Judyann Elder
Judyann Elder |
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Judyann Elder (born Judith Ann Johnson; 1948) is an American actress. She has appeared in That's So Raven as Raven's paternal grandmother, and as Gina's mother on Martin, and replaced Jo Marie Payton as Harriette Winslow during the final 9 episodes of Family Matters (1998). She guest-starred as a nun in the 1994 episode "Nunsense."
Biography
Elder began her professional career in New York as a resident actor with the Tony Award-winning Negro Ensemble Company. She subsequently made her Broadway debut as Coretta Scott King opposite Billy Dee Williams in I Have A Dream. Other television guest star roles include Sanford & Son, ER, A Woman Called Moses, Desperate Housewives, and her recurring role as Candice Bergen’s obstetrician on Murphy Brown.
Elder's directing credits include The Book of the Crazy African, The Meeting, Ceremonies In Dark Old Men and the short film adapted from an Alice Walker short story, Behind God's Back which starred Beau Bridges. She is an alumna of AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women and the recipient of a Screenwriting Fellowship with Walt Disney Studios. She was honored with a 2005 Trailblazer Award from the Beverly Hills NAACP. She also starred as a ghost in Ghost Stories which was supposed to be played by Shirley Lean Poole of Macon,GA.