ACTOR
Alfre Woodard
21 archived facts 3 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (21)
- #001
Jonathan Frakes calls her his "godmother." The two became friends in the 1970s as young actors.
- #002
She was so moved by the screenplay for the independent film Follow Me Home (1996) that she offered to play the role of Evey for free, which both delighted and astonished the film's producer, Peter Bratt.
- #003
Her role in Primal Fear (1996) was originally written for a 60-year-old Caucasian man. When Woodard was offered the part, she accepted it on one condition: that the only things changed about the character would be age and race, nothing else.
- #004
Among the Star Trek toys released for the film Star Trek: First Contact (1996), an action figure was made of Alfre, resembling her character in the film, Lily Sloane.
- #005
As of September 13, 2003, she holds the record as the most awarded African-American woman actor in Primetime Emmy Award history. Until her win (for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series on The Practice (1997)), she was tied with Cicely Tyson at three Primetime Emmy Awards. She won her first Primetime Emmy in 1984 for a three-episode guest role on Hill Street Blues (1981), as the mother of a young boy accidentally killed by a police officer. Her second Primetime Emmy came in 1986 for the pilot episode of L. A. Law (1986), in which she played a woman dying of leukemia who claimed to be the victim of a gang rape, winning Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series (a category since split into male and female equivalents). In 1997 she won her third Primetime Emmy for Miss Evers' Boys (1997), against tough competition from the likes of Meryl Streep, Glenn Close and Stockard Channing.
- #006
She adopted her second child, her son Duncan Spencer, on November 12, 1993, at the age of 41. The child's father is her husband, Roderick M. Spencer.
- #007
She attended and graduated from Bishop Kelley High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
- #008
She and Felicity Huffman are the only two actors from Desperate Housewives (2004) with an Oscar nomination.
- #009
Both of her parents came from families of twelve children.
- #010
She remained a close friend of her acting mentor Lauren Bacall until Bacall's death on August 12, 2014.
- #011
She adopted her first child, her daughter Mavis Spencer, on September 29, 1989, at the age of 36. The child's father is her husband, Roderick M. Spencer.
- #012
For her illuminating performance in writer-director John Sayles's Passion Fish (1992), she placed second (that is, was runner-up) in the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's best supporting actress award in 1992.
- #013
She graduated from Boston University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Acting.
- #014
She studied acting with Michael Howard at Boston University, where she graduated.
- #015
She was considered for the role of Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction (1994), but Uma Thurman was cast instead and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.
- #016
She played Dr. Roxanne Turner on St. Elsewhere (1982) and, years later, in an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street (1993). Tom Fontana was a writer on the former and an executive producer on the latter.
- #017
She served as a dramatic jury member at the Sundance Film Festival in 1990 and 1998.
- #018
Her parents are Marion H. and Constance Woodard.
- #019
One of her favorite characters she played was Wanda in Holiday Heart (2000). Some of her favorite films are 12 Years a Slave (2013), Miss Evers' Boys (1997), Bopha! (1993), Passion Fish (1992) and Miss Firecracker (1989).
- #020
As of 2023, Alfre Woodard had appeared in four films with Mary McDonnell: Grand Canyon (1991), Passion Fish (1992), Blue Chips (1994) and Mumford (1999).
- #021
Alfre Woodard shares a birthday with Norman Lloyd. The two appeared together in St. Elsewhere (1982).
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