Jennifer Hudson
Jennifer Kate Hudson, also known by her nickname J.Hud, is an American singer, actress, producer, and talk show host. Having received numerous accolades for her work in music, film, television, and theater, Hudson became the youngest woman and third African-American recipient of all four major American entertainment awards: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony in 2022. She was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013, and Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2020.
Hudson rose to fame in 2004 as a finalist on the third season of the reality series American Idol, wherein she placed seventh. She signed with Arista Records to release her self-titled debut studio album, which peaked at number two on the Billboard 200 and won Best R&B Album at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards. Her second and third studio albums, I Remember Me and JHUD, both peaked within the top ten of the Billboard 200; the latter was released by RCA Records. She signed with Interscope Records to release her fourth album, The Gift of Love, her first solo project in a decade.
She made her film debut as Effie White in the musical Dreamgirls, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and became the youngest African-American recipient of the award. She has since portrayed Aretha Franklin in the musical biopic Respect and acted in films such as Sex and the City, The Secret Life of Bees, Winnie Mandela, Black Nativity, Sing, and Cats. She also has appeared in shows such as Smash, Empire and Confirmation.
On stage, she acted in the Broadway musical revival The Color Purple and won the Tony Award for Best Musical as a producer of A Strange Loop. Hudson has served as a coach on both the UK and the US versions of the reality series The Voice from 2017 to 2019, and became the first female coach to lead a winning team on the former. In 2022, her talk show, The Jennifer Hudson Show, premiered.
Early life
Hudson was born on September 12, 1981 in Chicago, Illinois. She is the third and youngest child of Darnell Donerson and Samuel Simpson, a Greyhound Lines bus driver. She, her older sister Julia, a school bus driver, and her brother Jason Hudson, were raised primarily by their mother. Her father was absent from her childhood until, with the blessing of her mother, she went looking for him at age 14. When Hudson found her father, she learned that he had 26 other children. She has stated she has still not met all of her half-siblings.She was raised as a Baptist in Englewood and attended Dunbar Vocational High School, from which she graduated in 1999. She cites Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, and Patti LaBelle as her overall biggest influences and inspiration. She has also credited Mariah Carey as being one of her musical "heroes". At age 7 she got her start in performing by singing with the church choir and doing community theater with the help of her late maternal grandmother, Julia. She enrolled at Langston University but she left after a semester due to homesickness and unhappiness with the weather, and registered at Kennedy–King College.
In January 2002, Hudson signed her first recording contract with Righteous Records, a Chicago-based independent record label. She was released from her contract with Righteous Records so that she could appear on American Idol in 2004.
Career
2004–2005: ''American Idol''
Hudson auditioned for the third season of American Idol in Atlanta. After commenting that she had been singing on Disney Cruise Lines for the past few months as one of the Muses from Hercules, judge Randy Jackson told her, "We're expecting more than a cruise ship performance from you." Hudson received the highest number of votes in the "Top 9" after her performance of Elton John's "Circle of Life" on April 6, 2004, but two weeks later, she was eliminated during the "Top 7" show after performing Barry Manilow's, "Weekend in New England". In May 2009, MTV listed Hudson as the sixth greatest contestant in American Idol history and noted her exit was the most shocking of all time. In May 2010, the Los Angeles Times claimed Hudson to be the third greatest Idol contestant in the history of the show, placing behind season one winner Kelly Clarkson and season four winner Carrie Underwood respectively.Performances
2006–2007: ''Dreamgirls'' and breakthrough
In one of her first appearances on a record, Hudson is featured in a duet, "The Future Ain't What It Used to Be", on Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose. In September 2006, Hudson performed the song, "Over It", live on Fox Chicago Morning News. In the interview she stated the song would be included on her debut album, to be released in early 2007; however, this was before she was signed to a record label. In November 2006, Hudson signed a record deal with Arista Records. Hudson also recorded a song she co-wrote with Bill Grainer and Earl Powell called "Stand Up", which was available for preview on her fan website. The track was produced by Chicago natives Powell and Herman Little III, who also arranged the song. The power-ballad would later become available on the deluxe edition of Hudson's self-titled album as a bonus track.In November 2005, Hudson was cast in the role of Effie White for the film adaptation of the musical Dreamgirls, which also starred Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles and Eddie Murphy. The role marked Hudson's debut screen performance. She won the role over hundreds of professional singers and actresses, including Fantasia Barrino. Filming of Dreamgirls began on January 9, 2006, and the film went into limited release on December 25, 2006, and national release on January 12, 2007. Hudson has won particular praise for her show-stopping onscreen rendition of the hit song, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going", the signature song of the role, which had earlier been recorded, and had already reached the status of musical standard, because of the definitive performance of Jennifer Holliday. The New York Observer described Hudson's performance of the song as "five mellifluous, molto vibrato minutes that have suddenly catapulted Ms. Hudson... into the position of front-runner for the best supporting actress Oscar". Newsweek said that when moviegoers hear Hudson sing the song, she, "is going to raise goose bumps across the land." Variety magazine wrote that Hudson's performance "calls to mind debuts like Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl or Bette Midler in The Rose, with a voice like the young Aretha". "Love You I Do" was nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for Best Original Song and won the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
As Effie White, Hudson has garnered 29 awards from film critics as Best Supporting Actress and Breakthrough Performer of 2006. She won the Golden Globe Award as Best Actress in a Supporting Role. In addition, she has been named Best Supporting Actress by the Broadcast Film Critics Association and also by the Screen Actors Guild. After seeing Hudson's performance in Dreamgirls, Simon Cowell taped a congratulatory message to her, which aired on The Oprah Winfrey Show. With the March 2007 issue, Jennifer Hudson became the third African-American celebrity and the first African-American singer to grace the cover of Vogue magazine. On February 11, 2007, the 60th British Academy Film Awards were held in London, but Hudson was not there to accept her BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. The BAFTA Award went missing and Hudson did not receive her award until April 22, 2011, when it was presented to her on the Graham Norton Show.
