Actors - Danitra Vance

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	Actors - Danitra Vance

Danitra Vance (July 13, 1954 - August 21, 1994) was an actress best known as a cast member on Saturday Night Live
during the 1985-86 season.

SNL work

Vance was the first African American woman to become a SNL repertory player. She is best remembered for the sketch "That Black Girl", a spoof of the 1960s sitcom That Girl, and for her character Cabrini Green Harlem Watts Jackson, a teenage mother who dispensed advice on the do's and don'ts of being pregnant. Both were recurring characters during her time on SNL.

Vance appeared on SNL during a time of great transition for the show; Vance herself became frustrated because her roles in sketches were limited both in visibility and in range - she was often cast in a skit as a prostitute, a young unwed mother, or a maid, made evident during the episode hosted by Oprah Winfrey where she sang the song "I Play The Maids" (a spin on the Barry Manilow song, "I Write The Songs"), a satirical song that expressed frustration that black actresses were always typecast. Perhaps adding to her frustration was her dyslexia, which according to an SNL Trivial Pursuit question made it hard for her to read from cue cards.

Vance ultimately chose to leave SNL at the end of the season (along with many other cast members from that season who were fired, including Joan Cusack, Robert Downey, Jr. and Anthony Michael Hall.)

Other work

She was awarded an NAACP Image Award in 1986 and later won an Obie Award for her performance in the theatrical adaptation of Spunk, a collection of short stories written by Zora Neale Hurston.

Vance had small roles in The War of the Roses
and Little Man Tate
and a more significant role in Jumpin' at the Boneyard, for which she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.

Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1990, Vance underwent a single mastectomy and incorporated the experience into a solo skit, "The Radical Girl's Guide to Radical Mastectomy." Unfortunately, the cancer recurred in 1993 and she died the following year at the age of 40.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Danitra Vance ]

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