Heather Headley — Trinidad to Northrop High School to a Tony and a Grammy

Born 5 October 1974

Formed in Fort Wayne: Heather Headley was born in Barataria, Trinidad, on 5 October 1974. In 1989, at fifteen, she moved with her family to Fort Wayne, where her father had been called as pastor of the McKee Street Church of God. The Fort Wayne years made the performer. At Northrop High School she sang in the Charisma show choir, starred as Fanny Brice in the school's Funny Girl, won the Miss Indiana Black Expo contest in 1991, and graduated as valedictorian in 1993. She studied musical theatre at Northwestern and left in her junior year to join the cast of Ragtime.

The career that followed is a first-rank Broadway and recording record. She originated the role of Nala in The Lion King (1997), then the title role of Aida, for which she won the 2000 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical and a Drama Desk Award. Her albums This Is Who I Am (2002) and In My Mind (2006) made her an R&B chart artist; Audience of One (2009) won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary R&B Gospel Album in 2010. She played Rachel Marron in The Bodyguard in London and Nettie in the 2016 Broadway revival of The Color Purple, and since 2020 has starred in the Netflix series Sweet Magnolias. Fort Wayne kept its hold on the family: her brother Iric Headley became director of the Fort Wayne United initiative, and she has returned to the city to perform in its benefit concerts.

Sources:

1. Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, people pages, "Headley, Heather" — the 1989 move, McKee Street Church of God, Northrop and Charisma, and the Fort Wayne press citations (News-Sentinel 2014; Journal Gazette 2016).
2. Encyclopedia.com, "Headley, Heather" (Contemporary Black Biography) — the Barataria birth, the Northrop leads, the 1991 Miss Indiana Black Expo title.
3. Published cast and awards records — the Aida Tony and Drama Desk awards (2000); the Audience of One Grammy (2010).