Ellen Cleghorne
Ellen Cleghorne is an actor, born 1965.
Ellen Cleghorne joined Saturday Night Live in 1991 and stayed until 1995, which sounds ordinary until you read the context: she was the first African American woman in the show's repertory cast to last more than a single season, following Danitra Vance. She came back for the fortieth anniversary special in February 2015, and Rolling Stone later placed her 69th in its ranking of every cast member the show has had.
The film work after SNL is a study in how small the parts stayed. She is a cocktail waitress in Strictly Business (1991), a talk show host in This Is My Life (1992), an officer in The Perez Family, a receptionist in Coyote Ugly, Lady #1 in Kingdom Come. The named roles are not much bigger: Helga in Armageddon, Mom in Little Nicky, Marlene in The Million Dollar Hotel, Mary Fluzoo in Grown Ups 2, Shaniqua in Second Act.
One detail in the catalog lands harder than any of that. She appears, in archive footage, in the compilation films Saturday Night Live: The Best of Chris Farley and The Best of Phil Hartman. She is in the highlight reels of her castmates and has none of her own, and the industry that made careers out of several of those men never built her a vehicle.
Recent television has been kinder: Beverly in How to Die Alone (2024) and an appearance on That Damn Michael Che.
Movies (14)
- Grown Ups 2 (2013)
- Armageddon (1998)
- Coyote Ugly (2000)
- Little Nicky (2000)
- Second Act (2018)
- Genie (2023)
- Mr. Wrong (1996)
- The Million Dollar Hotel (2000)
- Kingdom Come (2001)
- Strictly Business (1991)
- The Perez Family (1995)
- Saturday Night Live: The Best of Phil Hartman (1998)
- Saturday Night Live: The Best of Chris Farley (2003)
- This Is My Life (1992)
TV (4)
Where to start with Ellen Cleghorne
No single film here proves what she can do, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. The evidence sits in the SNL tapes, which our catalog does not carry. What it does carry are the compilations, Saturday Night Live: The Best of Chris Farley and Saturday Night Live: The Best of Phil Hartman, where she surfaces in the archive footage.
Among the features, Armageddon is the biggest and Little Nicky the one whose comedy is at least aimed at her register. This Is My Life is the interesting pick, a comedy about a mother who becomes a stand-up, which puts her next to her own trade. Coyote Ugly is pure spot-the-actor.
Better still, go straight to How to Die Alone, the 2024 series where she plays Beverly. It is the most recent thing here and the only one where a writers' room appears to have wanted her specifically.