Danitra Vance (July 13, 1959 - August 21, 1994) was an actress best known as a cast member on Saturday Night Live during the 1985-86 season. Insert non-formatted text here July 13 is the 194th day (195th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 171 days remaining. ... 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... August 21 is the 233rd day of the year (234th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ... Cast members of Saturday Night Live. ... It has been suggested that Operaman be merged into this article or section. ... The Late Eighties Dick Ebersol left the show after the 1984-1985 season, when the network refused his request to shut the program down entirely for 6 months and shift much of the material onto tape, not live broadcast. ...

SNL work

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. An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black) is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ... A sitcom or situation comedy is a genre of comedy performance originally devised for radio but today typically found on television. ... Marlo Thomas As Ann Marie in That Girl That Girl was a television sitcom which ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971. ...

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 prostitute, a waitress, a young unwed mother (her recurring character, Cabrini Green Jackson, easily fell into this category), or a maid (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 and was reportedly shocked that Garrett Morris was playing stereotypical roles on SNL when she hosted during the 1978-1979 season). 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. 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. A maidservant or in current usage maid is a female employed in domestic service. ... Cicely Tyson (born December 19, 1933) is an award-winning African-American actress. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Trivial Pursuit is a board game where progress is determined by a players ability to answer general knowledge or popular culture questions. ... Cue cards are cards that help a person to remember. ...

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.) Joan Cusack (born October 11, 1962 in New York City) is an Academy Award-nominated American actress and comedienne. ... Robert Downey Jr. ... Anthony Michael Hall Michael Anthony Thomas Charles Hall (born April 14, 1968 in West Roxbury, Massachusetts) is a U.S. movie actor who became famous playing a nerd in several successful, teenage Brat Pack films of the 1980s. ...

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. The NAACP Image Award is an award presented annually by the NAACP to honor the top African-Americans in film, television, music and literature. ... The Obie Awards, short for Off-Broadway Theater Awards, are annual awards bestowed by the newspaper The Village Voice on theater artists performing in New York City. ... Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891–January 28, 1960) was an American folklorist and author of the Harlem Renaissance, best known for the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. ...

Vance 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. For other uses, see The War of the Roses (disambiguation). ... Little Man Tate is a 1991 motion picture that tells a story of a seven-year-old genius, Fred Tate, who has difficulty having friendship with peers. ... Founded in 1984, the Independent Spirit Awards were originally known as the FINDIE (Friends of Independents) Awards and presented winners with Plexiglas pyramids containing suspended shoestrings representing the paltry budgets of independent films. ...

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 35. Breast cancer is cancer of breast tissue. ... This article is about the year. ... In medicine, mastectomy is the medical term for the surgical removal of one or both breasts, partially or completely. ... 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ...

External links

• Danitra Vance at the Internet Movie Database
• Biography from the website of the Los Angeles Women's Theatre Festival