Foggy Melson | Angela Bassett & Tina Turner Interview on "What's Love Got to Do with It" (June 15, 1993) @foggymelson | Uploaded September 2023 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Angela Evelyn Bassett (born August 16, 1958) is an American actress. Known for her work in film and television since the late 1980s, she has received various accolades, including two Golden Globe Awards, and sixteen NAACP Image Awards, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards and seven Primetime Emmy Awards. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2023. She will receive the Academy Honorary Award later in the year.[2][3]
Bassett had her breakthrough portraying singer Tina Turner in the biopic What's Love Got to Do with It (1993), which won her a Golden Globe Award and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She had success starring in Boyz n the Hood (1991), Malcolm X (1992), Waiting to Exhale (1995), Vampire in Brooklyn (1995), How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998), and Music of the Heart (1999). In the following decades, she took on supporting roles in the drama Notorious (2009), and the action films Green Lantern (2011), Olympus Has Fallen (2013), and London Has Fallen (2016). She also played Queen Ramonda in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Black Panther (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). For the latter, she won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
On television, Bassett has starred as Katherine Jackson in the miniseries The Jacksons: An American Dream (1992). Her portrayal of Rosa Parks in the television film The Rosa Parks Story (2002) gained her a nomination for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress. Her performances in two seasons of the FX horror anthology series American Horror Story earned her nominations for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in 2014 and 2015. In 2018, Bassett began producing and starring as an LAPD patrol sergeant in the Fox drama series 9-1-1.
Early life and education
Bassett was born in New York City, to Betty Jane (née Gilbert), a social worker and civil servant,[4] and Daniel Benjamin Bassett, a preacher's son.[5][6][7] Bassett's middle name was given to her in honor of her aunt Evelyn.[6] Ten months after Bassett was born, her mother became pregnant and had a second child, Bassett's sister D'nette. Bassett said the pregnancy "only made things harder", leading her parents to send her to her father's sister, Golden, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. While her aunt did not have any children of her own, she "loved children, and she was good with them."[8]
At the age of four, Bassett was picked up by her mother after her parents divorced, and then relocated with her sister to St. Petersburg, Florida.[9] Bassett did not see her father again for several years, until she attended her grandmother's funeral. There, Bassett met her father's daughter from his first marriage, Jean, who at twelve years old, was several years older than Bassett.[10] After graduating from Jordan Park Elementary School, she began being bused out of her neighborhood to attend Disston Middle School for seventh grade. The year she began attending was 1970, one year before the first year that busing was implemented to integrate public schools in St. Petersburg. After completing seventh grade, she was bused to Azalea Middle School for eighth and ninth grade. Bassett's mother became more involved in her daughter's grades and told her and her sister the pair were going to college.[11]
In her younger years, Bassett was "in love" with the Jackson 5, and dreamed of marrying a member of the family group, stating it would probably be "whoever had the cutest, roundest Afro at the time. In my imagination we would have children and live in a real house."[10] As her interest in entertainment developed, Angela and her sister would often put on shows, reading poems or performing popular music for their family.[12]
Angela Evelyn Bassett (born August 16, 1958) is an American actress. Known for her work in film and television since the late 1980s, she has received various accolades, including two Golden Globe Awards, and sixteen NAACP Image Awards, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards and seven Primetime Emmy Awards. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2023. She will receive the Academy Honorary Award later in the year.[2][3]
Bassett had her breakthrough portraying singer Tina Turner in the biopic What's Love Got to Do with It (1993), which won her a Golden Globe Award and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She had success starring in Boyz n the Hood (1991), Malcolm X (1992), Waiting to Exhale (1995), Vampire in Brooklyn (1995), How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998), and Music of the Heart (1999). In the following decades, she took on supporting roles in the drama Notorious (2009), and the action films Green Lantern (2011), Olympus Has Fallen (2013), and London Has Fallen (2016). She also played Queen Ramonda in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Black Panther (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). For the latter, she won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
On television, Bassett has starred as Katherine Jackson in the miniseries The Jacksons: An American Dream (1992). Her portrayal of Rosa Parks in the television film The Rosa Parks Story (2002) gained her a nomination for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress. Her performances in two seasons of the FX horror anthology series American Horror Story earned her nominations for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in 2014 and 2015. In 2018, Bassett began producing and starring as an LAPD patrol sergeant in the Fox drama series 9-1-1.
Early life and education
Bassett was born in New York City, to Betty Jane (née Gilbert), a social worker and civil servant,[4] and Daniel Benjamin Bassett, a preacher's son.[5][6][7] Bassett's middle name was given to her in honor of her aunt Evelyn.[6] Ten months after Bassett was born, her mother became pregnant and had a second child, Bassett's sister D'nette. Bassett said the pregnancy "only made things harder", leading her parents to send her to her father's sister, Golden, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. While her aunt did not have any children of her own, she "loved children, and she was good with them."[8]
At the age of four, Bassett was picked up by her mother after her parents divorced, and then relocated with her sister to St. Petersburg, Florida.[9] Bassett did not see her father again for several years, until she attended her grandmother's funeral. There, Bassett met her father's daughter from his first marriage, Jean, who at twelve years old, was several years older than Bassett.[10] After graduating from Jordan Park Elementary School, she began being bused out of her neighborhood to attend Disston Middle School for seventh grade. The year she began attending was 1970, one year before the first year that busing was implemented to integrate public schools in St. Petersburg. After completing seventh grade, she was bused to Azalea Middle School for eighth and ninth grade. Bassett's mother became more involved in her daughter's grades and told her and her sister the pair were going to college.[11]
In her younger years, Bassett was "in love" with the Jackson 5, and dreamed of marrying a member of the family group, stating it would probably be "whoever had the cutest, roundest Afro at the time. In my imagination we would have children and live in a real house."[10] As her interest in entertainment developed, Angela and her sister would often put on shows, reading poems or performing popular music for their family.[12]
