Tracey Ullman

Tracey Ullman was born Trace Ullman in Slough, Buckinghamshire (now Berkshire), the younger of two daughters, to Doreen (née Cleaver; 1929–2015), who was of British and Roma extraction, and Anthony John Ullman (1917–1966), a Roman Catholic Pole.

Anthony served in the Polish Army and took part in the Battle of Dunkirk during World War II.

After emigrating and marrying in England, he worked as a solicitor, a furniture salesman, and a travel agent.

He also brokered marriages and translated among the émigré Polish community.

When she was six, Ullman's father, who had been recovering from a heart operation, died of a heart attack in front of her.

She was subsequently uprooted to Hackbridge, southwest London.

Her mother could barely make ends meet without their father's income.

In an effort to cheer her family up, Ullman, along with her sister Patti, created and performed nightly shows on their mother's bedroom windowsill.

After their mother remarried, the family began moving around the country, with Ullman attending numerous state schools, where she wrote and performed in school plays.

She eventually caught the attention of a headmaster, who recommended that she attend a performing arts school.

She won a full scholarship to the Italia Conti Academy at the age of twelve.

At sixteen, she attended a dance audition under the impression that she was applying for summer season in Scarborough.

The audition resulted in a contract with a German ballet company for a revival of Gigi in Berlin.

Upon returning to England, she joined the Second Generation dance troupe, performing in London, Blackpool, and Liverpool.

She branched out into musical theatre and was cast in numerous West End musicals including Grease, Elvis The Musical, and The Rocky Horror Show.

Tracey Ullman (born Trace Ullman; 30 December 1959) is a British-American actress, comedian, singer, writer, producer, and director.

Her earliest mainstream appearances were on British television sketch comedy shows A Kick Up the Eighties (with Rik Mayall and Miriam Margolyes) and Three of a Kind (with Lenny Henry and David Copperfield).

After a brief singing career, she appeared as Candice Valentine in Girls on Top with Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders.

Ullman emigrated from the United Kingdom to the United States.

Ullman's songs were over-the-top evocations of 1960s and 1970s pop music with a 1980s edge, "somewhere between Minnie Mouse and the Supremes" as Melody Maker put it, or "retro before retro was cool", as a reviewer wrote in 2002.

Ullman began her television career in 1980 playing Lynda Bellingham's daughter in the British series Mackenzie.

A chance encounter with the wife of the head of the punk music label Stiff Records led to Ullman getting a record contract in 1983.

Label owner Dave Robinson was taken with some of the musical parodies she had been doing in her television work and signed her.

Ullman recounted, "One day, I was at my hairdresser, and Dave Robinson's wife Rosemary leant over and said, 'Do you want to make a record?'... I went, 'Yeah I want to make a record.' I would have tried anything."

Her 1983 debut album You Broke My Heart in 17 Places featured her first hit single "Breakaway", as well as the international hit version of label-mate Kirsty MacColl's "They Don't Know", which reached #2 in the UK, #35 in Germany and #8 in the United States.

In less than two years, Ullman had six songs in the UK Top 100.

A recording of Doris Day's "Move Over Darling" reached #8 in the UK, and a version of Madness' "My Girl", which she changed to "My Guy".

Its accompanying video featured a cameo from the British Labour Party politician Neil Kinnock, at the time the Leader of the Opposition.

Her career received another boost when the video for "They Don't Know" featured a cameo appearance from Paul McCartney; at the time Ullman was filming a minor role in McCartney's film Give My Regards to Broad Street. She released her second (and final) album You Caught Me Out in 1984.

Her final hit, "Sunglasses" (1984), featured comedian Adrian Edmondson in its music video.

During this time she also appeared as a guest VJ on MTV in the United States.

She would go on to star in her own network television comedy series, The Tracey Ullman Show from 1987 until 1990, which also featured the first appearances of the long-running animated media franchise The Simpsons.

She later produced programmes for HBO, including Tracey Takes On... (1996–99) garnering numerous awards.

Her sketch comedy series Tracey Ullman's State of the Union ran from 2008 to 2010 on Showtime.

She has appeared in several feature films.

Ullman was the first British woman to be offered her own television sketch show in both the United Kingdom and the United States.

In 2016, she returned to British television with the BBC sketch comedy show Tracey Ullman's Show, her first project for the broadcaster in over thirty years.

This led to the creation of the topical comedy series Tracey Breaks the News in 2017.

In 2017, Ullman was reportedly Britain's wealthiest comedian and the second-wealthiest British actress, with an estimated wealth of £80 million.

She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including twelve American Comedy Awards, seven Primetime Emmy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, four Satellite Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.