Garcelle Beauvais

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BIRTHDAY

November 26, 1963

Saint-Marc, Haiti

RECENT CREDITS

Women in Trouble (FILM) Nov. 13, 2009

Crash (TV) Nov. 6, 2009

Eyes (TV) Oct. 20, 2009

Maneater (TV) May. 31, 2009

I Know Who Killed Me (FILM) Jul. 27, 2007

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BIOGRAPHY

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A Haitian-born beauty who successfully parlayed a modeling career into a TV role, Garcelle Beauvais is perhaps best-known as the hotel receptionist as adept at pointed one-liners as she is attractive on "The Jamie Foxx Show" (The WB, 1996- ). At age seven, she moved from her native Haiti to Massachusetts with her family and reportedly taught herself English by watching "Sesame Street". In her late teens, Beauvais was encouraged to try her hand as a model and she soon found work in Miami posing for print campaigns. A bit role on "Miami Vice" whet her desire to act but she was signed by the prestigious Ford Modeling Agency so she concentrated on that career. Other small roles followed, though, including a blink and you miss her part in "Manhunter" (1986), Michael Mann's thriller based on the Thomas Harris novel "Red Dragon" which introduced the character of Hannibal Lecter. Beauvais went on to grace the pages of Essence and Ebony and marched the catwalks for designers like Calvin Klein. In one of those stranger-than-fiction situations. she claims to have had a dream about working for TV producer Aaron Spelling after which she wrote to him. As luck would have it, Spelling was looking for an actress to join his struggling Fox drama "Models Inc." Beauvais landed the recurring role of the privileged, Ivy League-educated, win-at-all-costs Cynthia Nichols. When the series was canceled, she studied at The Groundlings, the famed L.A.-based improvisation troupe where she honed her comedic skills. Having made guest appearances several sitcoms, Beauvais landed the regular role of Francesca 'Fancy' Monroe, the shapely co-worker who drives Jamie Foxx to distraction, which proved that this was one former model who indeed had talent. Following the run of the Foxx sitcom, she joined the cast of the long-running ABC drama "NYPD Blue" in 2001, playing assistant district attorney Valerie Haywood, who becomes romantically entangled with Det. Baldwin Jones (Henry Simmons). She also made forays into feature films, including "Bad Comapany" (2002) opposite Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock, and "Barbershop 2: Back in Business" (2004).

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