Their Eyes Were Watching God 2005 premiere

1. Oprah Winfrey

Producer | The Oprah Winfrey Show

Oprah Gail Winfrey , often known simply as Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and ...

2. Kyle Chavarria

Actress | Ghost Whisperer

Kyle Chavarria has seen success come her way fairly easy in the entertainment industry. At the tender age of five, it became very clear to her parents Cris and Kim, that Kyle was destined to be a part of bigger and better things. In her eleven short years, she has received numerous accomplishments ...

3. Nicki Micheaux

Actress | The Shield

In addition to her unforgettable performances in Six Feet Under (2001) and Soul Food (2000), Micheaux has held guest-starring and recurring roles on shows such as ER (1994),NYPD Blue (1993), The Practice (1997), and The District (2000). Micheaux's film credits include Ringmaster (1998), The ...

4. Artel Great

Actor | Love Like Winter

Dr. Artel Great is an Independent Spirit Award-nominated filmmaker, author, and cultural critic. He is the first Black valedictorian to graduate from UCLA Film School, where he holds both B.A. and M.A. degrees. He earned his PhD from NYU Tisch. His directorial debut "Love Like Winter" was nominated...

5. Jon Voight

Actor | Midnight Cowboy

Jon Voight is an American actor of German and Slovak descent. He has won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his role as paraplegic Vietnam War veteran Luke Martin in the war film "Coming Home" (1978). He has also been nominated for the same award other two times. He was first ...

6. Heavy D

Actor | The Cider House Rules

Dwight Arrington Myers (May 24, 1967 - November 8, 2011), known professionally as Heavy D, was a Jamaican-born American rapper, record producer, and actor. Myers was the leader of Heavy D & the Boyz, a group which included dancers/hype men G-Whiz (Glen Parrish), "Trouble" T. Roy (Troy Dixon), and ...

7. Jensen Atwood

Actor | The Wrong Housesitter

Jensen Atwood - played love interest to Oscar® Winner Halle Berry in Oprah Winfrey's Their Eyes Were Watching God, while working alongside the legendary and Academy Award® nominated Ruby Dee, as the unforgettable Johnny Taylor.

Historically Atwood, played a series regular in two groundbreaking ...

8. Mel Winkler

Actor | Doc Hollywood

Mel Winkler was an African-American actor who played Melvin from Doc Hollywood, the original voice of Aku Aku from Crash Bandicoot, Lucius Fox from The New Batman Adventures, Commissioner Henderson from Superman: The Animated Series, Dr. Simon Harris from The Doctors and Coach White from Coach ...

9. Michael Ealy

Actor | Barbershop

Known for his charming looks and deep personality, Michael Ealy blessed the movie screen with his role in Barbershop (2002). When he left Silver Spring, Maryland, with a degree in English, he headed off to New York. From there he performed in several stage productions, including the Off-Broadway ...

10. Ruben Santiago-Hudson

Writer | Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Ruben Santiago-Hudson recently directed the world premiere of his play Your Blues Ain't Sweet Like Mine at The Two River Theater and the world premiere of Dominique Morriseau's Paradise Blue at Williamstown Theater Festival. Other credits include The Piano Lesson (Lucille Lortel, Joseph A. Callaway...

11. Cristina Ferrare

Actress | The Weather Man

Cynthia Cristina Ferrare, the TV personality and former wife of auto executive John DeLorean, was born on February 8, 1950 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Italian-American Catholic parents, Renata Velia (Torinesi) and Tavio C. Ferrare, a butcher. Her family relocated to Los Angeles when she was 14 years old...

12. Carl Lumbly

Actor | Men of Honor

Carl Lumbly is an actor respected for his steadfast talent, versatility and class. His prolific career includes over 150 credits in theatre, film, television and voiceover, with extensive critical acclaim for his work.

A familiar face on television, Lumbly's most recent memorable appearance was in ...

