Leslie Uggams has had an enthralling career as a theatre and movie actor.
The Harlem-born singer and actress are best recognized for her role in the Deadpool series, but she has had a brilliant career spanning seven decades.
But, behind the scenes, her life might be the subject of a film after she married White Australian man Grahame Pratt in 1965 since their love affair has beaten all the odds of interracial love…
Leslie was a great singer who cut a song for MGM at the age of 10 in 1953. Her aunt, singer Eloise Uggams, encouraged her to attend the Professional Children’s School of New York and the famed Julliard School of Music in New York.
But her musical success was just the beginning of her adventure; by 1969, she had her TV variety show, “The Leslie Uggams Show,” the first network variety show hosted by a black person since “The Nat King Cole Show.”
Behind the scenes, though, she met and fell in love with actor Grahame Pratt. After meeting at Professional Children’s School in New York, where they were both pupils, the couple ran into one other again in Sydney during one of Leslie’s celebrity tours in Australia.
Leslie knew the consequences of dating a white man because she had done it in her adolescence, and her aunt had advised her not to consider a future with him.
“I remember the shock I felt once when I was dating a white boy,” Leslie told Ebony in 1967.
“He emailed me a color photograph of himself. It was shown to my aunt. He was a handsome young man with lovely hair. I thought he was stunning. But my aunt took one glance at me and began lecturing me. ‘Well, I suppose he’s okay,’ she said, ‘but only for dates, eh, honey? You’ll marry a fine [Black] fella when you’re ready to settle down for good, won’t you?’”
Leslie stated that she continued to visit Grahame after their fortuitous meeting.
“I found myself falling for him, which was quite surprising given that I was only 21.”
She wouldn’t see him again for 12 months after she left Australia.
The two had fallen in love despite Leslie’s misgivings about her family’s reaction and what it would mean for them if Grahame had to relocate to the United States for Leslie’s work. Grahame visited her in New York after they had been engaged for five months.
“Knowing my family’s views on mixed marriages, I wanted to know if they would truly accept Grahame and not just tolerate him,” she explained.
Leslie, on the other hand, had nothing to worry about because Grahame was an Australian.