On February 25, 2007, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film. Later in 2007, the mayor of her home town, Chicago, Richard M. Daley, declared March 6 as "Jennifer Hudson Day". She was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on June 18, along with 115 other individuals for 2007. Entertainment Weekly put her performance on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "Sure, Beyoncé's performance was great. And Eddie Murphy's was impressive. But there was really only one reason we all rushed to see 2006's Dreamgirls: Jennifer Hudson's soul-to-the-rafters rendition of the classic 'And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going'. When she sang 'You're gonna love me,' it wasn't just a lyric — it was a fact."
2008–2009: ''Jennifer Hudson'' album and films
In May 2008, Hudson appeared in the feature film Sex and the City as Louise, Carrie Bradshaw's assistant. Filming finished in December 2007 and the movie was released on May 30, 2008. In October 2008, Hudson appeared in The Secret Life of Bees as Rosaleen. The film also received nine Black Reel Awards nominations including three wins. Hudson was nominated for her performance in the film, but lost to Queen Latifah. The film also received eight nominations at the 2009 NAACP Image Awards, including a nomination for Hudson for her performance.In 2009, Hudson starred as Kathy Archenault in Fragments, a film based on the novel by Roy Freirich, with Dakota Fanning and Forest Whitaker. It was released on DVD on August 4, 2009. In 2010, Hudson started filming the biopic film Winnie Mandela based on the South African politician Winnie Mandela starring alongside Terrence Howard and directed by Darrell J. Roodt. Andre Pieterse and Roodt and Paul L. Johnson based the film's script on Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob's biography, Winnie Mandela: A Life. The Creative Workers Union of South Africa have opposed this choice, stating they will push for a moratorium on the film if the casting is not reversed. Winnie Mandela has threatened legal action over this film, claiming she was not "consulted" about the film. Winnie Mandela was originally scheduled to be released in December 2011; the trailer was released in 2010. Image Entertainment released the film on September 6, 2013.
In January 2008, Hudson returned to the studio to record new songs for her debut studio album. Her label was reportedly unhappy with the direction they were sending Hudson musically and decided it would be best to scrap the older songs and instead focus on new ones. Hudson worked with Ryan Tedder and Timbaland on a number of songs. Her debut single, "Spotlight" was released on June 10, 2008, and became Hudson's first top 40 hit peaking at number 24 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became a top 20 hit in the United Kingdom and Turkey.
Her debut studio album, Jennifer Hudson, was released on September 30, 2008, on Arista and was written by Ne-Yo, who co-produced along with Stargate. Additional contributors on the album include Timbaland, Missy Elliott, Robin Thicke, Harvey Mason, Jr., Diane Warren, Earl Powell, and Christopher "Tricky" Stewart, among others. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with 217,000 copies in the US and opened to positive reviews. As of August 2009, the album has sold 739,000 copies in the US, receiving a Gold certification for surpassing sales of 500,000. She has performed the song, "All Dressed in Love" for the Sex and the City soundtrack, which was released on May 27, 2008. Hudson performed the national anthem at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
File:Jennifer Hudson sings national anthem at Super Bowl 43 .jpg|thumb|upright|Jennifer Hudson's first public appearance after the murder of three family members, including her mother, sings the "National Anthem" at Super Bowl XLIII
The album's second single was to be released in October 2008, and was originally set to be "My Heart" before "If This Isn't Love" was chosen as the official second single. After three of her family members were brutally murdered, the single was rescheduled for a January 2009 release. However, in January 2009, her label decided to postpone the release of the second single once more, choosing a February 2009 release date. After the release of "If This Isn't Love", the single eventually peaked at number 63 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 37 on the UK Singles Chart. The third single was "Pocketbook" featuring Ludacris in April 2009, for a June 2009 release, despite speculation that the third single would be "My Heart" after it was canceled as the second single. In May 2009, "Pocketbook" was canceled as the third single due to negative reception from fans and critics alike. The third single was then rescheduled as "Giving Myself" and was released on June 2, 2009, to the US. Her debut album garnered Hudson three nominations at the 2009 Grammy Awards: Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Spotlight", Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for "I'm His Only Woman" with Fantasia Barrino, and Best R&B Album for Jennifer Hudson. She won the last of these and performed at the awards ceremony.
In February 2009, Hudson made her first public appearance since the murders when she sang the Star-Spangled Banner at Super Bowl XLIII. She toured the United States with Robin Thicke in 2009. In early May 2009, Hudson suffered "throat fatigue" and had to reschedule her May 16–19, 2009, tour dates. She sang "Will You Be There" at the Michael Jackson memorial service in July 2009. Hudson recorded "Neither One of Us ", originally by Gladys Knight & the Pips, for American Idol Season 3: Greatest Soul Classics — the official American Idol album for the third season. She is featured on Ne-Yo's second album, Because of You, on the track, "Leaving Tonight". Hudson performed a Christmas special in December 2009 called Jennifer Hudson: I'll Be Home for Christmas. During the special, she relived her childhood Christmases with musical performances filmed at her favorite locations in her native Chicago. Hudson also visited family members, friends and other childhood influences during the broadcast. On January 22, 2010, Hudson appeared on the telethon "Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief", performing the Beatles' "Let it Be". The telecast generated $61 million in donations as of 2010. Also, that year, Hudson recorded the song "One Shining Moment" for the 2010 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament.