Vanessa Williams Honored with Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

Monday was their day off but fellow cast members of the TV show "Ugly Betty" showed up to cheer Vanessa Williams on as she was honored with the 2,331st Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The show "Ugly Betty" casts Williams as a nasty villainous of a magazine editor. This character shows just how talented an actress Williams truly is. According to the show's executive producer, Salma Hayek, Williams is very nasty on the show but in real life she is the sweetest person.

Williams was born in 1963 to two bi-racial parents who had in a nice little twist placed "Here she is: Miss America" on her birth announcement. In 1983 she proved them right when she became the first black woman to be crowned Miss America.

Other accomplishments for this actress include singing on Broadway; for which one of her performances had won Williams a nomination for the Tony Award and releasing Grammy-nominated albums, along with finding herself in several magazines, such as Ebony, Instyle, Redbook and even Cosmopolitan.

Her acting career has seen her in major motion pictures as well as TV series. Shaft, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, Perry Mason and Ally McBeal are just a few of her accomplishment as an actress.

But not everything has come easy for Williams. In 1984 Williams was forced to resign as the first black Miss America, after a scandal erupted when Penthouse published very sexually explicit nude photographs. The photographs had been taken years earlier but it was at Williams rise as Miss America that Penthouse chose to release this photographs.

The crown was handed over to another black woman, Suzette Charles. This had made Suzette Charles, the second black woman to receive the crown.

Divorces have also clouded Williams' life. Her first marriage ended after a decade and her second marriage last only six years. Three children were born during her first marriage and one child from her second marriage.

The scandal and the divorces did not keep Vanessa Williams down though. In a very heartfelt statement Vanessa thanked the cast members of "Ugly Betty" for showing up to and also thanked her family.

"I love working with these people. I also want to thank my family for allowing me to live my dreams. The sun didn't shine today, but my heart is shining."

Attendance at the ceremony included her brother Chris, producer Peter Gruber and co-star Rebecca Romijn.

Sources:

Associated Press:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070320/ap_en_ce/people_vanessa_williams

ABC6 News:
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=entertainment&id=5134165

Planet Vanessa:
http://www.vanessawilliams.de/indexengl.htm

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_Lynn_Williams