Biography

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 2020, she starred as Lady Mae Greenleaf on OWN's dramatic series Greenleaf, for which she won critical acclaim and garnered two NAACP Image Awards and a Gracie Award. She has won a total of seven NAACP Image Awards.