S. Epatha Merkerson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

S. Epatha Merkerson
Birth name Sharon Epatha Merkerson
Born November 28, 1952 (age 54)
Saginaw, Michigan,
Flag of United States United States
Notable roles Lt. Anita Van Buren in Law & Order
Rachel "Nanny" Crosby in Lackawanna Blues
Emmy Awards
Best Actress - Miniseries or a Movie
2005 Lackawanna Blues

Sharon Epatha Merkerson (born November 28, 1952) is a Tony Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning American actress. She is known for her roles as Reba the Mail Lady on Pee Wee's Playhouse in the 1980s, and as the no-nonsense supervisor, Lieutenant Anita Van Buren (1993-present) on the long-running television crime drama Law & Order, in the 1990s. At present she has been on the show longer than any other cast member. As of the 366th episode in the 16th season, she is the first actress to appear in 300 episodes.

Contents

Merkerson, the youngest of five children, was born in Saginaw, Michigan to Ann Merkerson, who at the time was the only female in the vehicles operation unit at the Detroit Post Office. Her father worked in a factory.[1] Merkerson's parents separated in 1957. Merkerson graduated from Cooley High School in 1970. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Wayne State University and began her New York theater career in 1978.

Merkerson made her television debut as Reba the Mail Lady on Pee Wee's Playhouse, and has appeared on The Cosby Show, among other series. But her single most important television appearance may have been in the first-season Law and Order episode "Mushrooms," in which she portrayed the grief-stricken mother of an 11-month-old boy who is shot accidentally. Her performance was not only memorable to the audience during that key first season, but also impressed the producers enough to select Merkerson to replace Dann Florek as detective squad chief in the series' fourth season.

Merkerson was nominated for a Tony as Best Actress for her performance as Berniece in The Piano Lesson and won an Obie Award in 1992 for her work in I'm Not Stupid. Her screen credits include Jacob's Ladder, Loose Cannons, She's Gotta Have It and James Cameron's wife in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, in which she played the terrified wife of Joe Morton. In 2006, she won Golden Globe, Emmy and Screen Actors Guild awards for her performance in the television movie Lackawanna Blues, her first starring role.

Merkerson is an outspoken advocate against smoking and for lung cancer research and awareness. When she guest-hosted on The View on March 2, 2007, she discussed her 23-year addiction to smoking, which ended in the early 90's after she woke up one morning unable to breathe.

Merkerson is often reticent about revealing what her first name really is -- Sharon. On the June 11, 2005 episode of NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, she jokingly claimed that the initial "S," "stands for 'Sweet' [because] so many people have difficulty with Epatha, which is what I prefer to be called."

  1. ^ http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9542262

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../s/2E/_/S._Epatha_Merkerson_7883.html"
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.