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Vanessa Williams

File:Vanessa_Williams_April_2019.png · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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Vanessa Williams

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Also known as Vanessa Lynn Williams, Vanessa L. Williams, Vanessa Lynne Williams

American actress, singer and former Miss America (born 1963)

AI overview

Vanessa Williams is an American actress and singer who was born in 1963 and became famous as a former Miss America titleholder. She is notable for breaking barriers as an African American woman in a pageant system and has since built a successful career in entertainment across multiple mediums.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Works
72

Top works

  • Heaven Our Forever Home
  • Animals Grayscale Adults Coloring Books
  • Sunset Notebook
  • Fantastic Birds Coloring Pages Adults
  • Password Journal

via Open Library + Wikidata

Film & TV

Acting · Tarrytown, New York, USA

Vanessa Lynn Williams is an American singer, actress, producer, dancer, and model. She was the first Black woman to win Miss America in 1984, but resigned after nude photos of her were published in Penthouse magazine. Williams has since had a successful career in music and acting, selling millions of albums and earning critical acclaim.

Known for

  • The Claudia Winkleman Show — Self2026
  • Happy Clothes: A Film About Patricia Field — Self2024
  • The Little Pageant That Could — Self (archive footage)2024
  • Elsbeth — Roslyn Bridwell2024
  • Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space — Narrator (voice)2023
  • Celebrating 50 Years of Broadway's Best — Self2023
  • Tripped Up — Patricia Chamberlain2023
  • Velma — Dr. Perdue (voice)2023
  • Los lunes a las 9 — Self (Archive Footage)2022
  • The Jennifer Hudson Show2022

via TMDB

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Gender
Female
Origin
United States
Active from
1963
2008 universal fire victimacademy award winneramericanamerican composercinematic classicalclassical

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
423,762
Total plays
2,937,152

Tags

poprnbfemale vocalistssoul80s

There are at least two artists by this name, both from the United States: 1. Vanessa L. Williams - American singer and actress. 2. Vanessa R. Williams - American gospel music singer. 1. Vanessa Lynn Williams (born 18 March 1963 - Tarrytown, New York, U.S.) is an American R&B/pop/theatrical singer and actress. In 1983, Williams made history when she became the first woman of known African descent to be crowned Miss America. Her regime as Miss America <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Vanessa+W

via Last.fm · Vanessa Williams

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

  1. The PHQ-9

    · 2001 · cited 39,499x

  2. A Brief Measure for Assessing Generalized Anxiety Disorder

    · 2006 · cited 28,961x

  3. Learning representations by back-propagating errors

    · 1986 · cited 24,397x

  4. Geant4—a simulation toolkit

    · 2003 · cited 21,295x

  5. Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome

    · 2001 · cited 18,620x

via Crossref · CC0

Quotes

  • I think there's a time to work, and everyone has to kind of adjust. And then there's a time to relax, and be the mom or take the kids on vacation when you need to wind down. So it's a matter of planning, and being able to map out your year or your week or let's start with the day. It is just being multi-tasking and being available.
  • The wiser you get, the more experience you have, and the more you see people for who they are as human beings, as opposed to figures you have to fight against.
  • I am lucky to have three daughters who are completely different. I look at my daughters and I have different relationships with all three and there are parts of each personality that are very special.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

~20 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Vanessa Lynn Williams (born March 18, 1963) is an American singer, actress, model, producer and dancer. She gained recognition as the first black woman to win the Miss America title when she was crowned Miss America 1984. She would later resign her title amid a media controversy surrounding nude photographs published in Penthouse magazine. 32 years later, Williams was offered a public apology during the Miss America 2016 pageant for the events.

Williams rebounded from the scandal with a successful career as a singer and actress. In 1988, she released her debut studio album The Right Stuff, whose title single saw moderate success as well as "Dreamin'", which peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States in 1989. With her second and third studio albums, The Comfort Zone (1991) and The Sweetest Days (1994), she saw continued commercial success and received multiple Grammy Award nominations, including her number-one single and signature song, "Save the Best for Last", which she performed live at the 1993 Grammy Awards ceremonies. Her later studio albums include Everlasting Love (2005), The Real Thing (2009), and Survivor (2024).

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Vanessa Williams” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (7)