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Danitra Vance (July 13, 1954 - August 21, 1994) was an actress best known as a cast member on Saturday Night Live during the 1985-86 season.
SNL work
Born in Chicago, Danitra graduated from nearby Thornton Township High School in 1972. In high school she was active in Theater and was a member of the debate team.
Vance was the first African American woman to become a SNL repertory player. She is best remembered for the sketch "That Black Girl", (a spoof of the 1960s sitcom That Girl), and for her character Cabrini Green Harlem Watts Jackson, a teenage mother who dispensed advice on the do's and don'ts of being pregnant. Both were recurring characters during her time on SNL.
Vance appeared on SNL during a time of great transition for the show; Vance herself became frustrated because her roles in sketches were limited both in visibility and in range - she was often cast in a skit as a secretary, a nurse, a waitress, a young unwed mother earning money through welfare (her recurring character, Cabrini Green Jackson, easily fell into this category), or a maid. This was made evident during the episode hosted by Oprah Winfrey in spring of 1986 where in the cold opening, Vance played Lorne Michaels' personal slave who convinces him to force Oprah into performing stereotypically black roles (only to have Oprah strangle him in a headlock before shouting the show's opening line) and, in a short musical sketch on the same episode, sang "I Play The Maids" (a spin on the Barry Manilow song, "I Write The Songs"), a satirical song that expressed frustration over black actresses (and herself) being typecast as maids in films and on television shows. Ironically, one of Danitra Vance's celebrity impersonations was Cicely Tyson on The Pee Wee Herman Thanksgiving Special sketch, who never played film or TV roles that stereotyped black women.
Perhaps adding to her frustration was her dyslexia, which according to an SNL Trivial Pursuit question and testimony from Al Franken for the book Live From New York: The Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, made it hard for her to read from cue cards and memorize lines.
Vance ultimately chose to leave SNL at the end of the season (along with many other cast members from that season who were fired, including Joan Cusack, Robert Downey, Jr. and Anthony Michael Hall.)
Recurring Characters on SNL
- That Black Girl, a black actress looking to hit the big time
- Cabrini Green Jackson, a professional teenage mother who gives advice on pregnancy.
Celebrity Impersonations
Other work
She was awarded an NAACP Image Award in 1986 and later won an Obie Award for her performance in the theatrical adaptation of Spunk, a collection of short stories written by Zora Neale Hurston.
Vance was the second female lead in "Limit Up" where she played a guardian angel on assignment for God being played by Ray Charles. She had small roles in The War of the Roses and Little Man Tate and a more significant role in Jumpin' at the Boneyard, for which she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.
Death
Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1990, Vance underwent a single mastectomy and incorporated the experience into a solo skit, "The Radical Girl's Guide to Radical Mastectomy." Unfortunately, the cancer recurred in 1993 and she died the following year at the age of 40.
External links
- Danitra Vance at IMDb
- Biography from the website of the Los Angeles Women's Theatre Festival