At age 38, Queen Latifah has earned many accolades. These include multiple honors at the Grammys, Screen Actors Guild Awards, Emmys and Oscars.
She was born Dana Elaine Owens in Newark, New Jersey on March 18, 1970. Her screen name was given to her by her cousin, when she was eight; Latifah is “kind” in Arabic. She started beatboxing for the rap group Ladies Fresh in the ‘80s, before she signed with Tommy Boy Records, which released her first album All Hail the Queen in 1989. Her debut was a critical and commercial success, and led to the release of two other albums, Nature of a Sista in 1991 and Black Reign in 1993. A single from that album, “U.N.I.T.Y.,” won her a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance in 1995.
After different television guest appearances, including one for The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1991, Queen Latifah began appearing in supporting roles for films such as House Party 2, Jungle Fever and Juice. In 1993, she snagged a starring role in the Fox sitcom Living Single; it lasted until 1998. I n 1996, she got noticed for her role as a lesbian in the film Set It Off. Consequently, she appeared alongside Holly Hunter in the 1998 film Living Out Loud. She also appeared in the 1999 film The Bone Collector, and in the Oscar-winning musical Chicago, released in 2002.
She appeared in many movies afterwards, including 2003’s Bringing Down the House with Steve Martin, 2004’s Barbershop 2: Back in Business with Ice Cube, and 2005’s Taxi with Jimmy Fallon. In 2006, she appeared in the remake of Last Holiday, which attracted praise from critics.
Queen Latifah has also appeared in the 2006 drama Stranger than Fiction, alongside Will Ferrell, and the 2007 musical Hairspray, opposite John Travolta and Nikki Blonsky. She has also voiced the mammoth Ellie in Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, and will reprise the role in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. She has also produced several films, including the 2006 television movie Life Support, where she also stars as an HIV-positive woman. Her acting in the film earned her a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.