Tembi Locke

Tembi Locke was an American actress that made many episodic television appearances throughout her career. Born to civil rights activist parents in Houston, Texas on July 26, 1970, Locke cited watching "Planet of the Apes" (1968) while her father taught her how to deactivate an FBI wiretap on the phone as an inspiration for her start in acting. After studying abroad in Italy, where she became fluent in Italian and appeared in some Italian television programs, she graduated from Wesleyan University with an art history degree and acted in a number of off-Broadway plays. Locke landed her big break when she appeared in an episode of "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" (NBC, 1990-96) in 1994. She followed it up with a recurring role on "Beverly Hills, 90210" (Fox, 1990-2000) during the 1995-96 season. Locke then booked her first major Hollywood feature film role as Norma in the Shaq-led superhero film "Steel" (1997). After appearing in an episode of "Friends" (NBC, 1994-2004) in 1999, Locke secured a main cast role as Dr. Diana Davis on the final season of the sci-fi TV series "Sliders" (Fox/Sci Fi Channel, 1995-2000). She continued to make a number of episodic appearances on numerous TV shows like "The Bernie Mac Show" (Fox, 2001-06) and "Bones" (Fox, 2005-2017) until she starred in the final two seasons of cult hit SyFy series Eureka (2006-2012) as Grace Monroe. She appeared in "Dumb and Dumber To" (2014) alongside Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. Locke, a vegetarian and chef, was involved in many advocacy groups like OpUSA and created webseries "The Kitchen Widow" (2015) in order to educate viewers about cooking and topics like grief following the death of her husband from cancer.