actress; dancer; singer
Personal Information
Born c. 1964 in Boston, MA; daughter of William (a minister and college professor) and Jaye (a high school English teacher; maiden name, Rudolph) Guy.
Education: Graduated from Northside High School of the Arts, Atlanta, GA; studied dance with Alvin Ailey's American Dance Theater, New York City.
Career
American Dance Theater, artist with second and third companies, c. 1981-83; performer in stage musicals, including The Wiz, Bubbling Brown Sugar, Leader of the Pack, and Dancin' in the Streets, c. 1983-87. Principal television work includes lead in comedy series A Different World, NBC, 1987--, and made-for-television movie A Killer Among Us, 1991. Principal film work includes roles in School Daze, 1988, and Harlem Nights, 1989. With group Full Force, cut debut album, Jasmine Guy, for Warner Brothers, 1991.
Life's Work
Jasmine Guy has made a name for herself playing snobby Whitley Gilbert on the highly rated television show A Different World. The part has made Guy a star, but it demonstrates only a small facet of her talent--she can dance, sing, and pull off a tense dramatic role with equal finesse. As Whitley, Guy fairly seethes with prissiness and propriety. As a would-be pop singer, however, the former Alvin Ailey dancer radiates erotic heat and moves flawlessly from jazz to hip hop to new jack-swing. The actress told Essence magazine that her success has not come on easy terms. "I've been so driven that whole chunks of my life are blurs," she said. "I'm trying to live in the present, trying to enjoy reaping the benefits of eight years of perseverance.... I've worked hard and, having achieved a little, I find it hard not to want to work harder to achieve even more."
The gifts of beauty and talent, however, were not enough to assure Guy a happy childhood. She was born in Boston but raised in Atlanta. Her father, a minister and college professor, is black. Her mother, a high school English teacher, is white. Guy told People that she was often the target of criticism from darker-skinned classmates in the Atlanta public schools. "I remember getting into several fights in grade school because black kids would think I thought I was pretty because I had light skin and long hair," she recalled. "They said I always tried to talk properly. But I wasn't trying to seem better. I just wanted to be me."
Even now Guy often finds herself addressing the issue of her skin color. "I'm tired of hearing about the plight of the mulatto," she told Essence. "It's old news. Sure, it's caused me pain. Just the other day, a dark-skinned friend was saying how she'd always envied me. Well, I told her I'd always been envious of the shade of her skin. It's important that chocolate women of the world know they're beautiful." She added: "I spent years worrying about these things, crying in my diary. But I finally stopped myself, stopped finding fault with my big eyes or my blemishes. Like so many other people, I had to fight feeling ugly. We're all different, yet we're all the same. Why as women are we always feeling bad about ourselves?"
Guy helped bolster her self-image by singing in her father's church choir and by performing in stage musicals. "I always sang in church," she told Jet magazine. "I was the loud alto in the back." Her talents landed her a spot in Atlanta's prestigious Northside High School of the Arts, where she studied dance, drama, and voice. "I was Anita in West Side Story when I was 13 and that really opened my eyes to what was out there and what I was capable of doing," she said.
Guy's parents were rather dismayed when she won the opportunity to study dance with the Alvin Ailey company in New York City. At the tender age of seventeen, Guy left Atlanta to make her own way in the world--on $75 a week. She performed with Ailey's second and third companies and auditioned frequently for Broadway and Off-Broadway dancing roles. "New York was a rude awakening," she told Essence. "It was lonely and scary, but I just couldn't afford those big-city fears.... I was pursuing my dream of becoming a dancer. So I put my paranoia in my pocket, fought the smelly ol' subway and just kept training."
Frustrated with her poverty wage and with the fact that she was refused black-actress roles because she was too light-skinned, Guy went to Los Angeles to work as a dancer on the television show Fame. That too proved disappointing. "They treated us like scenery," she said of Fame 's producers, "and I knew in my heart I could do better. Besides, I missed the discipline of dance training. So I quit. I tucked my tail between my legs and returned to Ailey. I went from making $750 a week to making $75." Eventually Guy landed small parts in musicals and variety shows such as The Wiz, Bubbling Brown Sugar, and Leader of the Pack. Her touring schedule took her all over Europe and the United States, sometimes leaving her near exhaustion.
