Lynn Whitfield (May 6, 1953-) is an actress who played Bellaridere, the Good Witch of the South in Lost in Oz (pilot).
Biography[]
Lynn Whitfield was born in 1953, the eldest of four children and a third-generation BFA graduate from Howard University. Her father played a significant role in her to become an actress. She first got her start into acting 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, Vantile Whitfield in 1974. Lynn eventually landed roles in film and TV as well.
Lynn's Hollywood career unfolded in 1979 at Columbia Pictures. Appearing on such established TV shows as Hill Street Blues and in a 1982 PBS version of For Colored Girls stage hit, she made her film debut with Doctor Detroit and landed many supporting roles in other popular films as well such as Silverado , The Slugger's Wife , Jaws: The Revenge , and Dead Aim . It was TV, however, that garnered her the most attention, working her way into top lead and co-star roles. In addition, she found some steadier work on series TV playing classy professionals, including two for ABC a doctor in Heartbeat and a news anchorwoman in Equal Justice.
In the HBO biopic The Josephine Baker Story , Lynn played the legendary entertainer, a role that stretched her to the limits as she played the role of Josephine from age 18 to when Josephine was 68. Earning an NAACP Image Award in 1992 for her role in the miniseries Stompin' at the Savoy , she later appeared in Pauly Shore's comedy In the Army Now and went back to series TV alongside Bill Cosby in the short-lived The Cosby Mysteries . She kept up the momentum with an unsympathetic role in the Oprah Winfrey miniseries The Wedding , where she again had to cover a long life span, this time from 19 to 47.Lynn had an upsurge in the late 90s with roles in the films A Thin Line Between Love and Hate in 1996 with co-star Martin Lawrence.
She co-starred in the Chris Rock comedy film Head of State and Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion . Whitfield also appeared in The Women , The Rebound , and Mama, I Want to Sing and had many roles in low-profile B-movies. She also starred as Dorothea Garibaldi, Raven Symone's character in the Disney Channel films The Cheetah Girls and The Cheetah Girls 2 . On television, Whitfield had recurring roles on Boston Public and Without a Trace
From 2014 to 2015, she appeared in the ABC legal drama How to Get Away with Murder as villainous Mary Walker. She guest-starred as Shaunette Renée Wilson's mother, a famous Nigerian surgeon, on the Fox medical drama The Resident in 2019.