Those who didn’t know Vanessa Williams prior to landing her hit function as Wilhelmina Slater at the comedy sitcom Ugly Betty wouldn’t have been conscious about the fact that the 57-year-old was once already a household name thanks to a successful career in pageantries, tune, movies, and tv which dates back the entire means to the ‘80s.
But for four seasons and eighty five episodes, Vanessa saved audience entertained in her new function because the mean-spirited self-absorbed former twiglet who starts her personal modeling corporate, which the ABC show used to be targeted around. Playing the character would earn the mummy of four two NAACP Image Awards in 2007 and 2008, respectively, Best TV Villain on the 2007 Teen Choice Awards, and a nomination for supporting actress at the 59th, 60th, and 61st Emmy Awards.
So what exactly has the never-aging superstar been up to since Ugly Betty ended? Here’s the lowdown…
About Vanessa Williams’ Career Post-‘Ugly Betty’
After Ugly Betty ended its four-year run on ABC, it wasn’t lengthy ahead of Vanessa can be back on the TV network, after being approached to play the position of Renee Perry on Desperate Housewives.
The award-winning actress recalled how she landed the task throughout an interview with Parade, the place it used to be revealed that the decision of bringing Vanessa on board was mainly due to the head of ABC wanting to keep her under their network after having shaped a good operating dating with V all the way through her time on Ugly Betty.
She said: “The head of ABC known as Desperate Housewives writer Marc Cherry and stated, ‘I would like Vanessa at the display.’ I had 4 great years on Betty, which was once over, and Mark stated ok."
“He happened to be in New York for a couple of weeks, and I was on Broadway, so they set up a meeting. I thought it was about something in the future, but then he asked whether I’d seen the show and if I would be interested in joining. I said, ‘Well, that would be interesting.’
“And he said they’d come up with a character for me. It all happened at lightning speed. It was something that was totally unexpected. Desperate Housewives is a well-oiled machine, so it was nice to be gainfully employed and start a new beginning again.”
But her time on Desperate Housewives was rather short-lived because, by the end of 2011, it was announced that the drama had been canceled and was to enter its final series the following year.
After 46 episodes, Vanessa was back to looking for work — and this time, she wasn’t so lucky with her connections who’d previously helped her to secure another job right after finishing a project.
Her next major TV show came in 2012 when she played Olivia Doran on 666 Park Avenue, but her time on the program was also short-lived because, after just one season, executives at ABC pulled the drama-fantasy due to low ratings.
From there on, Vanessa would take on a few recurring roles in shows such as The Good Wife, before portraying the character of General Cynthia Rockell from 2016 to 2017 in The Librarians.
In 2017, she booked her very own comedy on VH1, titled Daytime Divas, which was loosely based on the behind the scenes drama on The View, but — again — after just one series, ratings were less than impressive and the network opted to cancel plans for a potential second run.
Vanessa has also appeared in a string of TV movies such as Happy Accident, False Profits, Fantasy Life, and The Trip to Bountiful.
And since 2019, she has been voicing the character of Captain Beakman in the Disney animated series Tiny Ones Transport Service, alongside Megan Hilty, Christian J. Simon, and Jet Jurgensmeyer.
In a previous interview with Entertainment Weekly, Vanessa described her time on Ugly Betty as magical, adding that getting to play Wilhelmina Slater has by far been her favorite role to date, and that’s purely because of how great the show’s writers were in coming up with interesting storylines for each character.
Vanessa was so drawn to each script because she was also taken off-guard by her character’s loose lips, but that made the job all the more fun.
“A lot of the stance, the carriage, and the facial expressions are where the real power lies,” she said. “That’s what makes Wilhelmina great. Sometimes it’s just a look or a sigh or a roll of the eyes or a turn of the back, and that’s weighted enough. It’s been my favorite role of a lifetime, and I truly enjoy coming to work every day.”
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