Sheryl Lee Ralph Is Teaching by Example
Sheryl Lee Ralph Is Teaching by Example
Avery StoneThu, February 26, 2026 at 12:35 PM UTC
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Sheryl Lee Ralph Credit - Cindy Romero
In April 2025, after nearly 50 years as a performer, Sheryl Lee Ralph was finally granted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Reflecting on her journey to the milestone, the actor recalls advice Robert De Niro gave her on set for the 1992 dramatic comedy Mistress. “He said, ‘You’re a damn good actress, and that’s too bad, because Hollywood is not looking for you—so you better climb that mountain and wave that red flag and let them know that you are there,’” Ralph says. “It was hard. I could have given up. I could have stopped when it looked like it just wasn’t going to happen. But I act, I sing, I perform, because that is my joy.”
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Ralph, 69, has channeled that joy into captivating audiences for decades. She received her first Tony nomination in 1982 for her breakout role as Deena Jones in the original Broadway production of Dreamgirls and has amassed an extensive list of credits on the stage and screen, notably her ongoing portrayal of the no-nonsense kindergarten teacher Barbara Howard on the ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary. In 2022, she won her first Emmy for the role—making her just the second Black woman to win Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series—and she has earned consecutive nominations since. Playing Barbara continues to deepen Ralph’s respect for educators. “It is the heart of a human being that spends six to eight hours with other people’s children ... and still chooses to come back to work with love, ready to begin again,” she says. “Being an educator, as they say in the vernacular—it ain’t easy, baby.”
Ralph champions another type of teaching through her decades-long tenure as an activist, particularly raising awareness about HIV/AIDS. Recently, in collaboration with the DIVA Foundation, the nonprofit she founded in 1990, Ralph executive-produced a documentary special, Living Proof, which highlights the experiences of Black women living with HIV in the South. The film premiered on Hulu on World AIDS Day in December. “It is Black women in the South—at numbers that are very high—that are being ignored, and that is why I chose to take the documentary cameras right to the women,” she says. “Tell us your story, because your story matters. Your health matters. You matter just the way you are.”
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
