Rosanne Katon

Rosanne Katon is an American actress, model, comedian, and activist born on February 5, 1954, in New York City. Her father was Jamaican-born and her mother was African American. Katon made her Broadway debut in 1972, taking a lead role in Godspell. She also accumulated stage experience through a featured role in Women Behind Bars, a parody of women-in-prison films.

From the mid-1970s onward, Katon built a consistent presence in Hollywood film and television. Her screen work included a recurring part on Grady, the short-lived Sanford and Son spin-off starring Whitman Mayo, as well as guest appearances on Good Times, What's Happening!!, That's My Mama, and Jason of Star Command. She received top billing in the 1976 Cirio Santiago action film Ebony, Ivory & Jade and co-starred alongside former Playboy centerfold Jean Bell in Santiago's same-year release The Muthers. Her film appearances across the decade and into the 1980s included The Swinging Cheerleaders (1974), Chesty Anderson, U.S. Navy (1976), American Raspberry (1976), the TV movie The Night They Took Miss Beautiful (1977), the cult horror film Motel Hell (1980), Lunch Wagon (1981), Body and Soul (1981), Zapped! (1982), City Girl (1984), Bachelor Party (1984), and Harem (1985), the last of which featured Nastassja Kinski and Ben Kingsley. Katon also held a recurring role on the medical drama St. Elsewhere opposite Denzel Washington.

Her work extended into award-recognized independent film. She appeared in Julie Dash's Illusions (1982), a UCLA student film in which she portrayed a singer doubling for a white actress in 1940s Hollywood, and in S. Torriano Berry's Rich, in which she played the title character's supportive girlfriend. Both films earned awards recognition at UCLA.

Katon was named Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month for September 1978, with her centerfold photographed by Mario Casilli. In 1981, she was selected as Miss Golden Globes for that year's awards ceremony, becoming the first African American to hold the distinction since the custom began in 1962. She later pursued stand-up comedy and appeared in Playboy's June 1991 pictorial "Funny Girls," which featured female comedians.

In 1984, Katon married Richard M. Walden, president and chief executive officer of Operation USA, an international relief organization providing aid to regions including Rwanda, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, and hurricane-affected areas of Louisiana and Mississippi. Katon participates actively in the organization and serves on its advisory board. The family, which includes two children — among them a son who is autistic and an accomplished cellist — was featured in the 2007 HBO documentary Autism: The Musical, which received the 2007 Emmy Award for Best TV Documentary Special.