Who Is Cynthia Erivo?

How did a young girl born in South London grow up to be a;Tony and Grammy Award–winning star? Find out in this Who HQ Now biography about Cynthia Erivo and her exciting career from Cynthia Erivo fell in love with performing when she was only five years old and sang "Silent Night" as a solo in a school Christmas play. When she grew up, she trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before beginning;her career as a professional actress and singer. Cynthia made her Broadway debut in 2015 as Celie Harris in <The Color Purple<. This performance earned her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. In 2017, she won her first Grammy Award for the cast album of <The Color Purple<. Cynthia went on to play Harriet Tubman in the blockbuster film <Harriet <in 2019. This movie earned Cynthia her first Academy Award nomination as a lead actress. In 2024, Cythia will star as Elphaba in the blockbuster movie muscial <Wicked<.

Auteur
Crystal Hubbard has penned picture books, contemporary and historical romance novels, and short stories. She is the author of Who Is LeBron James? and Who Was John Lewis? from the Who HQ series.

Texte du rabat

"Cynthia Erivo fell in love with performing when she was only five years old and sang "Silent Night" as a solo in a school Christmas play. When she grew up, she trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before beginning her career as a professional actress and singer. Cynthia made her Broadway debut in 2015 as Celie Harris in The Color Purple. This performance earned her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. In 2017, she won her first Grammy Award for the cast album of The Color Purple. Cynthia went on to play Harriet Tubman in the blockbuster film Harriet in 2019. This movie earned Cynthia her first Academy Award nomination as a lead actress. In 2024, Cythia will star as Elphaba in the blockbuster movie muscial Wicked"--

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Who Is Cynthia Erivo?
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EGOT winners are rare in the entertainment industry. EGOT stands for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony—the four biggest entertainment awards that can be won in the United States. Elton John, Viola Davis, Jennifer Hudson, and Whoopi Goldberg are four of the nineteen performing artists who have won all four awards. It can take decades in the arts to become an EGOT winner, but in only eight years, Cynthia Erivo has made it three-fourths of the way there.

Emmy Awards honor great television performances and all of the people who make TV possible. Grammy Awards are given for great accomplishments in the recording industry. The film industry gives Oscars to the people voted the best at their part in making a movie, from the actors on the screen to the people who dress them and design the sets. The Tony Award is similar to the Oscar, but it goes to those who are the best in theatrical productions—-like plays and musicals— on Broadway in New York City.

From the moment she arrived in the United States, handpicked to perform in her first Broadway musical as the lead character, to her first starring role in a Hollywood blockbuster, Cynthia has proven she is one of the most talented performers in the world. She has won three of the most coveted awards in professional entertainment and twice been nominated for the fourth.

Cynthia is a small woman with a big voice and an even bigger presence. She stands out with her shaved head and bold fashion sense. Unafraid of the hard work it takes to make a dream come true, Cynthia is proving to be one of the world’s most original and fastest--rising talents.
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Chapter 1
Born to Perform
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Cynthia Onyedinmanasu Chinasaokwu Erivo was born on January 8, 1987, in Stockwell, South London, in England. Her parents had immigrated to the United Kingdom from Nigeria. Her mother, Edith, was twenty-four years old when they moved.

Edith remembers Cynthia humming around the house when she was only eighteen months old. In a baby book she kept, Edith wrote that she believed Cynthia would become a singer when she grew up because she sang even when she was eating. Edith was a nurse, and by the time Cynthia was two years old, she would copy her mother’s actions. In Cynthia’s baby book, Edith wrote that she thought Cynthia might become a doctor as well as a singer.

Looking back when she was older, Cynthia realized that her behavior as a child was the first indication that she wanted to be an actress and a singer. She enjoyed acting like a medical professional. She never actually wanted to become one.

“My mom would play music in the house all the time,” Cynthia said. “It usually was Christian music, but then randomly she’d play Diana Ross and this [Euro--Caribbean] band called Boney M. who did like funk and disco. She loved this Nigerian artist, Sir Shina Peters, and Bette Midler’s ‘Wind Beneath My Wings.’"

Listening to the car radio on the way to school introduced Cynthia to an even wider variety of music and singers. She listened to the pop rock songs of Mike + The Mechanics, the soul music of Teddy Pendergrass, and the dance pop songs of George Michael. Cynthia credits one of her aunts with introducing her to the mellow, soulful voice of Toni Braxton and the visionary hip--hop of Missy Elliott and TLC.

“So I was hearing everything all the time, and it never left me,” Cynthia said. “It sort of came together and made one strange sound that comes from me. I was singing whatever I could sing wherever I could sing it—-talent shows, open mic nights.”

Cynthia was five years old when she sang “Silent Night” in her school’s Christmas play. It was her first public performance. The applause of the audience convinced her that singing was something she was meant to do. Her mother and her two-year-old sister Stephanie clapped loudest. Her father, who had abandoned the family, missed the performance.

“As far as I was concerned, whatever I was doing was making people happy,” Cynthia recalled. “By making people happy, it made me feel happy. So I knew I wanted to continue feeling like that and making other people feel like that.”

Singing might have been her first love, but Cynthia still pursued acting. Two of her idols were Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross, singers who also acted. Edith enrolled Cynthia in a youth drama group. Cynthia was eleven years old when she earned a role in a very serious play titled The Caucasian Chalk Circle. The play was written by Bertolt Brecht, a famous German playwright known for writing plays with complex messages.

At fifteen years old, Cynthia made her television debut on a British Channel 4 reality show called Trust Me, I’m a Teenager. The show had a short life, but that didn’t deter Cynthia from her dream of performing. She was also cast as Juliet in a production of Romeo and Juliet at the Young Vic, a London theater dedicated to developing the talents of young performers.

Cynthia learned so much about acting in her role as Juliet. “That was the first time I was able to access my emotions and to cry onstage,” Cynthia said. “I shocked myself. I didn’t know I could access a part of myself that made me feel the way you have to feel before you start crying. It happened and I remember thinking, gosh, I just did that.”
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Chapter 2
Tumultuous Teen Years
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Cynthia attended La Retraite Roman Catholic Girls’ School in Lambeth, England. She was an eager and involved student and a devout Catholic. Her faith helped drive her to fight through obstacles she encountered as she tried to build a career in entertainment.

One of her most painful disappointments occurred offstage when she was sixteen years old and tried to…