Leslie Uggams was known for her role as Kizzy Reynolds in the television miniseries “Roots.”
The mother and grandmother has been married for 57 years to her Australian husband.
The couple celebrates their anniversary on October 16 each year.
Uggams and her husband celebrate their 57th wedding anniversary on October 16, 2022. They have been through a lot together but have remained by one another’s side through it all.
Their marriage was one of the rare high-profile interracial marriages in Hollywood. They were married at a time when interracial marriages were illegal in some parts of the United States.
The couple still attends public events together and enjoys spending time with one another, like on Father’s Day this year. They celebrated Juneteenth together on the same day.
The celebration was attended by Uggams. her husband, and the Broadway League and Uggams received a Legacy Award that day. Uggams posted about the event on Instagram, where she and her husband can be seen sitting with members of the Broadway League.
Even though her husband, Grahame Pratt, was not an American, the couple still received a lot of hate mail. Here’s a look into Leslie Uggams’s life and marriage.
About Leslie Uggams
Born May 25, 1943, Leslie Marian Uggams is an American actress and singer whose parents were performers. Uggams attended the Professional Children’s School of New York and Juilliard.
Her aunt encouraged her musical training, and she was in show business as a child in 1951. Her first T.V. appearance was in the situation-comedy series “Beulah.”
In 1951, she was a featured performer at the famed Apollo Theater. By the time she was ten, she had made a record for MGM. However, it wasn’t until 1958 that T.V. audiences recognized her as an upcoming teen talent.
She was on the musical quiz show series “Name That Tune,” where Record Producer Mitch Miller noticed and hired her for “Sing Along With Mitch.”
Uggams’s records “One More Sunrise” and “House Built on Sand” made Billboard magazine’s charts. In 1967, Uggams made her Broadway debut when she starred in “Hallelujah, Baby!”
She won a Theater World Award and the Tony Award for Best Actress in a musical. By 1969, she had her television variety show “The Leslie Uggams Show.”
She became the first Black woman to host a variety show and the second African-American since “The Nat King Cole Show” of the mid-1950s.
In 1977, she had a lead role in the miniseries “Roots,” where she played Kunta Kinte’s daughter, Kizzy. This role brought her an Emmy Award nomination.
She received another Emmy Award nomination for Best Actress when she played Lilian Rogers Parks in the 1979 miniseries “Backstairs at the White House.”
She was back...