13. Halle Berry

Actress | Catwoman

Halle Maria Berry was born Maria Halle Berry on August 14, 1966 in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Oakwood, Ohio to Judith Ann Berry (née Hawkins), a psychiatric nurse & Jerome Jesse Berry, a hospital attendant. Her father was African-American and her mother is of mostly English and German descent. ...

14. Shemar Moore

Actor | Criminal Minds

Shemar Franklin Moore (born April 20, 1970) is an American actor and former fashion model. His notable roles are that of Malcolm Winters on The Young and the Restless from 1994 to 2005, Derek Morgan on CBS's Criminal Minds from 2005 to 2016, and as the third permanent host of Soul Train from 1999 ...

15. Erin Cottrell

Actress | Love's Long Journey

Erin Cottrell was born on August 24, 1975 in Yardley, Pennsylvania, USA. She is an actress, known for Love's Long Journey (2005), Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003) and Love's Unending Legacy (2007).

16. Terrence Howard

Actor | Crash

Terrence Howard was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Anita Jeanine Williams (née Hawkins) and Tyrone Howard. He was raised in Cleveland, Ohio. His love for acting came naturally, through summers spent with his great-grandmother, New York stage actress Minnie Gentry. He later began his acting career ...

17. Taraji P. Henson

Actress | The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Taraji Penda Henson is an American actress and singer. She studied acting at Howard University and began her Hollywood career in guest roles on several television shows before making her breakthrough in Baby Boy (2001). She played a prostitute in Hustle & Flow (2005), for which she received a ...

18. Ice Cube

Soundtrack | Friday

Ice Cube was born in South Central Los Angeles, to Doris (Benjamin), a custodian and hospital clerk, and Hosea Jackson, a UCLA groundskeeper. He first came to public notice as a singer and songwriter with the controversial and influential band N.W.A. His compositions with that group included many ...

19. Peter Horton

Producer | New Amsterdam

Peter Horton was born in Bellevue, Washington, USA. He is an award winning director, writer, and producer, known for New Amsterdam (2018), American Odyssey (2015), Thirtysomething (1987) and Grey's Anatomy (2005). He has been married to Nicole De Putron since 1995. They have two children and a dog ...

20. Kimberly Elise

Actress | Diary of a Mad Black Woman

Kimberly Elise was born on April 17, 1967 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. She is an actress and executive, known for Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005), The Manchurian Candidate (2004) and John Q (2002). She was previously married to Maurice Oldham.

21. Aja Blue Garman

Director | 60 Second Reviews

Aja Blue Garman is known for 60 Second Reviews (2015), Halo of Stars and The Times They Are a-Changin'.

22. Sharon Warren

Actress | Ray

Warren's parents - her father is a policeman, her mother is an administrator at the Tuskegee Institute - steeped her in literature and theater when she was growing up. After leaving Auburn University, she decided to pursue acting. For a couple of months, she had to live in a car. Then she got her ...

23. Ivan Reitman

Producer | Up in the Air

Canadian producer and director Ivan Reitman created many of American cinema's most successful and best loved feature film comedies and worked with Hollywood's acting elite. Reitman produced such hits as the ground-breaking sensation National Lampoon's National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), which ...

24. Genevieve Robert

25. Zelda Rubinstein

Actress | Poltergeist

A marvelously quirky and distinctive 4' 3" character actress, with a larger-than-life presence on film and TV, Zelda Rubinstein gave up a long and stable career in the medical field as a lab technician in order to strive for something more self-fulfilling as middle age settled in. At the age of 45,...

26. Nzinga Blake

Actress | Battle: Los Angeles

Nzinga was born in Maryland. She grew up in Asia, Africa, and Indiana with her family. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from UCLA's prestigious school of Film and Television. Nzinga and her co-host were the first humans to host a show on Cartoon Network.

27. Robi Reed

Casting_director | Malcolm X

Robi Reed is known for Malcolm X (1992), My Name Is Khan (2010) and Poetic Justice (1993).

28. Barbara Davis

Actress | The Front Page

Barbara Davis is known for The Front Page (1974), McCloud (1970) and Route 66 (1960).

