Lynn Whitfield (née Smith, born February 15, 1953) is an American actress. She began her acting career in television and theatre before progressing to supporting roles in film. She won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Special and a NAACP Image Award for her performance as Josephine Baker in the HBO movie The Josephine Baker Story (1991). She also won NAACP Image awards for her work in Touched by an Angel (1998), The Planet of Junior Brown (2000) and Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story (2004). Her film work includes performances in A Thin Line Between Love and Hate (1996), Eve's Bayou (1997), Stepmom (1998), Head of State (2003), The Cheetah Girls (2003), The Cheetah Girls 2 (2006), Madea's Family Reunion (2006), The Women (2008), Nappily Ever After (2018), and Vacation Friends (2021). From 2016 to ...read more