Sharon Leal

Sharon Ann Leal, born October 17, 1972, in Tucson, Arizona, is an American actress and singer. Her mother, Angelita, is Filipino, and her biological father, an African-American military policeman, separated from her mother before Leal was born. Her mother subsequently married Jesse Leal, a master sergeant in the United States Air Force who served as a police officer at Clark Air Base in the Philippines and legally adopted Sharon.

Leal began her professional career in television, taking on the role of Dahlia Crede in the CBS daytime serial Guiding Light. She then joined the Broadway company of Rent in 1996, followed by a casting as Mimi for the San Francisco leg of the first national tour of the same production. Her stage work extended to cast recordings, including the 1999 Off-Broadway original cast recording of Bright Lights, Big City, which also featured Patrick Wilson and Jesse L. Martin, and the 2001 cast recording of Making Tracks.

From 2000 to 2004, Leal was a series regular on the Fox prime time drama Boston Public. She also appeared in the theatrical release Face the Music and held a recurring role in the NBC series LAX, playing the wife of airport co-director Roger de Souza. In 2006, she appeared in the film adaptation of Dreamgirls as Michelle Morris, the replacement for Effie White in the pop group The Dreams, alongside Beyoncé Knowles, Jennifer Hudson, Eddie Murphy, and Jamie Foxx. She subsequently appeared in two Tyler Perry productions, Why Did I Get Married? in 2007 and its 2010 sequel Why Did I Get Married Too?, as well as the 2007 film This Christmas. In 2011, she portrayed Vanessa Lodge in the series Hellcats before its cancellation, and in 2013 she took a supporting role in the film 1982. Leal released a studio album titled Leal in 2014. She also appeared in seasons 2, 3, 5, and 6 of Supergirl as M'gann M'orzz, known in human form as Megan.

In October 2001, Leal married Bev Land. The couple's son was born in September 2001, and they divorced in 2009. In May 2009, she appeared in Allure magazine.