Gladys Knight
Gladys Knight is an actor, born 1944.
The music came first and never really stopped. Gladys Knight led Gladys Knight & the Pips, a family group built from her brother Merald Knight, known as Bubba, and her cousins William Guest and Edward Patten, through hits across the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Seven Grammy Awards and the nickname Empress of Soul followed. Acting has always been the second job, picked up in stretches when the touring allowed.
The screen credits split cleanly into two columns. In one she plays herself, which covers most of the list: singing on The Midnight Special in the early 1970s, appearing at Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Celebration, performing as the Bee on The Masked Singer, turning up under her own name in Coming 2 America, sitting in the musicians' half of Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), and trading hits with a peer on VERZUZ.
In the other column she actually acts, and does it more than casually. Wilma in I Can Do Bad All By Myself and Dorothy in Almost Christmas are matriarch parts written for someone an audience already trusts, and she plays them without leaning on the voice. Hollywood Homicide casts her as Olivia Robidoux in a cop comedy, Twenty Bucks gave her Mrs. McCormac in an anthology built around a banknote, and New York Undercover and The Jamie Foxx Show kept her on 1990s television.
The recent rows are the same trade continued: Grandma Carolyn on The First Family, Bertie Henderson in the 2024 film A Little Women's Christmas.
Movies (8)
TV (8)
Where to start with Gladys Knight
Take the singer first. Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) is the essential document on this page, footage of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival that sat unseen for decades, and it puts her where she belongs, on a stage in front of an audience that knows every word.
For the acting, Almost Christmas is the one to watch. Dorothy is a supporting part in a crowded family comedy, and Knight underplays it, which is not what you expect from a performer with that much stage presence. I Can Do Bad All By Myself is the bigger swing, a Tyler Perry melodrama that gives her more to do and less restraint around her.
Coming 2 America and The Masked Singer are the fun ones, both trading openly on who she is. Skip nothing on the strength of the role size; the interest here is watching a musician decide, credit by credit, how much of herself to bring.