| Sanaa Lathan Date of Birth: September 19 The oldest of five siblings, Sanaa Lathan was born in New York City to a director/producer father and a professional dancer mother, and split her youth between there and Los Angeles. "As a kid, I was always hanging around the theater. I remember watching her [mother] in the wings when she appeared in Timbuktu with Eartha Kitt. I was always mesmerized when the orchestra music swelled and the dancers ran by me onto the stage. I was so impressed that I would go home and pretend to be one of them when I was alone." At first interested in becoming a lawyer, Lathan enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley where she continued to act in the Black Theater Workshop, and later received a B.A. in English. But the theatre kept calling and Lathan eventually put aside her plans for a legal career and earned an M.F.A. at the Yale School of Drama. She chose to polish her craft by returning to New York instead of remaining in L.A., where she worked in off-Broadway and Public Theater productions. Lathan became a veteran of the stage, having starred in A Movie Star has to Star in Black and White Imperceptible Mutabilities Twelfth Night Good Person of Szechwan Three Sisters School for Wives and Romeo and Juliet . Her performance in To Take Arms in Los Angeles was rewarded with a nomination for Best Actress by the NAACP Theatrical Award Committee. | |
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