Lonette McKee

Lonette Rita McKee, born on July 22, 1954, in Detroit, Michigan, is an American actress and singer whose career has spanned film, television, recording, and the Broadway stage. The second of three daughters born to Dorothy McKee, of Swedish descent, and Lonnie McKee, an African American bricklayer and auto manufacturer employee, she grew up in Detroit alongside her older sister Kathrine, also an actress and performer. McKee attended St. Martin De Porres High School before leaving after her freshman year to relocate to Los Angeles to live with her sister.

Her professional beginnings came early. By the age of seven she was writing music and lyrics, playing keyboards, and performing at record hops, dances, and small nightclubs in Detroit. At fourteen, in 1968, she recorded her first single, "Stop! (Don't Worry About It)," which became a regional pop and R&B hit. At fifteen she wrote the title song for the film Quadroon, in which her sister Katherine starred. McKee has released three solo albums: Lonette on Sussex in 1974, Words and Music on Warner Bros. in 1978, and Natural Love on Spike Lee's 40 Acres and a Mule label for Columbia in 1992, on which she co-wrote all songs and shared production credits with Bryant McNeil, Gene Lake Jr., and Raymond Jones.

Her screen career launched in earnest with the 1976 musical-drama film Sparkle, in which she made her big-screen debut as Sister Williams. The following year she appeared alongside Richard Pryor in the comedy Which Way Is Up? (1977). Subsequent film credits include The Cotton Club (1984), in which she portrayed an African American woman passing as white in Francis Ford Coppola's musical crime drama, as well as Brewster's Millions (1985), Round Midnight (1986), Gardens of Stone (1987), Jungle Fever (1991), Malcolm X (1992), Men of Honor (2000), Honey (2003), and ATL (2006). She also appeared in Julie Dash's 1982 short film Illusions, again playing a character passing as white. On television, McKee appeared on the CW sitcom The Game in 2007 as Mrs. Pitts, the mother of the character Jason, played by Coby Bell.

McKee's Broadway career began in 1981 with The First, in which she co-starred as Rachel, the wife of Jackie Robinson. Two years later she made history at the Houston Grand Opera's Broadway production of Show Boat, becoming the first African American to play the role of Julie. That performance earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical in 1983 as well as a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Musical. She returned to the role of Julie in the 1994 Broadway revival of Show Boat, directed by Hal Prince. Between those two productions, McKee portrayed jazz legend Billie Holiday in the one-woman drama with music Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, a performance that earned her a 1987 Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Musical. Over the course of her career she received three Drama Desk nominations and three NAACP Image Award nominations in total. In 2012 she starred in the New Federal Theatre's production of Sowa's Red Gravy.

Beyond performing, McKee has pursued work as a composer, director, and educator. She scored the music for a cable documentary on the Lower Manhattan African Burial Ground and has toured internationally, including an appearance at the JVC Jazz Festival at Carnegie Hall. She studied film directing at The New School in New York and apprenticed with filmmaker Spike Lee, subsequently writing and directing her own feature film, Dream Street. She studied singing with Dini Clark and ballet with Sarah Tayir, both in Los Angeles. McKee serves as an adjunct professor in the Theater Arts department at Centenary College of New Jersey, where she teaches a master acting workshop, and she performs a one-woman memoir with music on stages throughout the United States. In 2013 she expressed a desire to establish a performing arts center in the New York tri-state area.