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Ellen Cleghorne

Highest Rated: 80% MacArthur Park (2001)

Lowest Rated: 7% Mr. Wrong (1996)

Birthday: Nov 29, 1965

Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York, USA

A bright, inventive sketch player and comic actor whose portrayals of such characters as Zoraida, the in-your-face NBC page, and Queen Shaniqua, the Afrocentric critic, on four seasons of "Saturday Night Live" (1991-95) put her on the upward career tract. Ellen Cleghorne was raised in the projects of Brooklyn, and after earning a degree at Hunter College on Manhattan's Upper East Side, began performing standup in clubs throughout New York City. She also performed with "The Family, Inc.," a troupe which performed mainly at prisons, and appeared in two productions with the New York Shakespeare Festival, "Marriage Proposal," and "Looking for Tomorrow." Although she had been featured on several episodes of Keenen Ivory Wayans' variety series "In Living Color" (Fox) in the early 1990s, Cleghorne was noticed by the producers of "Saturday Night Live" while performing at a New York comedy club and was asked to join the show in 1991. During the course of four seasons, she only created original characters, but offered dead-on impersonations of Anita Hill, Whoopi Goldberg, and singer Natalie Cole, among others. She withdrew from "SNL" to headline her own sitcom, the short-lived "Cleghorne!" (1995-96), playing a single mother coping with daily life on the fledgling new network, The WB. Cleghorne's work in feature films was slower in getting established. She made a quick appearance in "Turk 182" (1985), but did not have a part of substance until Nora Ephron's "This is My Life" (1992), as a talk show host. She also had a supporting role in the Ellen DeGeneres vehicle "Mr. Wrong" (1996).

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Highest-Rated Movies

80% 78% MacArthur Park
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60% 58% The Perez Family
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44% 44% Second Act Watchlist
26% 72% Kingdom Come
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25% 67% The Million Dollar Hotel
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7% 26% Mr. Wrong
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Midnight Blue
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Rescuing Desire
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Mattie Fresno and the Holoflux Universe
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11% Full Clip
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Filmography

Movies TV Shows
Second Act 44% 44% 2018 Shaniqua Actor Mattie Fresno and the Holoflux Universe 2007 Al Lewis Actor Full Clip 11% 2004 Ma Dukes Actor MacArthur Park 80% 78% 2001 Hoover Blue Actor Kingdom Come 26% 72% 2001 Lady #1 Actor A Private Affair 2000 Actor The Million Dollar Hotel 25% 67% 2000 Marlene Actor Midnight Blue 2000 Actor Mr. Wrong 7% 26% 1996 Jane Actor Rescuing Desire 1996 Doris Actor The Perez Family 60% 58% 1995 Officer Rhoades Actor
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