News Americas, NEW YORK, NY: Jacqueline Yvonne “Jackée” Harry, best known for her roles as Sandra Clark, the sexy neighbor on the TV series 227, and as Lisa Landry, on the sitcom, ‘Sister, Sister,’ was born to a Trinidadian mother in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and raised in Harlem, New York.
She is noted for being the first African American to win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.
Harry began studying acting at the Herpolscheimer School of the Performing Arts on the Lower East Side in New York City. She was an American History teacher at Brooklyn Technical High School before beginning a career on the New York stage.
She made her Broadway debut in A Broadway Musical, playing a chorine. Throughout the 1980s she starred in numerous productions both on and off Broadway, and in national touring productions. In 1994, Harry made her return to the theater by starring as Billie Holiday in the play Lady Day at Emersons Bar and Grill.
Following that stage production, she fulfilled the role of “madam who runs a bordello” in the Broadway musical The Boys from Syracuse, a play based on William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. In the mid-2000s, she appeared in stage productions of The Sunshine Boys, Damn Yankees, and A Christmas Carol. She also toured nationally in JD Lawrence’s The Clean Up Woman.
In 1983, she made her acting debut in Another World as Lily Mason, a role she continued until 1986. In 2003, she was a surprise guest on the Another World Reunion that SOAPnet coordinated and aired. In 1985, Harry began a co-starring role opposite Marla Gibbs as the apartment building vamp, “Sandra Clark,” on the NBC sitcom 227. Her mother, Flossie, celebrated her getting the part but died before the show aired.
The former 227 star and her adopted son Frank appears on Oprah Where Are They Now tonight, Friday, Feb. 21st at 9 p.m. on OWN.
