Lewis is known unofficially as "The Mother of Black Hollywood" (also the name of her memoir) given her frequent matriarchal film and television roles.[2][3] She also provided the voice for Mama Odie in Disney's animated feature The Princess and the Frog (2009), and Flo in Pixar's Cars series. Additional film roles include Dead Presidents (1995), Cast Away (2000) and Hereafter (2010).
Lewis was born in Kinloch, Missouri,[1] a suburb of St. Louis, to a nurse's aide mother, Dorothy, and a factory worker father. Lewis is the youngest of seven children. She sang in her church choir at the age of five. She attended Kinloch High School and then college at Webster University in Webster Groves, Missouri. She received an honorary degree from Webster in 2015.[4] After college, Lewis moved to New York.
Career
1970s–1980s
Soon after she arrived in New York City, Lewis debuted on Broadway in a small role in Eubie (1979), the musical based on the work of Eubie Blake.[5] She next landed the role of Effie White in the workshop of the Michael Bennett–directed musical Dreamgirls, but when the show moved to Broadway, Bennett chose Jennifer Holliday for the role.[citation needed]
Lewis became a Harlette, a back-up singer for Bette Midler, which led to Lewis' first TV appearances on Midler's HBO specials. She was cast as a backup singer in the Otto Titsling production number in Midler's film Beaches (1988). At the same time, Lewis was developing her nightclub act, The Diva Is Dismissed, an autobiographical comedy and music show in New York City cabarets. She performed the show off-Broadway at the Public Theater.[6]
1990s
After Lewis relocated to Los Angeles, she began appearing in television sitcoms, including Murphy Brown, Dream On, In Living Color, Roc, Hangin' with Mr. Cooper and Friends. From 1992 to 1993, she played Dean Davenport in the sixth and final season of the NBC sitcom A Different World. She also had a recurring role as Will Smith's Aunt Helen in the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air from 1991 to 1996. As a series regular, Lewis starred alongside Patricia Wettig in her short-lived legal drama Courthouse in 1995, playing Judge Rosetta Reide, the first main African American lesbian character on television.[7]
In June 2010, Lewis told the Jazz Joy and Roy syndicated radio show: "I just did a production of Hello Dolly at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle and it had to be one of the greatest productions that I have ever done, because I got to just do a character, Dolly Levi, and it was just great."[13] In 2012, Lewis began working with Shangela on the online reality show parody Jenifer Lewis and Shangela, where she acts as herself alongside Shangela, a "drag queen living in her basement." She later appeared in Shangela's music video for "Werqin Girl (Professional)".[citation needed]
In 2024, Lewis competed in season eleven of The Masked Singer as "Miss Cleocatra" who later utilized an Egyptian throne prop. She was eliminated on "Girl Group Night".[20]
Also in 2024, the ABC special, After the Fall: A Conversation with Robin Roberts and Jenifer Lewis, premiered detailing a life threatening accident that happened while she was vacation in Africa.
Lewis has revealed that she's been engaged four times but never married. She has an adopted daughter named Charmaine Lewis.[22][23]
In 2015, Lewis was defrauded by a romance-scheme con man, which was detailed in the 2022 episode "Financial Infidelity", of the series American Greed.[24]
In 1990, Lewis was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.[25] She originally hid her diagnosis, as she felt ashamed, but eventually came to embrace it after 17 years of therapy and 10 years of medication. In a 2014 interview, she said: "You have to look in the mirror... and say—before you can go or grow into anything—you have to say you love yourself."[26]
In 2022, Lewis sustained life-threatening injuries after falling 10-feet from her hotel balcony in Serengeti. She was then airlifted to Nairobi where she underwent a nine-hour surgery followed by a six-day ICU stay.[27]
^ abcdefghijkl"Jenifer Lewis (visual voices guide)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved 2 October 2024. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information.
