50 Fun Facts About Black Entertainment

Which actor, who overcame a severe boyhood stutter, voiced both Darth Vader and Mufasa?

James Earl Jones barely spoke for years at school because of his stutter, until a high school English teacher who discovered his gift for poetry helped him end his silence.

Which Family Feud host famously crowned the wrong contestant while presenting the Miss Universe 2015 pageant?

Steve Harvey named Miss Colombia the winner, then walked back on stage minutes later to apologise: the title belonged to Pia Wurtzbach of the Philippines.

Which rapper played a Philadelphia teenager sent to live with rich relatives in a 1990s NBC sitcom?

Will Smith had already shared the first Grammy ever given for a rap performance, in 1989, a year before The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air made him a television star.

Which former boxer founded Motown Records in Detroit with an $800 loan from his family?

Berry Gordy had quit high school to box professionally, and it was Smokey Robinson of the Miracles who urged him to start his own record company in 1959.

Which comedian-turned-actor won the Best Actor Oscar for playing soul pioneer Ray Charles in a 2004 biopic?

Jamie Foxx began playing the piano at five and studied classical piano at university; the same year he was also Oscar-nominated for a supporting role in Collateral.

Which actor portrayed Jackie Robinson and Thurgood Marshall on film and starred as Marvel's T'Challa?

Chadwick Boseman was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2016 and kept it private, continuing to act in major films until his death from the illness in 2020.

Which star of How to Get Away with Murder completed an EGOT with a Grammy for narrating her memoir?

Viola Davis was also the first Black woman to win the Emmy for lead actress in a drama, in 2015, for playing defence lawyer Annalise Keating.

Which rapper born Dana Owens earned an Oscar nomination for Chicago and later led CBS's The Equalizer?

Queen Latifah became the first hip-hop artist to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in 2006.

Which 1978 film musical cast Diana Ross as a Harlem schoolteacher and Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow?

The Wiz moved Oz to New York City, where its heroine is a 24-year-old teacher, and brought to the screen the Broadway hit that had won seven Tony Awards in 1975.

Which guitarist headlined the 1969 Woodstock festival with a feedback-laden version of the US national anthem?

Jimi Hendrix had trained as a US Army paratrooper before his music career, and at Woodstock he bent his guitar's feedback to imitate the sound of falling bombs.

Which 1984 film stars Prince as The Kid, a Minneapolis bandleader playing nightly at the First Avenue club?

Purple Rain won Prince an Academy Award for its song score, and its soundtrack album spent 24 consecutive weeks at number one in the United States.

Which Philadelphia-born comedian filmed a 2015 stand-up special before 53,000 fans at his hometown NFL stadium?

Kevin Hart performed at Lincoln Financial Field in August 2015, and the show reached cinemas the following year as the concert film Kevin Hart: What Now?

Which comedian narrated a UPN sitcom based on his own school days in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood?

Chris Rock was bused as a boy to schools in mostly white parts of Brooklyn, where he was bullied, and Everybody Hates Chris turned those years into comedy.

Which CBS sitcom followed a dry-cleaning tycoon and his wife from Archie Bunker's street to a Manhattan high-rise?

The Jeffersons aired for eleven seasons from 1975 to 1985, making it the longest-lived of the spin-offs from All in the Family.

Which showrunner created the ABC dramas Grey's Anatomy and Scandal and later produced Bridgerton for Netflix?

Shonda Rhimes saw ABC turn down her first TV pilot, about young female war correspondents, in 2003, two years before Grey's Anatomy reached the air.

Which filmmaker behind Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X named his production company 40 Acres and a Mule?

Spike Lee won his first competitive Oscar in 2019, for the BlacKkKlansman screenplay, nearly three decades after Do the Right Thing earned him his first nomination.

Which Houston girl group launched the careers of Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams?

Destiny's Child took its name in 1996 from a passage in the Book of Isaiah; as Girl's Tyme, the group had already lost on the TV talent show Star Search.

Which N.W.A rapper, born O'Shea Jackson, later starred in the comedies Barbershop and Are We There Yet?

Ice Cube made his acting debut in Boyz n the Hood, a 1991 drama named after a 1987 song he had written and Eazy-E had rapped.

Which Disney Channel sitcom followed a high school student who hides her psychic visions of the future?

That's So Raven became the first Disney Channel series to reach 100 episodes, and its spin-off Cory in the House sent Raven's brother to live at the White House.

Which former Disney Channel star won two lead-actress Emmys for playing the troubled teenager Rue in HBO's Euphoria?

Zendaya was 24 at her first win in 2020, which made her the youngest actress the drama category had ever crowned at that point.

Which performer, half of a sister duo that began with YouTube covers, played Ariel in Disney's 2023 The Little Mermaid?

Halle Bailey and her sister Chloe learned their instruments from YouTube tutorials and launched their channel with a Beyoncé cover when they were 11 and 13.

Which ABC mockumentary created by Quinta Brunson follows teachers at an underfunded Philadelphia public school?

Abbott Elementary is named after Joyce Abbott, one of Brunson's favourite teachers, and was inspired by her mother's 40 years in the classroom.

Which ABC sitcom starred Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross as the parents of a wealthy suburban family?

Black-ish made its father an advertising executive and its mother an anesthesiologist, and its success launched two spin-offs, one of them a prequel set in the 1980s.

Which sketch comedian turned director won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for his 2017 horror debut Get Out?

Jordan Peele spent five seasons on the sketch series Mad TV, where he worked with Keegan-Michael Key, his partner in the Comedy Central hit that made both famous.

Which actress won a Golden Globe for portraying Tina Turner in the 1993 biopic What's Love Got to Do with It?

