Freda Payne

Freda’s music career started when she won an amateur talent contest on WXYZ – TV at the age of 13 and again at the age of 14 in her home town of Detroit Michigan. Not long after, she was on a weekly Radio show called “Make Way for Youth” on WJR Radio, produced by Don Large entitled. The show was produced from the Fisher building in Detroit. Soon Freda began singing radio commercial jingles. Freda also appeared on and won then popular Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour which hailed from New York. This was a huge accomplishment at that time and one which she shared with friend Gladys Knight, and one which propelled her career into fast forward.

This quickly caught the attention of music executives and other artists. At the age of 17, the legendary Pearl Bailey gave Freda her first professional job and this paved the way for her to share the stage with other legends that have included Lionel Hampton, Sammy Davis Jr., Billy Eckstein, Quincy Jones, Bill Cosby and many others.

Freda began experimenting in acting early in her career. Her first movie role was in 1973's film "Book Of Numbers" which starred a pre-Miami Vice Phillip Michael Thomas. In 1976 she won favorable reviews for her appearance on an episode of "Police Story" entitled ".50 First Half-Hour, $1.75 All Day."

By the 1990's she decided to reinvent herself and move to another phase of her career. She played a boutique sales director in the 1995 thriller "Private Obsession." A few years later in 1997, Freda played a vocalist in hit-movie "Sprung", which starred Tisha Campbell. Soon after she landed the role of "Gran" in the 1999 horror film "Ragdoll." She then scored a prized role alongside Janet Jackson and Eddie Murphy in the 2000 release "Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps,"—a movie in which some might consider her finest work to date on film. Freda was most recently seen as "Jean Aimes" in the 2001 made-for-television film, "Fire And Ice.."

-http://fredapayne.com