Guy's first movie role was in Spike Lee's 1988 film School Daze, about life in an all-black college. Ironically, Guy was cast as a light-skinned black woman who is shunned by her dark-skinned classmates. "The role was difficult for me because it brought back ugly memories," she told People. "Again I had to face the reality of how the world sometimes views people only on outward appearances. I don't like being prejudged." Painful as the role was for her, Guy drew notice for her portrayal of a "Wannabee," the vain, spoiled beauty queen.
Even after the film was shot, Guy still had trouble getting cast in any sort of substantial role. "When you're light skinned you get it coming and going," she said. "How black do I have to be to play a black woman?" She read for a part on a new television comedy, A Different World, and was turned down. Discouraged, she took a position in a 1960s-style review in Paris for six months. "That nearly did me in," she further revealed to Essence. "I was so burned out I couldn't stop crying." To her surprise, she was called back to the set of A Different World, this time to read for a new character. "When I got to California to read for the show the second time, there was a roomful of people, including the head of the network," she remembered. "I swallowed hard, gave it all I had, and 15 minutes later was told to start working."
The role Guy won was that of Whitley Gilbert, a prim and spoiled Southern belle at Hillman College, a fictitious all-black school. A Different World originally starred Lisa Bonet and was a spin-off of The Cosby Show based on Bonet's character, Denise Huxtable. Bonet left the show in the second season, and Guy slowly emerged as the series' principal female character. A Different World has never garnered good reviews from the critics, but by virtue of its placement behind the popular Cosby Show, it has enjoyed high ratings almost since it first aired.
Guy admits that she fought hard to win the role of Whitley. She told Essence: "At first I worried that all she had were drop-dead lines--funny lines, for sure, but I knew there was more to her than humor. Gradually the writers have let her develop. And I've been able to give her more colors; I've tried to shade her personality. I worried whether Black women would accept or despise her, and I've been gratified to learn that sisters seem to like her. Maybe that's because she's so funny, or maybe it's because her preoccupation with femininity is universal. Deep down, Whitley's not a bad person--she's egotistical, but good-hearted."
Comic roles can be very confining, especially extreme ones like Whitley Gilbert. Fans expect Jasmine Guy to have a strong Southern accent, and they expect her to be a terrible singer, because Whitley is. At every opportunity Guy counters her Whitley image by appearing in projects that accent another side of her nature. In 1989 she took a movie role in the Eddie Murphy vehicle Harlem Nights that allowed her to play a sultry Creole conniver named Dominique Larue, and in 1991 she played a housewife-turned-detective in a chilling television movie, A Killer Among Us. Guy told Glamour that her other dramatic roles leave her far more vulnerable. "Whitley is definitely not me, so I've always felt removed from any criticism or compliments," she said. "Right now, she's stronger than I am. More people know her than me."
That state of affairs may change any day. In 1991 Guy released her debut album, Jasmine Guy, with the Warner Brothers label. Intended for the pop market, the work blends jazz and hip hop styles in danceable, upbeat numbers. The first single, "Try Me," did well in heavy rotation on MTV, where Guy's dance training helped her turn in an electrifying music video. A Jet reviewer noted that Guy's album, above all, "has proven she's not the pretentious, pampered princess she portrays but a serious, steadfast singer on the rise."
Commenting on the young performer's versatility, Betsy Burns theorized in Mademoiselle: "Whether {Jasmine Guy} is a singer, dancer or actress is becoming more and more unclear. What is clear is that with all these talents lies the promise of many more projects." Guy is very likely to forge a path for herself that will lead to top-level stardom--she has the proven qualities of determination, discipline, and talent. The actress told Essence: "I want to do something commercial, but something of indisputable quality.... I'm fanatical about high standards in every aspect of my work."
Further Reading
Sources
- Ebony, June 1988.
- Essence, August 1988.
- Glamour, February 1991.
- Jet, December 17, 1990.
- Mademoiselle, December 1989.
- People, November 9, 1987.
— Anne Janette Johnson
