Jasmine Guy

Jasmine Guy was married to Terrence Duckett from 1998 to 2008. They have one daughter, Imani Guy Duckette, who was born in 1999.

After her divorce, Guy and her daughter moved to Atlanta, the city where Guy was raised. Guy also had a close friendship with rapper Tupac Shakur. They met through actress Jada Pinkett during Shakur's guest appearance on A Different World, and Shakur recuperated at Guy's home after he was shot in 1994.

Guy moved to New York at 17 to study dance at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. She became a member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1981 and began her television career the following year with a non-speaking role as a dancer on Fame.

Her breakthrough came with the role of Whitley Gilbert on A Different World, which ran from 1987 to 1993 as a spin-off of The Cosby Show. Guy appeared in every episode, eventually replacing the show's original star, Lisa Bonet. She also wrote three episodes and directed one.

Guy won six consecutive NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her performance as Whitley. The role became her best-known television character.

Guy continued working in television with appearances in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Melrose Place, NYPD Blue, Living Single, Touched by an Angel, The Outer Limits, and The Parkers. She played Easter in the miniseries Queen, which was adapted from Alex Haley's book Queen: The Story of an American Family.

From 2003 to 2004, she starred as Roxy Harvey in Showtime's Dead Like Me. Roxy was a meter maid turned police officer and one of the series' grim reapers. Guy received a 2005 NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for the role and later reprised it in Dead Like Me: Life After Death.

Guy played Sheila “Grams” Bennett on The Vampire Diaries from 2009 to 2017. She later appeared as Gemma on Grey's Anatomy and as Patricia Joseph on Harlem.

Guy made her film debut as Dina in Spike Lee's 1988 musical drama School Daze. She followed it with the role of Dominique La Rue in Harlem Nights, starring Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, and Redd Foxx. She also provided the voice of Sawyer in the animated film Cats Don't Dance and appeared in October Baby, Big Stone Gap, and My Nephew Emmett.

Her stage credits include the off-Broadway musical Beehive and productions of The Wiz, Leader of the Pack, Grease, and Chicago, in which she played Velma Kelly. She also performed in Miss Evers' Boys, Blues for an Alabama Sky, The Colored Museum, The Nacirema Society, and Fool for Love.

Guy directed the world premiere of I Dream, an opera centered on the life and journey of Martin Luther King Jr., at Atlanta's Woodruff Arts Centre. She also directed The Colored Museum and became producing director of Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre Company in 2010, taking on artistic and administrative responsibilities.

During the run of A Different World, Guy released her self-titled album on Warner Bros. Records in 1990. The album produced the singles “Try Me,” “Another Like My Lover,” and “Just Want to Hold You,” with “Try Me” reaching the R&B charts.

Guy wrote Afeni Shakur: Evolution of a Revolutionary, a 2004 biography of Afeni Shakur, Tupac Shakur's mother. She also appeared in Tupac's 1995 music video for “Temptations.”

Her work has included projects focused on African American history and culture, including the miniseries Queen, the documentary Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narrative, and The People Speak, a film based on Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.