Vanessa Williams

Few careers have been shaped as openly by a single moment as Vanessa Williams's. Born in 1963 in Tarrytown, New York, she became the first Black woman to be crowned Miss America in 1984, then resigned the title amid a row over nude photographs published in Penthouse magazine. Her path back ran through music and acting, and it is the work that followed, rather than the scandal, that makes her worth listening to.

Her 1988 debut, The Right Stuff, produced the moderately successful title single, while "Dreamin'" reached number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1989. Her second and third albums, The Comfort Zone (1991) and The Sweetest Days (1994), brought continued commercial success and several Grammy nominations, and "Save the Best for Last" became her number-one single and signature song. On stage, she made her Broadway debut in 1994 in Kiss of the Spider Woman, and in 2002 she played the Witch in the Sondheim revival of Into the Woods, earning a Tony nomination. Since 2024 she has starred as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada at the Dominion Theatre in London.