Monday, March 17, 2003

"GREG, I WANT TO SEE YOU IN MY OFFICE. NOW!" Veteran actress Lynne Thigpen passed away last week at the age of 54. Cause of death is still unknown.

Thigpen was known well to younger audiences in her role as The Chief on TV's "Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?". And, indeed, she was The Chief -- if you needed a middle-aged black woman to play an authority figure and S. Epatha Merkerson wasn't quite right, Thigpen was.

Thigpen won an Emmy for that role. She also has won a Tony and several Obie awards for her stage work, including a 1997 Tony for her role as oncologist Dr. Judith Kaufman, the black and Jewish best friend to the title character in Wendy Wasserstein's An American Daughter (1997). When the actress reprised the role for a Lifetime movie in 2000, New York Magazine TV critic John Leonard wrote, "For Thigpen's performance alone, the TV movie is worth it."

While she had recurring roles in TV's "thirtysomething" and "L.A. Law", my favorite Thigpen performance was in 1989's Lean on Me. In the Crazy Joe Clark biopic, Thigpen plays Leonna Barrett, welfare mother turned social activist turned school board member and political dealmaker attempting to thwart Principal Clark's (Morgan Freeman) rule-by-dictatorship. It's a heckuva performance. Even though the role is written for Barrett to be The Angry Bitch, up until the end Thigpen imbues the role with a sense of principle and purpose that forces the viewer to acknowledge that she, too, cares about the fate of Newark's children. She just disagrees with Clark as to the best means to save Fair Eastside High.

Thigpen was in the middle of finishing her third season on "The District" when she died. Her final film role was as Judge Daniels in the upcoming Sandler-Nicholson comedy Anger Management.

She will be missed.

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