actress
Personal Information
First name originally Joy; changed to Joie (pronounced Zhwah); born c. 1962; grew up in Brooklyn, NY; daughter of Bill (a jazz trumpeter and composer) and Jackie (a teacher) Lee; four brothers: Spike, David, Chris, Cinque.
Education: Attended Sarah Lawrence College.
Career
Actress. Appeared in Spike Lee films, She's Gotta Have It, 1986; School Daze, 1988; Do the Right Thing, 1989; and Mo' Better Blues, 1990; appeared in James Dearden film, A Kiss before Dying.
Life's Work
Joie Lee first became familiar to filmgoers in her brother Spike Lee's hit 1986 movie, She's Gotta Have It, and has since appeared in three other of his acclaimed films. In Spike's films--which critics have praised as stirring depictions of contemporary black society--Joie regularly portrays characters who represent a voice of conscience. Veronica Webb explained in Spin: "Joie's work with her brother, who is fast becoming the pope of polemics in American cinema, seems to take on the role of the benevolent black Madonna that inhabits her brother's imagination.... She is the eternal incarnation of the good girl."
Joie's acting style has been described as natural and refreshing; Webb calls her "the Gechee woman in a head-on collision with the fly-girl." Joie has received positive notices for her film performances. She had her most major role in the 1990 film Mo' Better Blues, where she played Indigo Downes, the long-suffering girlfriend of an unscrupulous jazz musician (played by Denzel Washington). "Lee lights up the screen with her sassy portrayal of the devoted Downes," wrote Victor Dwyer in Maclean's. "Hopelessly in love, but pragmatic about the prospects of convincing Gilliam to settle down, she succeeds in bringing a genuine touch of lightness to the overbearing gloom that pervades the movie."
Joie noted to Marjorie Rosen and David Hutchings in People the differences between her and Indigo. "I was not raised to be someone's wife. I was raised so that things should be evenly distributed. Indigo is very soft-spoken, and I can get loud." As a youth in Brooklyn, Joie was brought up in an environment that encouraged artistic development and independence. The Lee children--four boys and one girl--were "exposed early to the arts and ideas of black culture--everything from Broadway musical theater to the writings of the abolitionist Harriet Tubman," noted Rosen and Hutchings.
Joie's father, Bill, was a noted jazz trumpeter and composer (he wrote the score for Mo' Better Blues), while her mother, Jackie, was a teacher in an exclusive private school. Jackie, from whom Joie says she got her acting style, taught black pride to the Lee children. "She started experimenting with African hairstyles long before anyone else did," Joie told Rosen and Hutchings. "We'd walk down the street together wearing beads and cornrows. She saw it as history, not fashion. She researched everything. People laughed at us, but it didn't matter."
Lee's parents were supportive of her acting. "When I was little my parents always encouraged me to act," she told Webb. "They were never daunted by the fact that there were so few black images on screen." Joie hopes to be able to forge new opportunities for black actresses. She commented to Webb: "I'd like to break all the standards as an actress, and as a black actress. I'd like to bring a different image to the public. I want to see something other than what I've seen. Insightful portraits of black women. I'm only one person, but I'd like to perform in every genre of film: sci-fi, gangster, comedy. There are so many barriers to be broken down."
In 1990, Joie acted in her first non-Spike Lee film, the murder-mystery A Kiss before Dying, starring Sean Young and Matt Dillon. "I decided this would be a good time to branch out. People don't know if I can do things on my own," she told Rosen and Hutchings. In addition to more acting, Joie's future plans include developing a children's television pilot with her brother Cinque. Among her other goals in film, she told Webb: "I'd like to find some stability as an actress. I'd like to have my own production company in the next five to ten years, a multimedia ensemble company. I'd like to own the rights to a lot of things. I'd like to be writing my own projects. I'd really like to write something for Spike."
Further Reading
Sources
- Jet, August 6, 1990.
- Maclean's, August 6, 1990.
- Nation, August 13-20, 1990.
- National Review, September 3, 1990.
- People, August 27, 1990.
- Spin, October, 1990.
— Michael E. Mueller
