Victoria Dillard

Victoria Dillard is an American actress and Parkinson's disease research advocate born on September 20, 1967, in New York City. She appeared on Broadway in 1987 in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

Dillard began her performing career at age five with the Dance Theatre of Harlem, remaining with the company until she was eighteen. During that period she appeared in productions including Porgy and Bess at the Metropolitan Opera. She subsequently went on tour in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum alongside Mickey Rooney before her Broadway appearance in the same production in 1987.

Her film career includes a role as one of the royal bathers in the 1988 Eddie Murphy romantic comedy Coming to America, and she appeared as the wife of Denzel Washington's main character in the 1991 action thriller Ricochet. Additional film credits include Internal Affairs (1990), Deep Cover (1992), The Glass Shield (1994), Out-of-Sync (1995) with LL Cool J, and the 2001 film Ali, in which she portrayed Betty Shabazz. Dillard was featured in the November 1988 issue of Playboy in the article "Sex In Cinema 1988," which referenced her appearance in Coming to America.

On television, Dillard is best known for her co-starring role as Janelle Cooper on the ABC sitcom Spin City, a part she held for four seasons before departing in 2000. Her other television credits include Star Trek: The Next Generation, Seinfeld, L.A. Law, Roc, Martin, Chicago Hope, Moesha, Family Law, Law & Order, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

In her personal life, Dillard met actor Laurence Fishburne in 1992 on the set of Deep Cover; the two were in a relationship until 1995. In 2006, at the age of 39, she was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, the same condition affecting her former Spin City co-star Michael J. Fox. She has since become an advocate for Parkinson's disease research and treatments. Dillard resides in New York City, where she dances and writes screenplays and stage plays.