Lisa Gay Hamilton

Lisa Gay Hamilton (born March 25, 1964) is an American film, television, and theater actress known for her role as attorney Rebecca Washington on the ABC legal drama The Practice, and for her critically acclaimed performance as young Sethe in Jonathan Demme's film adaptation of Toni Morrison's Beloved. Her theater credits include Measure for Measure (Isabella), Henry IV Parts I & II (Lady Hotspur), Athol Fugard’s, Valley Song and The Ohio State Murders. Hamilton was also an original cast member in the Broadway productions of August Wilson’s, The Piano Lesson and Gem of the Ocean.

Biography

Early Life

Hamilton was born in Los Angeles, California but spent most of her childhood in Stony Brook, New York on Long Island. Her father, Ira Winslow Hamilton, Jr., hailed from Bessemer, Alabama, and her mother, the former Eleanor Albertine "Tina" Blackwell was from Meridian, Mississippi. Both parents graduated of historically black colleges—Tina attended Talladega while Ira went to Morehouse—and they both became successful professionals. Ira worked for a while as an engineer and then went into business as a general contractor. Tina eventually earned a Masters degree in social work and worked for the Girl Scouts for many years.^[1]

Hamilton fell in love with theater at and early age. During the 1970s, she saw several off-Broadway productions by the Negro Ensemble Company, including A Soldier's Story and The First Breeze of Summer.^[2] She enrolled in Carnegie Mellon University to study theater, but after a year was accepted into New York University’s prestigious Tisch Drama School. After graduating in 1985, she earned a second BFA from The Juilliard School in 1989.

Career

Early on, Hamilton set her sites on classical theater. In one of her first notable roles, she played opposite Kevin Kline in Measure for Measure in the New York Shakespeare Festival. Her performances in Much Ado About Nothing, Tartuffe, Reckless, Family of Mann, and Two Gentlemen of Verona, earned her a reputation as a serious dramatic actor. In 1995-96, her portrayal of a young, aspiring South African singer in Athol Fugard's Valley Song garnered an Obie Award, the Clarence Derwent Award,the Ovation nomination for best actress, and a Drama Desk nomination. More recently, Hamilton earned critical acclaim^[3], her second Obie, and a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for her role as Suzanne Alexander in Adrienne Kennedy’s, The Ohio State Murders.^[4]

Hamilton appeared in over two dozen films, including The Truth About Charlie and Beloved for director Jonathan Demme, Clint Eastwood’s True Crime, the independent films; Palookaville, Drunks, Showtime’s A House Divided, and as Ophelia in director Campbell Scott’s film version of Hamlet. She has worked on several projects with director Rodrigo Garcia, notably his films Ten Tiny Love Stories, Nine Lives, and Mother and Child. for director Rodrigo Garcia, and Honeydripper directed by John Sayles and The Soloist, directed by Joe Wright.^[5]

She directed the documentary film Beah: A Black Woman Speaks in 2003. This film, about pioneering black actress Beah Richards, dealt with Hamilton seeking out Richards, an African-American actress who had broken ground making inroads for black actresses. The two women met on the set of Beloved. Richards worked on stage and screen, taking small roles in several motion pictures during the 1950s and 1960s, earning an Oscar nomination for her role as Sidney Portier’s mother in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, despite being two years his junior. Richards worked in television as well, making memorable late-career appearances on the series Designing Women and The Practice. Hamilton's film explored Richards' left-wing political activism as well as her poetry (her volume, A Black Woman Speaks and Other Poems was published in 1974). After Richards died, Hamilton collaborated with illustrator R. Gregory Christie to turn one of her poems into a children's book. Keep Climbing Girls was published by Simon and Schuster in 2006.

Hamilton recently landed the role of Melissa in Men of a Certain Age, an hour-long comedy-drama starring Ray Romano, Andre Braugher, and Scott Bakula scheduled to air in January 2010.

Personal Life

In August of 2009, Hamilton married her partner, historian and writer Robin D. G. Kelley. They reside together in Los Angeles, California.

Partial filmography

Actress:

• Mother and Child (2010, by Rodrigo Garcia)
• Beastly (2010)
• Men of a Certain Age (TV, 2009)
• The Soloist (2009, by Joe Wright)
• Deception (2008)
• Honeydripper (2007, by John Sayles)
• Nine Lives (2005)
• The Practice (TV, 1997-2003)
• V-Day: Until the Violence Stops (2003)
• The Sum of All Fears (2002)
• The Truth About Charlie (2002, by Jonathan Demme)
• Ten Tiny Love Stories (2001, by Rodrigo Garcia)
• True Crime (1999, by Clint Eastwood)
• Beloved (1998, by Jonathan Demme)
• Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)
• Jackie Brown (1997, by Quentin Tarantino)
• Twelve Monkeys (1995, by Terry Gilliam)
• Naked in New York (1993)
• Reversal of Fortune (1990, by Barbet Schroeder)
• Krush Groove (1985)

Director:

• Beah: A Black Woman Speaks (2003)

References

External links

• Official website
• Lisa Gay Hamilton at the Internet Movie Database

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