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Tracey Ullman (born December 30, 1959) is a British-born, naturalized U.S. citizen, comedian, actress, singer, dancer, screenwriter, and author, who is most famous for being the host of her eponymous
variety television show from 1987 until 1990.
Her early appearances were on such British TV sketch comedy shows as A Kick Up the
Eighties (with Rik
Mayall) and Three
of a Kind (with Lenny
Henry and David Copperfield ). She also
appeared as Candice Valentine in Girls On Top with Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders.
She emigrated to the U.S. and ended up having her own network
television series, The Tracey Ullman Show, from which
The Simpsons was
spun off in 1989.
She later found even greater success producing programs for HBO, including Tracey Takes On..., for which she has
won numerous awards. She has also appeared in many feature films.
She is currently about to star in her newest sketch-comedy creation, Tracey Ullman's State of the
Union, for Showtime, in 2008.
Tracey Ullman was born in Slough, Buckinghamshire (now Berkshire) to Antony Ullman, her Polish Roman Catholic father,
and Dorin Ullman, her British mother, who was of Roma heritage. Antony had been
a Polish soldier who was evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940. Ullman's father sold furniture, booked
travel, and brokered marriages. He also translated amongst the Polish community
in the UK. When Ullman was six years old, her father died of a heart attack. He
was fifty years old. In an effort to cheer the family up, Tracey recounted
putting on shows in her mother's bedroom, performing along side her older
sister, Patty. That first show was entitled, The Patty Ullman Show.
"I was a spin-off!" recalled Ullman. In her nightly performances Tracey was
able to mimic anyone and everyone, including neighbors, family members, friends,
even celebrities. Soon after, Ullman's mother remarried.
At age 12, one of Tracey's headmasters took notice of the young star's future
potential, and recommended her to the Italia Conti Academy stage school.
Although the school gave Ullman her first taste of the stage, she does not look
back at the period as being a joyous one. Ullman's biggest drawback was her dark
features. During auditions, they would line the children up, and select them for
roles. Young Ullman, ethnically, did not fit the criteria (the criteria being
blonde-haired and blue-eyed).
At age 16, Ullman began to find jobs as a dancer. One of her big breaks came
when she landed a role in Gigi in Berlin[1]. Upon returning to England, she joined the "Second Generation" dance
troupe[2].
She also began to appear in variety shows.
The exposure led to her being cast in numerous West End theatre musicals, including Grease, and
The Rocky
Horror Show[3]. During this time Ullman learned of a competition
at London's Royal Court
Theatre[4] for an improvised play about club acts. Deciding to enter,
Ullman created the character Beverly, a born-again
Christian chanteuse. Ullman proved to be a big hit and won the title of
Best Newcomer Award[5]. At this point, the BBC became interested, and offered her her own show.
In 1983, Ullman succeeded as a singer on the legendary punk label Stiff Records[6], although her style was more comic
romantic than punk[7]. She had six songs in the British Top 100 in less
than two years, including her first hit "Breakaway" (famous for her
performance with a hairbrush as a microphone); the international hit cover version of
label-mate Kirsty
MacColl's "They Don't Know,"
which went to #2 in the UK (#8, U.S. - MacColl also sang backing vocals on
Ullman's version), and which became the theme song to most of Ullman's later
television series; and the cover of Madness's "My Girl," which Ullman changed to
"My Guy's Mad At Me." [8] (The "My Guy" video featured the British
politician Neil Kinnock,
at the time the Leader of the
Opposition)[9].)
Her songs were over-the-top evocations of 1960s and 1970s pop music with a
1980s edge, "somewhere between Minnie Mouse and The Supremes" as Britain's Melody Maker put it, or
"retro before retro was cool", as a retrospective reviewer wrote in 2002. Her
career received another boost when the video for "They Don't Know" featured a cameo from Paul McCartney[10]; at the
time Ullman was filming a minor role in McCartney's film Give My Regards To Broad
Street[11]. Her final hit was Sunglasses (1984)
whose video featured Adrian Edmondson. During this time, she also
appeared as a guest VJ on MTV in the United States[12].
In October 2006, Ullman recounted her music days in the BBC Four documentary series, If It Ain't
Stiff.[13]
Along with her stint in the music world, Ullman also moved into television.
She began starring in sketch comedies for the BBC, A Kick Up the Eighties, and Three of a Kind
(with Lenny Henry and David Copperfield).
In 1985, she donned a blonde wig and took the role of a promiscuous gold digger
named "Candice Valentine" on the ITV sitcom Girls On Top, but jumped
ship after one season.
At this point, US television beckoned, and television producer, legend, James L. Brooks, came
calling. The two had discussed working together previously, but it wasn't until
1987 that the two formally got together and created The Tracey
Ullman Show. Ullman played a variety of characters, completely disguised
with the help of makeup, prosthetics, and even padding. The show was the first
commercial hit for then unknown FOX channel. Ullman proved to be a triple treat - she could
act, sing, and dance, as well as providing ethnic accents for some of her
characters (Tracey is one of the few non-Australian actors that can deliver
lines in a realistic Australian accent). Paula Abdul began her career with the series,
serving as the show's choreographer. The then practically unknown Abdul
even used her early music recordings for the series' strenuous dance
numbers.
The
Tracey Ullman Show earned four Emmys and spawned The Simpsons, which was featured in very
simple cartoon shorts (created by cartoonist Matt Groening at the behest of Ullman Show
producer James L.
Brooks).
In 1992 Ullman filed a lawsuit against Twentieth
Century Fox in Los Angeles Superior Court over profits from the later half
hour incarnation of The
Simpsons for $2.5 million of the estimated $50,000,000 USD in profits reaped from merchandising.
Years after her show went off the air, she said jokingly in a late night
television interview that she hoped to one day have a regular 2-minute spot on
The Simpsons. In
1991, Ullman had provided the voice of "Emily Winthrop", a British dog trainer
on The Simpsons episode Bart's Dog Gets an F.
As Ullman had continued her professional relationship with former producer
Brooks, only the studio and not Brooks was named in the suit. In fact, Brooks
was allowed to videotape his testimony because in an only-in-Hollywood twist he
was at that time directing Ullman in his later de-musicalized film I'll Do
Anything. Ullman was unsuccessful and viewed by some as trying to
greedily cash in on a project that she could not show in court that she had any
hand in creating. However, supporters point out that she only sought a small
portion of merchandising from the studio's slice that she felt her contract for
the canceled show entitled her to (a 12 page contract that was hastily signed
only hours before filming on the first The Tracey Ullman Show was to
commence). A settlement was reached where Ullman would receive a portion of the
profits made from the show, although no amount was ever made public.
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