Jenifer Lewis

Jenifer Lewis

CountryUnited States United States
GenderFemale
Birthdayjanv. 25, 1957
BiographyJenifer Jeanette Lewis (born January 25, 1957) is an American actress. She began her career appearing in Broadway musicals and worked as a back-up singer for Bette Midler before appearing in films Beaches (1988) and Sister Act (1992). Lewis is known for playing roles of mothers in the films What's Love Got to Do With It (1993), Poetic Justice (1993), The Preacher's Wife (1996), The Brothers (2001), The Cookout (2004), Think Like a Man (2012) and in the sequel Think Like a Man Too (2014), Baggage Claim (2013) and The Wedding Ringer (2015), as well as in The Temptations miniseries (1998).

Lewis is known unofficially as "The Mother of Black Hollywood" (also the name of her memoir) given her frequent matriarchal film and television roles. 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).

On television, Lewis starred as Lana Hawkins in the Lifetime medical drama Strong Medicine from 2000 to 2006. She also had recurring roles on sitcoms A Different World, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Girlfriends. In 2014, Lewis began starring as Ruby Johnson in the ABC comedy series Black-ish, for which she received two Critics' Choice Television Award nominations.

Biography from the Wikipedia article Jenifer Lewis. Licensed under CC-BY-SA. Full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known For

Part of Crew

Recently Updated Shows

Recently updated shows that might be of your interest.
Call the Midwife
Running

Call the Midwife

Drama following the lives of a group of midwives working in the poverty-stricken East End of London during the 1950s, based on the best-selling memoirs of Jennifer Worth.

Chicago Med
Running

Chicago Med

An emotional thrill ride through the day-to-day chaos of the city's newest state-of-the-art trauma center and into the lives of the courageous doctors, nurses and staff who hold it all together. This is one of those days.

Bad Monkey
Running

Bad Monkey

Bad Monkey tells the story of Andrew Yancy, a one-time detective demoted to restaurant inspector in Southern Florida. A severed arm found by a tourist out fishing pulls Yancy into the world of greed and corruption that decimates the land and environment in both Florida and the Bahamas. And yes, there's a monkey.

Brilliant Minds
Running

Brilliant Minds

Inspired by the extraordinary life and work of world-famous author and physician Oliver Sacks, Brilliant Minds follows a revolutionary, larger-than-life neurologist and his team of interns as they explore the last great frontier - the human mind - while grappling with their own relationships and mental health.

Black Mirror
Running

Black Mirror

Over the last ten years, technology has transformed almost every aspect of our lives before we've had time to stop and question it. In every home; on every desk; in every palm - a plasma screen; a monitor; a smartphone--a black mirror of our 21st Century existence. Black Mirror is a contemporary British re-working of The Twilight Zone with stories that tap into the collective unease about our modern world.