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Tonya Pinkins

Tonya Pinkins

Tonya Pinkins was born in Chicago, Illinois. She has four children. Her father was a police officer and insurance salesman and her mother is a former postal worker. She has two brothers, Eric Swoope and Thomas Swoope and a sister Tamera Swoope from whom she is estranged. She was interested in the arts from a young age. In high school, she studied acting at the Goodman Theatre Young People's Program. Aged 18, she briefly attended college and decided to pursue an acting career instead. She later returned to college, earning an undergraduate degree from Columbia College in Chicago, followed by graduate work at Carnegie Mellon's music theater program, and a year at California Western School of Law in San Diego.

Pinkins is probably most admired for her stage work. She won a Tony Award for her performance as Sweet Anita in Jelly's Last Jam. She was nominated for her roles in Play On! and in Caroline, or Change, where she played the title role. Her additional Broadway credits include Merrily We Roll Along, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, The Wild Party, House of Flowers, Radio Golf, A Time To Kill and Holler If Ya Hear Me.

Pinkins has performed in several Off Broadway productions, including the comic role of Mopsa, the Shepherdess, in The Winter's Tale produced by the Riverside Shakespeare Company at The Shakespeare Center in 1983.

In 2011, Pinkins starred in the world premiere of Kirsten Greenidge’s Milk Like Sugar at La Jolla Playhouse, and received a 2012 Craig Noel nomination for Best featured Actress in a Play. She reprised her role in the Playwrights Horizons in the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, and garnered a 2012 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play.

In 2012 Pinkins starred in Katori Hall's play Hurt Village, the gritty drama about life and change in a Memphis housing project made its world-premiere at Off-Broadway's Signature Theatre Company as part of the theatre's inaugural season. The play also Marsha Stephanie Blake, Ron Cephas Jones, Saycon Sengbloh, Lloyd Watts, Charlie Hudson III, Nicholas Christopher, Corey Hawkins, Ron Cephas Jones and Joaquina Kalukango.

In 2014, Pinkins appeared in New Federal Theatre's revival of Ed Bullins' The Fabulous Miss Marie opposite Roscoe Orman; in the Broadway production of Holler If Ya Hear Me; and the world premiere of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' War at Yale Repertory.

She has also had a prolific television career making guest appearances on such television shows as Army Wives, 24, Law & Order, The Cosby Show, Cold Case, Criminal Minds, and The Guardian among others. During the mid-1980s Pinkins created the role of Heather Dalton on the CBS soap, As the World Turns. In 1991 she was cast as Livia Frye in All My Children. Pinkins left All My Children in 1995 but returned to her role in 2003. She was later put on contract with the show from March 2004 until June 2006, when she was downgraded to recurring status. She has played Amala Motobo on the popular television show 24. She has appeared in several films in supporting roles, including Newlyweeds, Home, Fading Gigolo opposite Woody Allen, Enchanted, Premium, Romance & Cigarettes, Noah's Arc: Jumping The Broom and Above the Rim among others.

The Evolution of Horror Cinema Worldwide

2025

as Horror Film Expert

The Life of Peter Gottlieb

2024

as Dean Fendleman

East New York

2022

as Shirley Haywood

Women of the Movement

2022

as Alma

The Hunt for the Chicago Strangler

2021

as Narradora

The Surrogate

2021

as Karen Weatherston-Harris

Run the World

2021

as Gwen Greene

Red Pill

2021

as Cassandra

The School for Wives

2020

as Arnolphe

The Artist's Wife

2020

as Liza Caldwell

Wu-Tang: An American Saga

2019

as Burgess

God Friended Me

2018

as Marsha

Mr. Talented

2018

as Valerie Brown

Random Acts of Flyness

2018

as Ripa The Reaper

Aardvark

2018

as Abigail

My Days of Mercy

2018

as Agatha

The Book of Henry

2017

as Principal Wilder

An Act of Terror

2017

as Mary Church Terrell

Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened...

2016

as Self

Bull

2016

as Judge Maynard

Collective: Unconscious

2016

as Ripa the Reaper

Everybody Dies!

2016

as Ripa the Reaper

11.22.63

2016

as Mia Mimi Corcoran

Rasheeda Speaking

2015

as Jaclyn

Fear the Walking Dead

2015

as Martha

Gotham

2014

as Ethel Peabody

The Strain

2014

as Francis

Home

2013

as Esmin

Hostages

2013

as Beth Nix

Newlyweeds

2013

as Patrice

Elementary

2012

as Judge Marilyn Whitfield

Scandal

2012

as Sandra

Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom

2008

as Mrs. Robinson

Enchanted

2007

as Phoebe Banks

Army Wives

2007

Army Wives

2007

as Viola Crawford

Criminal Minds

2005

as Det. Nora Bennett

Romance & Cigarettes

2005

as Female Medic

The Closer

2005

as Donna Taft

Black in the 80s

2005

Cold Case

2003

as Dina Miller

24

2001

The Guardian

2001

University Hospital

1995

Against Their Will: Women in Prison

1994

as Sondra

Above the Rim

1994

as Mailika

Jammin': Jelly Roll Morton on Broadway

1992

as Herself

Law & Order

1990

as Woman

Law & Order

1990

as Angela Young

See No Evil, Hear No Evil

1989

as Leslie

Crime Story

1986

as Junkie Prostitute

The Cosby Show

1984

as Iris

American Dream

1981

Great Performances

1971

as Self

All My Children

1970