Leslie Uggams

“There was a little place in the backstage area where I could stand and watch every show. I always tell people the Apollo was school for me. I learned a lot working with great people.”

“Well, to start, for me, at seven years old, I was on a television contest called 'The Paul Whiteman's TV Teen Club.' Each week you won a prize, a washing machine, you know, a dryer. The grand prize was a Nash Rambler car. And before I came on, a young African-American boy had won. He was a tap dancer and he won the grand prize.”

“Well, I love Adele. I like Maroon 5, too.”

“To see a musical with mostly black actors, even at 10 I knew that was special.”

“I'd always win the auditions, and finally the Schiffmanns, who owned the Apollo, said, 'We're never gonna get rid of this kid! Nobody else will get a chance.' So they put an act together for me and put me on the same bill with Louis Armstrong.”

“I have no life off the stage.”

“Everybody wanted to play the Apollo and have that on your resume. I played the Apollo up until I was 16 years old. Then when I went on to do other things, they were very proud of what I had accomplished.”

“Young people have a tendency to criticize what they really don't know.”

“I love theater, I love live. I just love the whole thing, the live audience. There. Breathing. Being into the show. You can't beat that, the immediate response.”

“It's important to hear the hard truths from Black voices, not filtered through the White Savior trope.”

“Back when I started getting popular when it came to my singing, I never wanted to just settle for that. I wanted to see the next thing.”

“My Aunt Eloise Uggams was my first inspiration. She performed on Broadway, and when I was 10 years old, I saw her in 'Porgy and Bess,' the first Broadway show I ever attended.”

“That's the great thing that happened with 'Roots.' It opened up the dialogue.”

“To each generation I represent something else.”

“I love adventure. I love doing something unexpected.”

“Louis Armstrong was really like my pops. He was very generous to my mom and I.”

“Nobody thought in racial lines. At least, not in our neighborhoods. Everybody looked out for everybody else. Each mother took it upon herself to look after all the children around her not just her own.”

“I like challenges - and I also like to be different.”

“I went on 'Name That Tune' thinking I'd use my prize money to go to college.”

“Mariah Carey has a gorgeous, high, high voice. She can hit those notes and she lets people hear them. It's that generation - that's what they're used to. When you come to my show, I'm not that generation. I love lyrics and I make sure people know the story I'm telling.”