Tracey Ullman Biography

Actor

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Tracey Ullman is a comedian with a taste for playing dozens of characters, often with heavy makeup and accents, in her TV shows. She was a dancer and had a successful singing career in the U.K. (with a handful of pop hits including the 1994 single "They Don't Know") before taking her comedic talents to American television. The Tracey Ullman Show (1987-90) was a brash mix of sketches, musical numbers, and animation, which always ended with Ullman telling her live audience, "Go home!" One of the few bright spots on the newborn Fox network, the show introduced The Simpsons to the world in cartoony bits which were later spun off into their own long-running series. From 1996-99, Ullman had a new series on HBO, Tracey Takes On..., in which she tackled dozens of contemporary topics by playing different characters in sketches and interviews. Her whimsical show about fashion, Tracey Ullman's Visible Panty Lines, ran from 2001-02 on the Oxygen cable network. Her film appearances include the Paul McCartney project Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984), I'll Do Anything (1994, with Nick Nolte), and Small Time Crooks (2000, with Woody Allen), She published Tracey Takes On... The Book in 1998.

Extra credit: Paula Abdul did the choreography for The Tracey Ullman Show... Ullman married the producer Allan McKeown in 1983. They have two children, Mabel and John.