29. Anne Sweeney

Hillside

Anne Sweeney is known for Fifteen (1990), The Frontline (2009) and Launch Box (1991).

30. Quinn Taylor

31. Kimberly Lee

Producer | 12:27

Kimberly Lee is known for 12:27 (2018).

32. Raymond T. Williams

Actor | The Long Home

Raymond T. Williams was born in London to Jamaican parents and was raised in the Bronx, New York. While on a scholarship for Marine Chemistry at the University of Maryland at Eastern Shore, he caught the acting bug and began doing theater.

After doing theater in New York for a year and a half, he ...

33. Lorraine Toussaint

Actress | Hudson Hawk

SAG Award and Critics Choice Award winner for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, Lorraine Toussaint shocked audiences on the smash hit Netflix original series "Orange is the New Black" as the viciously seductive inmate Vee. Toussaint's thrilling performance has won her glowing reviews from ...

34. Ruby Dee

Actress | American Gangster

Ruby Dee was an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist and civil rights activist. She is best known for originating the role of "Ruth Younger" in the stage and film versions of A Raisin in the Sun (1961).

She also starred in The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), Cat People (1982), ...

35. Gabriel Casseus

Writer | Takers

Gabriel Casseus was born on April 28, 1972 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Takers (2010), Bedazzled (2000) and G-Force (2009).

36. Kevin Daniels

Actor | Not Another Church Movie

Kevin Daniels was born on December 9, 1976 in San Diego, California, USA. He is an actor, known for Not Another Church Movie (2024), Will Trent (2023) and Frasier (2023).

37. Wayne Duvall

Actor | O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Wayne Duvall was born on May 29, 1958 in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA. He is an actor, known for O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), Lincoln (2012) and Werewolves Within (2021). He has been married to Denise Renee Guillet since December 29, 2002.

38. Maura Gale

Actress | Kingdom Business

A native of Chicago, IL Maura got her entertainment break when she won a Nationwide Rap Search hosted by Kurtis Blow. You read that right, she got her start as a rapper! She won the contest and it helped pay her way to college. Maura's love of rhythm and rhymes have afforded her opportunities to ...

39. Henry Brown

Actor | Lethal Weapon

Henry Brown is known for Lethal Weapon (1987), Scrooged (1988) and Lethal Weapon 3 (1992).

40. Darnell Martin

Director | I Like It Like That

Darnell Martin was born on January 7, 1964 in Bronx, New York, USA. She is a director and writer, known for I Like It Like That (1994), Cadillac Records (2008) and Do the Right Thing (1989). She is married to Giuseppe Ducrot.

41. Quincy Jones

Producer | The Color Purple

Considered to be one of the greatest minds in music and television history, Quincy Delight Jones, Jr. was born on March 14, 1933 in Chicago, Illinois. He is the son of Sarah Frances (Wells), a bank executive, and Quincy Delight Jones, Sr., a carpenter.

Jones found his love for music while he was ...

42. Suzan-Lori Parks

Producer | Genius

Suzan-Lori Parks was born on May 10, 1963 in Kentucky, USA. She is a producer and writer, known for Genius (2017), Fast X (2023) and The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021). She has been married to Christian Konopka since 2017. They have one child. She was previously married to Paul Oscher.

43. Misan Sagay

Writer | Belle

Misan Sagay is known for Belle (2013), Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005) and The Secret Laughter of Women (1999).

44. Bobby Smith Jr.

Writer | Jason's Lyric

Bobby Smith Jr. was born on June 24, 1968 in Corpus Christi, Texas, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Jason's Lyric (1994), There Are No Children Here (1993) and Burst.

45. Terence Blanchard

Composer | BlacKkKlansman

A world renowned trumpeter/composer/band leader and Blue Note recording artist, Terence Blanchard is the most prolific jazz musician to ever compose for motion pictures. Blanchard was born and raised in New Orleans where he studied with the Marsalis brothers at the famed New Orleans Center for the ...