Vanessa Williams

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American actress, singer and beauty contest winner. In the spring of 1983 she entered a Miss New York contest then the following year on to the Miss America contest. A gorgeous woman with brown hair and flashing green eyes, she won, the first black Miss America. When Penthouse magazine published pictures of her nude, she was deposed . Raised in the middle-class suburbs, she was the daughter of parents who were both music teachers. After her beauty contest debacle, she moved to Los Angeles to establish herself as a singer and actress. Williams met publicist Ramon Hervey II prior to her last press conference as the former Miss America, 23 July 1984. He helped her rebuild her shattered career with an '88 hit album, "The Right Stuff." In 1987 she sold her talent to a record producer who put out an LP and she had a big hit single, "Save the Best for Last,"1992. Since then she has won ten Grammy nomination and has played in TV movies and films. By 1994 she was starring on Broadway in "Kiss of the Spider Woman" and did an admirable turn opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in the thriller, "Eraser," 1996. She received an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture for her portrayal of Teri Joseph in the film Soul Food (1997). Her best known television roles are that of Wilhelmina Slater on Ugly Betty (2006–10), for which she was nominated 3 times for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, and Renee Perry on Desperate Housewives (2010–12). Engaged in October 1986 to Hervey, they married on 10 January 1987; they had three kids and she is a devoted mom. They divorced in February 1996 and make every effort to remain cordial for the sake of the kids. In 1996 she met screenwriter Chris Solinine, 34, in Turkey on the set of "The Odyssey," and they soon became a couple. Williams married Rick Fox, the forward for the L.A. Lakers, 26 September 1999 in a Manhattan church. They both enjoyed secretive smiles, knowing that they had been married this summer on an undisclosed Caribbean Island, that no one had known about. Her two daughters by Hervey served as flower girls, her son Devin and Fox's son, Kyle, from a previous relationship, acted as ring bearers. On 1 May 2000, she and Fox had a daughter, Sasha, New York City. They divorced in 2004. In 2015, Williams married Jim Skrip, a businessman from Buffalo, New York. Her daughter Jillian Hervey is an American singer, dancer and member of the group Lion Babe. Link to Wikipedia biography