Vanessa Williams

Real world article
(written from a production point of view)

Vanessa Lynn Williams (born 18 March 1963; age 62) is a singer and actress who played Arandis in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fifth season episode "Let He Who Is Without Sin...".

Hailing from the Bronx, New York City, Williams was the first African-American woman to become Miss America in 1984, but resigned later that year when unauthorized nude photos of her were published in Penthouse magazine.

She made her first acting appearance the same year, playing herself as "Miss America 1984" in an episode of The Love Boat. This was soon followed by guest roles in episodes of series such as Partners in Crime (with Amy Hill), The Redd Foxx Show, and T.J. Hooker (starring and directed by William Shatner, with James Darren and Marcy Lafferty).

Williams is probably best known for starring as Wilhelmina Slater in Ugly Betty from 2006 to 2010, alongside Tony Plana, Rebecca Romijn, and Alan Dale. She has been nominated for an 2007 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Comedy Series for her role.

From 2010 to 2012 she appeared in Desperate Housewives as Renee Perry, during which she played alongside Teri Hatcher, Brenda Strong, Mark Moses, Scott Bakula, Miguel Ferrer, Steven Culp, Kevin Rahm, Tony Plana, and Ellen Geer. In the 2012-2013 season, she starred alongside Terry O'Quinn in the short-lived series 666 Park Avenue. In 2017, she starred in Daytime Divas (with Jennifer Gatti).

She also played notable recurring roles on Boomtown (2003, starring Neal McDonough, with Stephen Macht, Wade Andrew Williams, Jamie McShane, Beau Billingslea, Anthony Montgomery, Patrick Kilpatrick, Tom Wright, Fran Bennett, LeVar Burton, and Virginia Madsen), Royal Pains (2015), The Good Wife (2015, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Christopher McDonald), and The Librarians (2016-17, starring Rebecca Romijn, Lindy Booth, and John Larroquette, with W. Morgan Sheppard, including two episodes directed by Jonathan Frakes).

Williams appeared in guest roles on series like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (starring James Avery), Ally McBeal, The Mindy Project (2015, with Adam Pally), and Modern Family (starring Ariel Winter).

Williams also starred or co-starred in several feature films and TV movies. The former include Another You (1991, with Catherine Coulson, Biff Yeager, and Michael J. Pollard), Eraser (1996, with James Cromwell, Michael Papajohn, Mark Rolston, John Snyder, Rocco Sisto, Patrick Kilpatrick, and Tom Lupo), Soul Food (1997), Dance with Me (1998, with Harry Groener, Mike Gomez, and Michael McAdam), The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland (1999, with puppet work by Kirk Randolph Thatcher), Shaft (2000, with Sonja Sohn), Johnson Family Vacation (2004), and The Man from Earth: Holocene (2017, with John Billingsley and Michael Dorn).

Her numerous TV movie appearances include Perry Mason: The Case of the Silenced Singer (1990), Nothing Lasts Forever (1995, with Saul Rubinek, Mary Carver, and Dakin Matthews), Bye Bye Birdie (1995, starring Jason Alexander), The Odyssey (1997, with Michael J. Pollard), Futuresport (1998, with Bill Smitrovich and Hiro Kanagawa), The Courage of Love (2000, with Raven Dauda), Don Quixote (2000), A Diva's Christmas Carol (2000, with Brian McNamara), Keep the Faith, Baby (2002, with Michael Copeman and Karen Robinson), The Trip to Bountiful (2014), and False Profits (2018).

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