While this handsome, African-American actress has never truly risen to star status, she is an accomplished performer of stage and screen who, strangely, never seems to age. She's played a host of diverse characters — doctor, detective, judge, junkie, teacher — yet she is consistently believable. Her television work, which includes stints on St. Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues as well as a number of TV-movies, has won her critical praise and four Emmy awards. A married mother of two, Woodard has always maintained a low personal profile, even when she signed on to one of TV's hottest shows, Desperate Housewives, in 2005.