The Adilah Show with Guest Margaret Avery

Host Adilah Barnes invites as her guest singer and actress Margaret Avery best known for her role as Shug Avery in the film, Color Purple.  She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role In Color Purple in 1985.

Born in Mangum, Oklahoma and raised in San Diego, California. Ms. Avery attended Point Loma High School. Later, San Francisco State University where she earned a BA in Education.  Shortly thereafter, she began singing and acting on the stage.  Among the plays Margaret appeared in were Revolution and Sistuhs. She appeared in "Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?" in 1973, receiving the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for "Performance In A Major Role."  She performed in the television movie "Something Evil" with Sandy Dennis and Darren McGavin, directed by Steven Spielberg; "Cool Breeze," as Marilyn Monroe "In  The Asphalt Jungle," a prostitute in "Magnum Force" and she starred in The Jacksons: An American Dream.

TV guest appearances include: The New Dick Van Dyke Show, Kojak, Sanford and Son, Kolchak:  Miami Vice, The Night
Stalker, A.E.S., Hudson Street, Murder She Wrote,
 Spencer  For Hire, The Cosby Show, Walker, Texas Ranger, and JAG.  She played Mama Jenkins in "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins", opposite Martin Lawrence and James Earl Jones and in Tyler Perry's "Meet the Browns."  

Avery also works  with at-risk teenagers and battered women of Greater Los Angeles.