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Vanessa Williams
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The versatile Singer / Actress Vanessa Williams has been in the music business for over 15 years now. During that time Vanessa has garnered recognition as one of the most talented women in the world of entertainment moving effortlessly from Music to Film to Stage. Along the way Vanessa has scored multiple Platinum and Gold Cd's, multiple top 10 singles (including two #1's), 11 Grammy Award Nominations, 3 N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards, The Prestigious Lena Horne Lady of Soul Award and countless other Awards and Nominations. Every year Vh1 recognizes the contribution of the women in the Music Industry with their annual Vh1 Divas Program. Past Participants have included Whitney Houston, Cher, Tina Turner, Celine Dion, Diana Ross and Mariah Carey.
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Light-eyed, sultry Vanessa Williams was the first African-American to win the Miss America crown (1983). She was forced to turn in her tiara after Penthouse magazine published nude photos of her, but she bounced back with a successful career as a singer, starting with the 1988 dance-pop album The Right Stuff and including the album The Comfort Zone (1991) and the song "Colors of the Wind" from the Disney feature Pocahontas (1995). The 1990s saw Williams branch out into Broadway and make a respectable go at the movies, playing semi-tough babes opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in Eraser (1996) and Samuel L. Jackson in Shaft (2000). She has since had a successful career in television, including guest shots, a 2003 series (Boomtown) and an Emmy-nominated role in Ugly Betty (2007, starring America Ferrera).
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The New York native said on Tuesday that Britney Spears, Busta Rhymes, 'NSYNC, Run-D.M.C., Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Vanessa Williams, Joan Rivers, Macaulay Culkin, Kevin Bacon and Sister Sledge themselves have all joined the project. The cover tune will be recorded in two sessions — one on Saturday in New York and the other on Sunday in L.A. Rodgers said he's still trying to decide which charities should benefit, though he made it clear he wants the money to help the survivors and families of those killed in the WTC disaster.
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Vanessa Williams' second holiday album has its fair share of wan arrangements -- the opening "Silver and Gold" elicits groans -- and one wonders why she redoes "Little Drummer Boy" after turning in a fine performance on 1996's Star Bright. Other tracks offer little moments, only to have them dashed:...
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In 1994, Vanessa Williams returned to her roots by accepting her first starring role on Broadway, taking over the lead in Kiss of the Spider Woman; she ... appeared on a re-recorded version of the cast album. Late that year, she also released her third album, The Sweetest Days, which found her branching out into jazzy pop and torch songs in addition to her usual urban and adult contemporary fare. It also featured material by Babyface and Sting, and its upscale, sophisticated ambience gave Williams her second platinum album. In 1995, Williams was tabbed to sing the commercial version of "Colors of the Wind," the theme to the Disney film Pocahontas; not only was it a huge hit, it also won an Academy Award. 1996 brought a divorce from manager Harvey and the holiday album Star Bright; most notably, Vanessa Williams landed her biggest feature film role to date when she starred opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in that year's Eraser, and she followed it with an appearance in the ensemble drama Soul Food in 1997. 1997 also brought her fourth proper album, Next, which didn't attract quite as much attention as its predecessors.
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When Vanessa Williams began her singing career, she was known chiefly as the Miss America pageant winner who'd been forced to renounce her title for posing in Penthouse magazine. Williams not only put the scandal behind her, she all but obliterated it, turning out a series of slick, sophisticated hits that made her one of the most popular adult contemporary R&B singers of her time. In addition to her broad crossover appeal, she established a parallel acting career in both film and television, ending the '90s as a highly successful all-around entertainer.Vanessa Lynn Williams was born March 18, 1963, in the upstate New York town of Millwood to parents who were both music teachers. She loved performing musical theater as a teenager, and won a scholarship to study it at Syracuse University in 1981. In the meantime, she began entering beauty pageants, with considerable success; in 1983, she represented New York in the Miss America pageant and became the first African-American woman ever to be crowned the winner. Unfortunately, her triumph was short-lived.
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Vanessa Williams