Lee Chamberlin

Lee Chamberlin
Born	Alverta La Pallo (1938-02-14)February 14, 1938 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1970–2010
Spouse(s)	Daniel Edward Chamberlin (m. 1960; died 1999)

Lee Chamberlin (born Alverta La Pallo; February 14, 1938 – May 25, 2014) was an American theatrical, film and television actress.

Early life

Chamberlin was born in 1938 in New York City. She was the daughter of Ida Roberta (née Small) and Bernando LaPallo (?–2015) the centenarian author of Age Less/Live More, who claimed he was born in 1901, but documentation indicates sometime between 1907 and 1910.

She attended elementary school at Our Lady of Lourdes in Harlem, and Cathedral High School in Mid-town Manhattan. Later she studied at NYU and the Sorbonne in Paris. She went on to study acting at HB Studios in New York and with Uta Hagen.

Career

Lee began her career in 1968 on in Slave ship, a stage production of the 1937 film of the same name, followed by a musical called Do Your Own Thing. She played Cordelia opposite James Earl Jones's King Lear in 1974 in the Delacorte Theatre at the New York Shakespeare in the Park Festival. Later, Chamberlin went to win six AUDELCO Awards for Excellence in Black Theater on November 21, 1988, for her musical play Struttin’, performed at the Rosetta LeNoire AMAS Repertory Theater. Chamberlin founded a non-profit organization called Lee Chamberlin's Playwrights' Inn Project Inc., establishing it in France to nurture the work of African American playwrights.

Chamberlin was a regular performer during the first two years of the esteemed series The Electric Company, and she made guest appearances in the television series What's Happening!!, Diff'rent Strokes, and NYPD Blue. In 1979, she played the wife of James Earl Jones's character on the short-lived police drama Paris. Most notably she played Odile Harris in Roots: The Next Generations (1979). Her first recurring role in a major television sitcom was as Lucy Daniels in "All's Fair" from 1976 to 1977. In the 1970s she appeared on shows like "Lou Grant" and "James at 16". In the early 1980s, she appeared as Karen Weaver in The Secrets of Midland Heights and also appeared in The White Shadow. Other guest spots in the 1980s included Ryan's Four and Beat Street. In 1994; she played Commander Della Thorne in Viper. In 1998 she played Dr Timmi in The Practice, and Judge Leslie Battles in To Have and To Hold. In 1999, she made guest appearances on Moesha and NewsRadio as Mrs Leveaux. In 2000 she appeared in City of Angels and Any Day Now as Mrs. Samuels. In 2002, she appeared on Touched by An Angel, Judging Amy and First Monday in the role of Ms. Marks. From 1983 to 1995, Chamberlin played Pat Baxter, the mother of Angela Baxter Hubbard on the ABC soap opera All My Children. In 1997, she appeared in Sparks (TV Series) as Abigail and in "Diagnosis Murder" (TV Series) as Judge Gwen Mosford.

Her first role in film was a small part in Up the Sandbox starring Barbra Streisand. She had a prominent role as Madame Zenobia in the film Uptown Saturday Night and the follow-up Let's Do it Again. She also appeared in several television films including Long Journey Back (1978), Brave New World (1980), and Once Upon A Family (1980). Her final film role was in the short film "Habeaus Corpus" (2013), directed by Booker T. Mattison.

Death

Chamberlin died of cancer at the age of 76 on May 25, 2014,and her dad Bernando LaPallo died at the age of claimed age of 114 (real age 105-108) on December 19, 2015.

External links

• Lee Chamberlin at the Internet Movie Database