Jennifer Hudson

Singer

• Born: September 12, 1981
• Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois

Singer and actor

Hudson went from runner-up on a popular television competition to an Academy Award winner in only a few years. She has won critical and popular praise for her powerful voice and dramatic acting performances.

Areas of achievement: Film: acting; Music: rhythm and blues

Early Life

Jennifer Kate Hudson was born in Chicago, Illinois, on September 12, 1981. She was the youngest child of Darnell Donerson and Samuel Simpson. Hudson’s family also included her older brother, Jason; a sister, Julia; and a half-sister, Dinah. Her father died when she was a child.

Hudson’s early life was modest; she was raised in Englewood, one of the tougher neighborhoods in Chicago. As a young girl, she gravitated toward music and the performing arts. At just seven years old, she found her niche in the church choir at Pleasant Gift Missionary Baptist Church. She also honed her music skills in high school at Dunbar Vocational Career Academy. Church, teachers, and family—particularly her mother and grandmother—played motivational roles for Hudson as she pursued music. She kept busy not only with musical endeavors but also with theatrical opportunities such as a production of Hercules: A Muse-ical Comedy on Disney Cruise Lines and a local theatrical production of Big River, a musical adapted from Mark Twain’s novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).

Life’s Work

In 2004, Hudson successfully auditioned for the reality show American Idol, a popular televised singing competition. On the show, she won praise for her powerful performances but at times struggled to gain viewers’ votes and was eliminated midway through the season. Nevertheless, the American Idol experience provided valuable performing experience and exposure for the young singer.

After her stint on American Idol, Hudson turned her attention to acting. In 2005, she won a lead role in a film adaptation of the musical Dreamgirls. In the film, released in 2006, Hudson played Effie White—a role originated on Broadway by the legendary Jennifer Holliday—the talented but high-strung frontwoman of a Supremes-like girl group who finds herself pushed aside musically and romantically. Despite her lack of film experience, Hudson was widely praised for her performance and especially for her rendition of the film’s showstopping song, “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.” She won more than two dozen awards for the role, culminating in an Academy Award for best supporting actress in February 2007. The next month, she appeared on the cover of Vogue, making her the first Black American singer so featured.

Hudson next appeared in the films Sex and the City and The Secret Life of Bees in 2008 and Fragments in 2009. She also recorded her debut album, Jennifer Hudson (2008), which received critical praise and won the Grammy Award for best R&B album. In 2008, she also sang the national anthem at the Democratic National Convention, at which Barack Obama received the party’s nomination for president. The next year, Hudson sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl and appeared in a holiday special. She also was cast as Winnie Mandela in a biographical film.

Late in 2008, tragedy struck Hudson’s family when her mother, brother, and seven-year-old nephew were murdered. The family created the Hudson-King Foundation for Families of Slain Victims. In 2009, she gave birth to her first child, David Jr., with her fiancé, David Otunga. After her son’s birth, she became a spokesperson for Weight Watchers and advocated good nutrition and a healthy lifestyle. She released her sophomore album, I Remember Me, in 2011 to largely positive reviews.

In 2013, Hudson received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, further solidifying her impact in the industry. In addition to continuing to act, appearing on popular network television series such as Smash (2013) and Empire (2015), she went back to the studio and released her third album, JHUD, in 2014. She also took on the lead role in Spike Lee's controversial 2015 film Chi-Raq, which tells the story of a Chicago woman who lost her daughter to gun violence, in the hopes of bringing more attention to the city's struggle. Later that year, returning to the theater scene for the first time since her days upon the Disney cruiseliner, she began appearing as Shug Avery in the revival of the Broadway show The Color Purple, which is based on the classic novel of the same name written by Alice Walker; the production's recording earned a Grammy Award in 2017.

Continuing to focus on acting, Hudson provided the voice of a character in the animated film Sing in 2016 before starring alongside Adam Sandler in the Netflix film Sandy Wexler in 2017. After playing the mother of the main character in the film adaptation of the Walter Dean Myers novel Monster released in 2018, it was announced that she had been chosen to portray Aretha Franklin in a new biopic and joined the cast, as Grizabella, of the 2019 screen adaptation of the classic Broadway musical Cats. In 2020, she was included on Time magazine's list of the one hundred most influential people and performed for that year's virtual Democratic National Convention. The following year, she was finally seen as Franklin when the much-hyped Respect, directed by Liesl Tommy, was released to theaters that summer. While the film itself got some mixed reviews largely due to what were considered common biopic tropes, it also garnered positive reviews from several critics, and much of the praise centered upon Hudson's portrayal of Franklin, including her singing abilities. After claiming a Daytime Emmy Award that same year for her part in the production of the short virtual-reality film Baba Yaga (2020), her production work was further recognized, this time for the theater, when she collected a Tony Award in 2022 for her contributions to the original Broadway staging of the musical A Strange Loop. With this latter win, she became widely noted as one of the select performers in the entertainment industry to have succeeded in reaching EGOT status, in which one has earned each of the major awards.

Significance

Hudson’s perseverance and dedication to her goals contributed greatly to her success. After finishing as a runner-up on American Idol, she won the role of a lifetime in Dreamgirls and vaulted to Hollywood stardom. In Hudson’s acting and musical endeavors, she strove to exceed expectations and represent Black American women well.

Bibliography

"Jennifer Hudson on Broadway." CBS News. CBS Interactive, 15 Nov. 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.

Nagle, Jeanne. Jennifer Hudson. New York: Rosen, 2008. Print.

Norment, Lynn. “Dreamgirls! From Broadway to the Big Screen.” Ebony 62.2 (2006): 164–75. Print.

Norment, Lynn. “A Moment in Time.” Ebony 64.1 (2008): 72–80. Print.

Snyder, Gail. Jennifer Hudson. Broomall: Mason Crest, 2009. Print.

Willman, Chris. "Jennifer Hudson on Bringing Aretha Franklin's Story to the Screen after 15 Years." Variety, 4 Aug. 2021, variety.com/2021/film/news/jennifer-hudson-interview-respect-aretha-franklin-1235034710/. Accessed 1 Sept. 2021.