Angela Bassett lost that year's Best Actress Oscar to Holly Hunter, and three decades passed before the Academy gave her an honorary award.

Which 2006 film musical won Jennifer Hudson an Oscar for playing the singer Effie White?

Dreamgirls was Hudson's first film, made two years after she finished only seventh on American Idol.

Which Motown trio fronted by Diana Ross scored twelve number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100?

The Supremes started out as the Primettes, a sister act to a male group called the Primes, whose members went on to form the Temptations.

Which former Commodores singer co-wrote the 1985 charity single We Are the World with Michael Jackson?

Lionel Richie grew up on the campus of Alabama's Tuskegee Institute, returned there on a tennis scholarship and joined the band as a student in 1968.

Which Fox sketch show created by Keenen Ivory Wayans featured Jennifer Lopez among its Fly Girl dancers?

In Living Color aired a live special against the 1992 Super Bowl halftime show and drew so many viewers that the NFL booked Michael Jackson for the next one.

Which Harlem venue on 125th Street is famed for a weekly Amateur Night where the audience judges novice acts?

The Apollo Theater keeps a stump called the Tree of Hope for contestants to rub for luck, while an 'executioner' with a broom sweeps failing acts off the stage.

Which comedian from Peoria, a co-writer of Blazing Saddles, received the very first Mark Twain Prize for American Humor?

Richard Pryor was raised in a brothel kept by his grandmother, and one of his first New York club dates was opening for Nina Simone at the Village Gate.

Which 1970s NBC sitcom about a cranky junk dealer in Watts was adapted from a BBC comedy?

Sanford and Son took its hero's name from real life: Fred Sanford was the name of both the father and the brother of the comedian who played him.

Which actress won an Oscar as the outspoken maid Minny in the 2011 Mississippi drama The Help?

Octavia Spencer moved to Los Angeles in 1997 on the advice of her friend Tate Taylor, who directed the film years later, and she first voiced Minny on the novel's audiobook.

Which actress, who began as teenager Brenda on the sitcom 227, won an Oscar for If Beale Street Could Talk?

Regina King also collected four Emmys, one of them for HBO's Watchmen, and made her feature directing debut with the drama One Night in Miami.

Which Oakland-born director followed Fruitvale Station with Creed and Marvel's Black Panther?

Ryan Coogler went to college on a football scholarship and played wide receiver for four years before film school; he later won a screenwriting Oscar for Sinners.

Which former film publicist directed the civil rights drama Selma and the Netflix prison documentary 13th?

Ava DuVernay spent her summers as a girl near Selma, Alabama, where her father had witnessed the 1965 marches to Montgomery.

Which creator and star of HBO's Insecure first found fans with the web series Awkward Black Girl?

Issa Rae was torn between business school and law school until the YouTube series took off in 2011, and its title later became the name of her bestselling memoir.

Which crime drama was executive-produced by the rapper 50 Cent, who also co-starred in it as Kanan Stark?

Power lasted six seasons from 2014 and spawned several spin-offs, a second act for a rapper whose first album was shelved after he was shot nine times in 2000.

Which Def Jam rapper played agent Sam Hanna on NCIS: Los Angeles and hosted the show Lip Sync Battle?

LL Cool J became the first rapper to receive the Kennedy Center Honors in 2017, 33 years after Def Jam signed him.

Which former Chicago police officer and news reporter created and hosted the dance show Soul Train?

Don Cornelius launched it in 1970 as a daily local programme on WCIU-TV, the same Chicago station where he presented a news show.

Which cable network founded by Robert L. Johnson was the first Black-controlled company on the New York Stock Exchange?

BET started in 1980 as a two-hour weekly block on the USA Network, and its sale to Viacom two decades later made its founder America's first Black billionaire.

Which hip-hop and R&B video countdown show did hosts AJ Calloway and Free launch on cable in 2000?

106 & Park was named for the address of its first studio in East Harlem, at East 106th Street and Park Avenue.

Which Georgia soul singer wrote and first recorded Respect two years before Aretha Franklin made it an anthem?

Otis Redding died in a plane crash in December 1967, and within months (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay became the first posthumous number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

Which singer and civil rights activist recorded Calypso, the first album by a solo artist to sell a million copies?

Harry Belafonte made his first stage appearance backed by Charlie Parker's band, and in 1985 he was the organiser who set the charity single We Are the World in motion.

Which jazz vocalist, celebrated for her scat singing, found fame in 1938 with the nursery-rhyme hit A-Tisket, A-Tasket?

Ella Fitzgerald, nicknamed the First Lady of Song, said her scat style came from trying to do with her voice what she heard the horns in the band doing.

Which singer of Santa Baby played Catwoman on the 1960s Batman TV series and later voiced the villain Yzma?

Eartha Kitt was once called the most exciting woman in the world by Orson Welles, who gave her a first starring role on stage as Helen of Troy in 1950.

Which actress became the first African American nominated for the Best Actress Oscar, for a 1954 Bizet-inspired musical?

Dorothy Dandridge also became the first Black woman on the cover of Life magazine, in November 1954, and was once married to Harold Nicholas of the dancing Nicholas Brothers.

Which actress earned an Oscar nomination for Sounder and an Emmy for The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman?

Cicely Tyson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 and an honorary Oscar in 2018, more than sixty years into her career.

Which comedian's hit 1970s variety show introduced his sassy character Geraldine and landed him on the cover of Time?

Flip Wilson got his break in 1965 when a fellow comic, asked by Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show to name the funniest comedian around, named him.

Which actor won an Oscar as the tough drill instructor Sergeant Foley in An Officer and a Gentleman?

Louis Gossett Jr. was the first Black actor to win Best Supporting Actor, five years after taking an Emmy for playing Fiddler in the miniseries Roots.