Maya Khabira Rudolph (born July 27, 1972) is an American actress and comedian, known as a former cast member on NBC's Saturday Night Live. She is the daughter of late soul singer Minnie Riperton (Lovin' You) and song writer/music producer Richard Rudolph. R&B singer Teena Marie is Rudolph's godmother.
[>>]Source: WikipediaMaya Khabira Rudolph (born July 27, 1972) is an American actress and comedian, known as a former cast member on NBC's Saturday Night Live. She is the daughter of late soul singer Minnie Riperton (Lovin' You) and song writer/music producer Richard Rudolph. R&B singer Teena Marie is Rudolph's godmother.
Personal life
Family
Maya Rudolph was born in Gainesville, Florida, the daughter of Soul singer Minnie Riperton and composer, songwriter and producer Richard Rudolph. Her father is Jewish and her mother was African American. Maya Rudolph was in the studio with her mother on the day Riperton recorded, "Lovin' You," which Rudolph's parents had written as a lullaby for her. The listener can hear her mother sing, "Maya, Maya, Maya," to her daughter near the end of the track. Riperton died on July 12, 1979 at age 31 from cancer, short of her daughter's seventh birthday. Rudolph lives with director Paul Thomas Anderson and their daughter Pearl. They are currently anticipating the arrival of their second child late in 2009.
Education
Growing up, Rudolph attended high school in Santa Monica, California, and continued her education at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she graduated in 1995 with a B.A. in photography from Porter College.
Career
Saturday Night Live
She joined SNL late in season 1999-2000 as a featured player, after a stint as a member of The Groundlings improv troupe.
Rudolph's characters on the show have included "Attorney Glenda Goodwin" and "Megan" from the "Wake Up, Wakefield!" sketches. Rudolph has performed impressions of Oprah Winfrey, Christina Aguilera, Condoleezza Rice, Paris Hilton, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Tyra Banks, Patti LaBelle, Beyonce, Liza Minnelli, LaToya Jackson, Diana Ross, Whitney Houston and, most famously, designer Donatella Versace.
Rudolph appeared in the October 1st, 2005 episode of SNL, the first of the 2005-2006 season, before going on maternity leave. She returned on February 4, 2006.
Rudolph's musical talents were frequently employed on SNL. She sang as Beyoncé Knowles in the Prince Show sketches, as the "Space Creature," in the Gays in Space sketches (except for the one on the Season 31 episode hosted by Peter Sarsgaard, because it aired around the time Rudolph was on maternity leave. Will Forte substituted Rudolph for that episode) and elsewhere. Her chameleon-like ability to change her looks, and her impressive command of many accents also led to her playing an unusually wide range of ethnicities on the show, often with only a change of wigs; she has been white (Paris Hilton, Charo, Liza Minelli, Barbra Streisand, Lisa Kudrow), Asian (Lucy Liu, Lisa Ling), black (Diana Ross, Tina Turner), Latina (Jennifer Lopez), as well as people of mixed cultural backgrounds such as Christina Aguilera (who is half Ecuadorian and half Irish). As "Nooni Schoener," Rudolph, along with Fred Armisen (who, like Rudolph, is also a multiracial SNL castmember with a chameleon-like tendency to play any race or ethnicity), created a couple from an unspecified Scandinavian country, who have unplaceable accents and bewilderingly foreign manners. Rudolph was also able to play male characters (Scott Joplin, Justin Guarini, Mario Vazquez) in addition to playing females.
Her final show was on November 3, 2007, with host Brian Williams and musical guest Feist, the last episode before the Writer's Strike. She returned on October 25, 2008, in a featured guest appearance as Michelle Obama, and sang a duet with Kenan Thompson about Amy Poehler's newborn. She also appeared in two sketches in the 2008/2009 season finale with Will Ferrell as host and musical guest Green Day. She appeared in a Weekend Update Thursday sketch during the fall 2009/10 season as Oprah Winfrey speaking on behalf of the 2016 Olympics bid.
Television and film
In addition to her work on SNL, Rudolph has appeared on a few television shows, including City of Angels and Chicago Hope.
She has also appeared in Hollywood films. She had small parts in Chuck & Buck, Gattaca, As Good As It Gets, Duplex and Duets; she was also a music supervisor for Duets. Her first prominent film role came in 2006 with A Prairie Home Companion, a role she filled during her pregnancy (her character is pregnant during the film). Earlier, she had co-starred with Luke Wilson in the 2005 Mike Judge sci-fi comedy Idiocracy, although that film was shelved until September 2006 and then only given a limited release. She also guest starred as Rapunzel in the DreamWorks animated film Shrek the Third. She guest starred as Julia in the The Simpsons episode "The Homer of Seville". Rudolph starred as character Athena Scooberman in NBC's Kath & Kim, and recently completed her newest picture Away We Go with The Office star John Krasinski, which hit theaters June 26, 2009. She recently finished filming Grown Ups starring Adam Sandler, where she is playing the wife of Chris Rock.
Music
Prior to joining SNL, Rudolph was briefly a keyboardist and backing singer of the band the Rentals. She also appears in the music video of the song "Waiting" and "Please Let That Be You" by the band. She sang backing vocals for "Barcelona" and "My Head Is in the Sun," both from the album Seven More Minutes. She recently recorded some tracks with the Rentals frontman Matt Sharp, particularly a cover of Tegan and Sara's "Not Tonight." Rudolph also performed "Together In Pooping" and "Little Roundworm" with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog (Robert Smigel) on his album Come Poop With Me.
References
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^ "". . Retrieved 2008-07-19.
External links
- at the Internet Movie Database
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- from January 2004
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