Lee Chamberlin

Career

It's little known that Lee Chamberlin's first forays on stage were with the Pearl Primus dance company in Harlem which appears to have been a rite of passage. Prior to her acting career, Lee Chamberlin had a successful career in France as a singer. She was signed to a small label Chez Impact and in 1966 several songs were released that included Tu Vivras Toujours written by (J. Claudric - E. Marnay), Reponds Moi!, J'ai Eu Si Peur, J'Aimerais Tant que Tu sois La and a spirited number Haïlilolilolilolaï (Sven Nilsson - E. Marnay). She performed at L'Olympia in Paris. Once back in the United States she did the jazz circuit touring in The Playboy Clubs nationwide but soon tired of living on the road and being away from her family. Her acting career on stage began playing a Yoruba priestess who jumps into the sea preferring to drown rather than be raped by the slavers on in the 1968 Slave Ship, production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music based on the outline of LeRoi Jones later known as Amiri Baraka. She appeared at The Orpheum Theatre in a musical production called Do Your Own Thing, based on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and in an off-Broadway production, The Believers. She played Cordelia opposite James Earl Jones's King Lear in 1973 in the Delacorte Theatre at the New York Shakespeare in the Park Festival. Frustrated with the narrow portrayals of African Americans in the arts she turned to writing and directing herself to change the narrative. She went on to win six AUDELCO Awards for Excellence in Black Theater on November 21, 1988, for her musical play Struttin’, performed at the Rosetta LeNoire AMAS Repertory Theater. She also appeared in the play Hospice as part of the Women's Series for the 1983-4 Season produced at Woody King Jrs New Federal Theatre then located at The Henry Street Settlement Theatre in Lower Manhattan.

Chamberlin wrote and acted in her one-woman play Objects in the Mirror are Closer than They Seem first as a reading in Miami, Florida, and later in 2010 as part of The Kitchen Theatre's Counter series in Ithaca, New York, from February 10–14 in a sold-out run. The play was directed by Rachel Lampert. Chamberlin founded a non-profit organization, Lee Chamberlin's Playwrights' Inn Project Inc., establishing it in France to nurture the work of African American playwrights.

Chamberlin got her big break in television in 1971, as part of the original cast of CTW children's show The Electric Company, appearing in the show’s first two years before leaving the show in 1973. Lee made guest appearances in the television series What's Happening!!, Diff'rent Strokes,

Death Chamberlin died of cancer at the age of 76 on May 25, 2014, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She was survived by a daughter, Erika Chamberlin and a son, Matthew Chamberlin, a sister and two grandchildren.

Filmography