S. Epatha Merkerson

The Wendy Williams Show is an American syndicated talk show created and hosted by Wendy Williams, and produced by Wendy Williams Productions, along with Perler Productions. The show is distributed by Debmar-Mercury and airs nationally, with Fox's owned-and-operated stations serving as its primary affiliate base. The talk show first aired on July 14, 2008, in select major U.S. markets and later expanded nationwide on July 13, 2009, due to loyal viewership which proved highly profitable. It aired its final episode on June 17, 2022, with reruns continuing on most TV stations until September 9.

Thomas M. Cooley High School was a public high school located at the intersection of Hubbell Avenue and Chalfonte Street, on the northwest side of Detroit, Michigan. The three-story, Mediterranean Revival-style facility opened its doors on September 4, 1928.

Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 24,000 graduate and undergraduate students. Wayne State University, along with the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, compose the University Research Corridor of Michigan. Wayne State is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".

Pee-wee's Playhouse is an American comedy television series starring Paul Reubens as the childlike Pee-wee Herman that ran from 1986 to 1990 on Saturday mornings on CBS, and airing in reruns until July 1991. The show was developed from Reubens's popular stage show and the TV special The Pee-wee Herman Show, produced for HBO, which was similar in style but featured much more adult humor.

The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are located at Comcast Building in New York City. The company also has offices in Los Angeles at 10 Universal City Plaza and Chicago at the NBC Tower. NBC is the oldest of the traditional "Big Three" American television networks, having been formed in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America. NBC is sometimes referred to as the "Peacock Network," in reference to its stylized peacock logo, introduced in 1956 to promote the company's innovations in early color broadcasting.

Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series created by Dick Wolf and produced by Wolf Entertainment, launching the Law & Order franchise.

Ezekial Dann Florek is an American actor and film director. He is best known for his role as New York City Police Captain Donald Cragen on NBC's Law & Order and its spinoff Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Dave Meyer on L.A. Law (1988–1993).

August Wilson was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the "theater's poet of Black America". He is best known for a series of ten plays, collectively called The Pittsburgh Cycle , which chronicle the experiences and heritage of the African-American community in the 20th century. Plays in the series include Fences (1987) and The Piano Lesson (1990), both of which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984) and Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1988). In 2006, Wilson was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

The Pulitzer Prize is an award administered by Columbia University for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher. Prizes are awarded annually in twenty-one categories. In twenty of the categories, each winner receives a certificate and a US$15,000 cash award. The winner in the public service category is awarded a gold medal.

Jacob's Ladder is a 1990 American psychological horror film directed by Adrian Lyne, produced by Alan Marshall and written by Bruce Joel Rubin. The film stars Tim Robbins as Jacob Singer, an American infantryman whose experiences before and during his service in Vietnam result in strange, fragmentary visions and bizarre hallucinations that continue to haunt him. As his ordeal worsens, Jacob desperately attempts to figure out the truth. The film's supporting cast includes Elizabeth Peña and Danny Aiello.

Loose Cannons is a 1990 American action comedy film written by Richard Matheson, Richard Christian Matheson and Bob Clark, who also directed the film. The film stars Gene Hackman as a hard-nosed cop who is teamed up with a detective with multiple-personality disorder, played by Dan Aykroyd, to uncover a long-lost Nazi sex tape, featuring Adolf Hitler, which would jeopardize the political future of the German chancellor-elect. The theme song features vocals by Katey Sagal and Aykroyd.

James Francis Cameron is a Canadian filmmaker. A major figure in the post-New Hollywood era, he is considered one of the industry's most innovative filmmakers, regularly pushing the boundaries of cinematic capability with his use of novel technologies. He first gained recognition for writing and directing The Terminator (1984) and found further success with Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), and the action comedy True Lies (1994). He wrote and directed Titanic (1997), Avatar (2009) and its sequels, with Titanic earning him Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Film Editing. A recipient of various other industry accolades, two of his films have been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based at Warner Bros. Discovery's corporate headquarters inside 30 Hudson Yards in Manhattan's West Side district. Programming featured on the network consists primarily of theatrically released motion pictures and original television programs as well as made-for-cable movies, documentaries, occasional comedy and concert specials, and periodic interstitial programs.

Lackawanna Blues is a drama television film directed by George C. Wolfe and written by Ruben Santiago-Hudson. It aired on HBO on February 12, 2005. It is based on the play of the same name by Santiago-Hudson. Wolfe had commissioned the stage version.

Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is a documentary television series hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr. that premiered on March 25, 2012, on PBS. In each episode, celebrities are presented with a "book of life" that is compiled with information researched by professional genealogists that allows them to view their ancestral histories, learn about familial connections and discover secrets about their lineage.

Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus Nicotiana of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the chief commercial crop is N. tabacum. The more potent variant N. rustica is also used in some countries.

Georgetown University is a private research university in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll in 1789 as Georgetown College, the university has grown to comprise eleven undergraduate and graduate schools, including the Walsh School of Foreign Service, McDonough School of Business, Medical School, Law School, and a campus in Qatar. The school's main campus, on a hill above the Potomac River, is identifiable by its flagship Healy Hall, a National Historic Landmark. The school was founded by and is affiliated with the Society of Jesus, and is the oldest Catholic institution of higher education in the United States, though the majority of students presently are not Catholic.

