Rae Dawn Chong

Rae Dawn Chong is a Canadian actress born on February 28, 1961, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The daughter of comedian and actor Tommy Chong, she is of mixed heritage: her father is of Chinese and Scots-Irish descent, and her mother, Maxine Sneed, was of Black Canadian descent. Her maternal uncle was drummer Floyd Sneed, and her younger sister Robbi Chong is also a model and actress. Two additional sisters and her adopted brother Marcus Chong have likewise pursued acting careers.

Chong made her feature film debut in the 1978 musical drama Stony Island. Her second film, the 1981 science fantasy Quest for Fire, earned her the Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in 1983. Throughout the mid-1980s she accumulated a substantial list of film credits, including Beat Street, Choose Me, American Flyers, The Color Purple, Commando, and Soul Man, all released between 1984 and 1986. She appeared alongside her father in Cheech and Chong's The Corsican Brothers in 1984 and again in Far Out Man in 1990. In 1985, she appeared in Mick Jagger's music video for "Just Another Night." Additional film work followed in The Principal (1987), Tales from the Darkside (1990), The Borrower (1991), Time Runner (1993), and Boulevard (1994).

In 1990, Chong appeared on Broadway in the musical Oh, Kay!, marking her credit in the New York stage world. That same year she made her directorial debut with the short horror film Cursed Part 3, filmed in Los Angeles, for which she cast a then-19-year-old Chris Pratt after discovering him waiting tables at a restaurant in Maui.

On television, Chong starred opposite Adrian Pasdar in the science fiction drama series Mysterious Ways from 2000 to 2002, and subsequently appeared in the first season of the Lifetime comedy-drama Wild Card opposite Joely Fisher. She returned to television in two episodes of Better Things in 2016 and two episodes of 9-1-1 between 2018 and 2019. In 2021, she portrayed Betty Currie in the FX series Impeachment: American Crime Story, and the following year she played Florence de Pointe du Lac in the AMC series Interview with the Vampire.

Also in 2021, the Women Film Critics Circle honored Chong with its Invisible Woman Award, recognizing her performance in the drama film The Sleeping Negro for exceptional impact that had been historically overlooked.

Chong has been married three times. Her first marriage, to stockbroker Owen Baylis, produced a son named Morgan; they divorced in 1982. In 1989 she married actor C. Thomas Howell, her co-star in Soul Man, and they divorced in 1990. Her third marriage, to Nathan Ulrich, one of the founders of Xootr, took place in 2011 and ended in divorce in 2014.