Sheryl Lee Ralph

A multifaceted singer and actress, Emmy winner and Tony nominee Sheryl Lee Ralph is known for her own bright, R&B-flavored dance-pop as well as for commanding a wide vocal range in roles on Broadway, television, and film. Some of her career highlights include the '80s Disney animated classic Oliver & Company, TV's Moesha and Abbott Elementary, and Broadway's Dreamgirls and Wicked. Her intermittent recording career as a soloist has included the 1984 album In the Evening, featuring the Top Ten dance hit of the same name, and the 2022 holiday collection Sleigh. In 2024, Ralph's performance of "Blood Sweat & Tears" from the animated Netflix series Arcane League of Legends was released as a single.

Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on December 30, 1956, Sheryl Lee Ralph was raised partly in Mandeville, Jamaica and partly in Long Island, New York. Her mother was celebrated Jamaican fashion designer Ivy Ralph, her father, Stanley, was a college professor, and Sheryl is the older sibling of actor and comedian Michael Ralph. She performed in musical-theater productions in school, and after graduating from high school at 15 in 1972, she became the youngest woman in history at the time to graduate from Rutgers University. Ralph went on to make her on-screen debut in the 1977 film A Piece of the Action, starring Sidney Poitier, with other film roles and numerous television guest spots quickly following.

Ralph landed her first Broadway part in 1980's Reggae before originating the role of Deena Jones in Dreamgirls a year later. The musical was nominated for 13 Tony Awards in all, including a nod for Ralph for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical. (She lost to co-star Jennifer Holliday.) Ralph's success in the role led to a contract with Sid Bernstein's label, and she released the dance-oriented solo album In the Evening in 1984. The song "In the Evening" became a club hit, reaching the Top Ten of the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart. The follow-up single, "You're So Romantic," reached the Top 40 of the same chart while cracking the R&B Top 100.

Switching gear again, Ralph won the part of Rita the Saluki in the 1988 Disney animated musical Oliver & Company, ensuring that her voice would be known to children for generations. In the meantime, she was cast as regular on the sitcom It's a Living, which ran from 1986 to 1989. In 1989, she played Denzel Washington's spouse in the mystery-comedy The Mighty Quinn. Some of her most high-profile screen work in the '90s included playing teacher Dee Mitchell on the sitcom Moesha, and appearing in movies such Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit and The Filntstones. She capped off the decade with a return to the Billboard dance chart with her club rendition of the Eurythmics hit "Here Comes the Rain Again."

After over a decade away from the stage, Ralph returned to Broadway to play Muzzy Van Hossmere in the 2002 musical stage adaptation of the film Thoroughly Modern Millie. The 2010s brought more main-cast and recurring sitcom roles (Instant Mom, Ram, Ray Donovan) and a couple runs as a replacement Madame Morrible in Broadway's Wicked in 2016 and 2017. She went on to produce the Broadway plays Thoughts of a Colored Man (2021) and Ohio State Murders (2022). In 2021, Ralph landed the role Barbara Howard on the acclaimed workplace comedy Abbott Elementary, for which she won the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2022. While still appearing on that show, she released the holiday album Sleigh. in late 2022 and performed the song "Blood Sweat & Tears" for the adult animated Netflix series Arcane League of Legends (based on the game). It was released as a single on Riot Games in late 2024. ~ Marcy Donelson, Rovi