Jamaican actress Madge Dorita Walters-Sinclair was born
On this day in Caribbean history on April 28, 1938, actress Madge Dorita Walters-Sinclair was born. Sinclair was born in Kingston, Jamaica to parents Herbert and Jemima Walters. Walters-Sinclair is most known for her roles in Coming To America and the ABC series Roots. Sinclair was also the voice of the character Sarabi, Mufasa’s mate and Simba’s mother, in the animated feature film The Lion King.
In Sinclair’s early life in Jamaica, she was a teacher until she left in 1968 to emigrate to New York to pursue acting. In 1991, Sinclair won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama series for the role of Empress Josephine in Gabriel’s Fire. For her performance in Roots the T.V. miniseries based on Alex Haley’s ’76 novel, Roots: The Saga of An American Family Sinclair was nominated for an Emmy Award. She played Belle Reynolds, a slave owned by Dr. William Reynolds of Spotsylvania County, Virginia.
The ‘Jamerican’ leading actress was married to a police officer named Royston Sinclair and that marriage produced two sons. After her first marriage ended she remarried to actor Dean Compton. In 1995 Sinclair died of Leukemia. She was cremated, and her ashes were brought back to Jamaica to be scattered.
Sinclair’s most notable performance were in The Lion King in 1998, where she was the voice of Sarabi, in 1994 in Me and The Boys, she played Mary Tower, in 1988 in Coming To America and in 1993 in Star Trek: The Next Generation where she played Captain Silva La Forge in the episode of “Interface”.
