Whitfield spent her career after breakthrough performance as Josephine Baker playing the leading roles in a number of made for television movies in the 1990s, and had several starring roles in films, include performances in A Thin Line Between Love and Hate (1996), Gone Fishin\' (1997), Eve\'s Bayou (1997), Stepmom (1998), Head of State (2003), Madea\'s Family Reunion (2006) and The Women (2008). Whitfield also starred in a number of smaller movies in the 2000s and 2010s. In 2016, she began starring as villainous Lady Mae Greenleaf in the Oprah Winfrey Network drama series, Greenleaf. Whitfield has won five NAACP Image Awards.\n', '

Whitfield was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the daughter of Jean (née Butler)who is African-American, an officer of a finance agency, and Valerian Smith -who is Creole, a dentist. She is the eldest of four children and a third-generation BFA graduate from Howard University. Her dentist father was instrumental in developing Lynn\'s initial interest in acting as he was a prime figure in forming community theater in her native Baton Rouge. First garnering attention on the stage by studying and performing with the Black Repertory Company in Washington, D.C, she married one of the company\'s co-founders and pioneers of black theatre, playwright/director/actor Vantile Whitfield in 1974. She eventually moved to New York and appeared off-Broadway in such shows as The Great Macdaddy and Showdown before earning acclaim in the 1977 Los Angeles production of the landmark play \'for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf\' co-starring alongside Alfre Woodard.\n', '

Whitfield made her professional screen debut in the NBC critically acclaimed serial drama, Hill Street Blues as Jill Thomas in 1981. In 1983, she appeared in the comedy film Doctor Detroit (1983), playing the supporting role of Thelma Cleland. She later co-starred in films The Slugger\'s Wife, Silverado, and Jaws: The Revenge. She also starred in the television films The George McKenna Story opposite Denzel Washington, Johnnie Mae Gibson: FBI as a title character, and in the ABC miniseries The Women of Brewster Place alongside Oprah Winfrey and Cicely Tyson. She also was regular cast member in the short-lived 1988 ABC female-driven medical drama series, HeartBeat alongside Kate Mulgrew, Laura Johnson, and Gail Strickland.\n', '

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