Actress Judyann Elder

Judyann Elder has a career and a résumé going back several decades, and if you've never heard of her, well, that's your fault.

She was a founding member of the Negro Ensemble Company, and her acting abilities made it un tres bien ensemble.  :-) The company was (and is) the leading troupe in the United States for original black theater, and Ms. Elder was a pioneer in that effort, originating roles in plays such as The Song of the Lusitanian Bogey and Daddy Goodness.

Eventually, Ms. Elder went Hollywood, and she had guest roles in some of the most popular television series of the 1970s, including "The Streets of San Francisco," "Sanford and Son," "Lou Grant," and "The White Shadow."  It didn't stop her from working in her first love, the theater, for in  1976 she debuted Broadway debut  as Coretta Scott King in the Martin Luther King, Jr. biodrama I Have a Dream.  Her big-screen credits include 1973's Bloom In Love, 1995's Forget Paris, and 2008's Seven Pounds.  And she also played the role of Bernette Wilson in the 1978 miniseries A Woman Called Moses, about Harriet Tubman.

Ms. Elder continued to work steadily in the eighties and the nineties and also into the twenty-first century. including the distinction of being the second actress to play Harriette Winslow in the last episodes of the Chicago-set domestic sitcom "Family Matters," along with several plays.  One of her most remembered roles is as Dr. Barton, the obstetrician on "Murphy Brown" who delivered Murphy's baby.  Now that "Murphy Brown" (starring in the title role an earlier honoree on this blog, Candice Bergen) has been rebooted, I think I speak for many when I propose that Dr. Barton should return to see what a fine young man Murphy's son Avery turned out to be. :-)  

Judyann Elder isn't a celebrity, but she is a star. :-)