Celebrity Nooz: Regina Taylor

Regina Taylor (Actress/Playwright) - I'll Fly Away

Updated: 2/28/22

Name: Regina Taylor

Birth Name: Regina Annette Taylor

Born: August 22, 1960 in Dallas, Texas, USA

Claim To Fame: Regina Taylor is an American actress and playwright, who is best known for her role as Lilly Harper on the early 1990s TV series I'll Fly Away. This role won her a Golden Globe award for Best Actress in a Television Drama and also an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series.

Family Life: Taylor married Michael Schurian in 1982.

Info: Her mother, Nell Taylor, is a social worker and poet.

Moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma at age 12.

Graduated from L. G. Pinkston High School in 1977.

Studied at Southern Methodist University.

Is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Trivia: Taylor is an accomplished stage actress, and was the first black woman to play Juliet in Romeo and Juliet on Broadway.

She appeared as "Ariel" in The Tempest at the La Jolla Playhouse, California in 1987, for which she received a Dramalogue Award.

Her first role to gain widespread attention was that of Mrs. Carter, the drug-addicted mother of a promising young female student, in the 1989 film Lean on Me.

She became well known to the television audience for her role as Lilly Harper on the early 1990s TV series I'll Fly Away. This role won her a Golden Globe award for Best Actress in a Television Drama and also an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series.

Taylor is a Distinguished Artistic Associate of Chicago's Goodman Theatre.

Was a cast as Molly Blane for all four seasons of the CBS drama The Unit.

In 2000, Taylor won a best new play award from the American Critics' Association for Oo-Bla-Dee, a play about 1940s female jazz musicians.

She wrote and directed Crowns, which is a co-production of the McCarter Theatre, where it premiered in October 2002 and the Second Stage Theatre, produced in December 2002. Crowns has been produced in various locations and became the most performed musical in the country in 2006. It won four Helen Hayes Awards (for Washington, D.C. productions), including Taylor's win for Best Direction as well as Best Regional Musical.

She wrote and directed an adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull titled Drowning Crow. Drowning Crow was produced on Broadway in February 2004 by the Manhattan Theatre Club at the Biltmore Theatre.

In July 2017, Taylor was announced as the new Denzel Washington Endowed Chair in Theater at Fordham University.

Where Are They Now: It looks like 2022 might just be one of the busiest years of Taylor's career! She's had appearances on television with Blue Bloods and The Wonder Years, plus in the documentary series American Masters; with the episode titled: Marian Anderson: The Whole World in Her Hands. And she's currently filming the Showtime anthology series The First Lady. Whether on the stage or on the screen, Regina Taylor continues to act, write, and direct masterfully.

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