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Angela Bassett: Tina Turner
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Angela Bassett is one, if not the best, leading African-American actress today. She has played so many well-known historical figures from Betty Shabazz, to Katherine Jackson to her Oscar nominated role as Tina Turner. When a film like “The Score” comes around, and the female role is limited, but the leading male cast is an all-star of thespians, the producers of the film couldn’t go wrong when they chose Bassett. Angela shares her thoughts on the film with blackfilm.com.
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From All Movie Guide: A respected actress of the stage, screen, and television, Angela Bassett has been one of the few African-American actresses to break Hollywood's color boundary. She has specialized in playing strong women familiar with adversity and has worked in genres from "chick flick" (Waiting to Exhale) to sci-fi action (Strange Days) to biography (What's Love Got to Do with It?), the last of which featured her in a star-making performance as Tina Turner.
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Angela Bassett has forged a legendary career in Hollywood with her universally acclaimed portrayals of such heroic women as Rosa Parks, Betty Shabazz and Tina Turner. From the podium she shares her struggles and triumphs as an actress, as a mother and as an African American woman in empowering her listeners to realize their truest selves and pursue their dreams no matter what obstacles stand in the way.
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In 1992, things began to be more interesting when Angela played Betty Shabazz in Spike Lee’s MalcolmX, for which she won an Image Award for Best Supporting Actress (she played the same role in Panther three years later). This was a good omen for the next film project, which had an impressive list of hopeful actresses in line. It was the big screen bio of legendary singer Tina Turner, who had an early turbulent life and her own style of performing. Halle Berry, Whitney Houston and Robin Givens were are interested in playing the soulful singer, but Angela got the part. A merciless training began, along with a strict non-sugar diet that sculpted Angela’s already pleasant curves into a more alluring and well-muscled frame. She even broke a finger during a stunt scene (visible in the finished movie).
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Bassett first gained notice in features as the estranged, ambitious wife of Laurence Fishburne in John Singleton's "Boyz in the Hood" (1991). Her impressive resume grew to include playing the "do-gooder" wife of politician Joe Morton in John Sayles' "City of Hope" (1991) and an outstanding portrayal of Betty Shabazz, the quietly strong wife of activist and preacher Malcolm X in Spike Lee's epic biopic "Malcolm X" (1992). A lean and pumped up Bassett earned raves, celebrity and a Best Actress Oscar nod in her debut as a feature lead in "What's Love Got To Do With It" (1993). Her riveting and thoroughly convincing portrayal of three decades in the life of pop icon Tina Turner transformed her career.
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Angela Bassett is an actress best known for her starring role in What's Love Got To Do With It, the Tina Turner biopic. She has ... appeared in films such as Malcolm X and How Stella Got Her Groove Back.
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