She's Gotta Have It is a 1986 American black-and-white comedy-drama film written, produced, edited and directed by Spike Lee. Filmed on a small budget and Lee's first feature-length film to be released, it earned positive reviews and launched Lee's career.

Loose Cannons is a 1990 American action comedy film written by Richard Matheson, Richard Christian Matheson and Bob Clark, who also directed the film. The film stars Gene Hackman as a hard-nosed cop who is teamed up with a detective with multiple-personality disorder, played by Dan Aykroyd, to uncover a long-lost Nazi sex tape, featuring Adolf Hitler, which would jeopardize the political future of the German chancellor-elect. The theme song features vocals by Katey Sagal and Aykroyd.

Jacob's Ladder is a 1990 American psychological horror film directed by Adrian Lyne, produced by Alan Marshall and written by Bruce Joel Rubin. The film stars Tim Robbins as Jacob Singer, an American infantryman whose experiences before and during his service in Vietnam result in strange, fragmentary visions and bizarre hallucinations that continue to haunt him. As his ordeal worsens, Jacob desperately attempts to figure out the truth. The film's supporting cast includes Elizabeth Peña and Danny Aiello.

Navy SEALS is a 1990 American military action film, directed by Lewis Teague, written by Chuck Pfarrer and Gary Goldman, and produced by Brenda Feigen and Bernard Williams with consultant William Bradley. The film stars Charlie Sheen, Michael Biehn, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, Rick Rossovich, Cyril O'Reilly, Bill Paxton, and Dennis Haysbert.

Random Hearts is a 1999 American romantic drama film directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas. Based on the 1984 novel of the same name by Warren Adler, the film is about a police officer and a Congresswoman who discover that their spouses were having an affair prior to being killed in an air disaster.

Radio is a 2003 American semi-biographical sports drama film directed by Mike Tollin, and inspired by the 1996 Sports Illustrated article "Someone to Lean On" by Gary Smith. The article and the movie are based on the true story of T. L. Hanna High School football coach Harold Jones and a young man with an intellectual disability, James Robert "Radio" Kennedy. The film co-stars Debra Winger and Alfre Woodard. It was filmed primarily in Walterboro, South Carolina because its buildings and downtown core still fit the look of the era the film was trying to depict.

Jersey Girl is a 2004 American comedy-drama film written, co-edited and directed by Kevin Smith. It stars Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler with George Carlin, Stephen Root, Mike Starr, Raquel Castro, Jason Biggs and Jennifer Lopez in supporting roles. The film follows a widowed man who must take care of his precocious daughter after her mother dies during childbirth.

Black Snake Moan is a 2006 American film written and directed by Craig Brewer and starring Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci, and Justin Timberlake. The film focuses on a Mississippi bluesman who holds a troubled local woman captive in his house in an attempt to cure her of nymphomania after finding her severely beaten on the side of a road. The title of the film derives from the 1927 Blind Lemon Jefferson song. The film draws numerous references to the Mississippi Blues movement, particularly in its title and soundtrack. Black Snake Moan garnered mixed to positive reviews from critics, and was a box-office bomb, grossing only $10.9 million against a $15 million budget.

Mother and Child is a 2009 drama directed and written by Rodrigo García. It premiered on September 14, 2009, at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2010, and was the closing night selection within Maryland Film Festival 2010. It was given a limited release in the United States beginning May 7, 2010.

Lincoln is a 2012 American biographical historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as United States President Abraham Lincoln. It also features Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook and Tommy Lee Jones in supporting roles.

Lydia Hamilton Smith was the long-time housekeeper of Thaddeus Stevens and a prominent black businesswoman after his death.

Pee-wee's Playhouse is an American comedy television series starring Paul Reubens as the childlike Pee-wee Herman that ran from 1986 to 1990 on Saturday mornings on CBS, and airing in reruns until July 1991. The show was developed from Reubens's popular stage show and the TV special The Pee-wee Herman Show, produced for HBO, which was similar in style but featured much more adult humor.

The 57th Primetime Emmy Awards were held on Sunday, September 18, 2005, and were hosted by Ellen DeGeneres. The ceremony was broadcast on CBS. BBC America received its first major nomination this year.

Lackawanna Blues is a drama television film directed by George C. Wolfe and written by Ruben Santiago-Hudson. It aired on HBO on February 12, 2005. It is based on the play of the same name by Santiago-Hudson. Wolfe had commissioned the stage version.

Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series created by Dick Wolf and produced by Wolf Entertainment, launching the Law & Order franchise.

The Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film or Best Actress – Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television is a Golden Globe Award presented annually by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). It is given in honor of an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role on a miniseries or motion picture made for television for the calendar year. The award was first presented at the 39th Golden Globe Awards on January 30, 1982, to Jane Seymour, for her performance in East of Eden (1981). Performances by actresses in a miniseries or television film were originally awarded in the Best Actress – Television Series Drama category, before the creation of this category.