983)
Angela and her husband, Courtney B. Vance, became the parents of twins (a boy and a girl) on January 27, 2006 in California through a surrogate.
Angela Bassett Detailed Biography
Angela Bassett (born August 16, 1958 in New York City) is an African-American film actress.
Born in New York City, and then relocating to St. Petersburg, Florida as a child. Angela and her sister D'nette were raised by their social worker mother, Betty. Stressing the importance of an education by their mother, Angela earned an academic scholarship to Yale University. She received her B.A. in African-American studies from Yale in 1980. In 1983, she earned a Master of Fine Arts Degree from the Yale School of Drama It was at Yale that Bassett met her husband Courtney B. Vance a 1986 graduate of the Drama school.
Soon after graduating from Yale, Bassett made her first appeareance on television as a prostitute in the TV movie Doubletake (1985). However, she made her official film debut as a news reporter in the film F/X (1986). Bassett soon gained recognition in the highly acclaimed, but controversial, films Boyz n the Hood (1991) and Malcolm X (1992).For her portrayal of Betty Shabazz in that film, Bassett earned an Image award. It wasn't until 1993 that she earned a Golden Globe and a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Tina Turner in the film What's Love Got to Do with It?. She's been married to actor Courtney B. Vance since 1997. In the summer of 2005 Bassett & Vance starred together in a production of the play "His Girl Friday" at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The couple's first children, a boy and a girl, were born on Friday, January 27, 2006. The children were carried by a surrogate mother.
Angela Bassett was born on the exact same day as singer Madonna.
