
Acting
Ricki Lake
Born 1968-09-21 · Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, USA
Ricki Pamela Lake (born September 21, 1968) is an American television host and actress. She is known for her lead role as Tracy Turnblad in the 1988 film Hairspray, for which she received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. She is also known for her talk show, Ricki Lake, which was broadcast internationally from September 1993 until May 2004. When the show debuted, she was 24 and credited as being the youngest person to host a syndicated talk show at the time. In late 2012, Lake began hosting a second syndicated talk show, The Ricki Lake Show. The series was canceled in 2013 after a single season, but Lake won her first Daytime Emmy Award for the project. She also starred in other Waters films including Cry-Baby, Cecil B. Demented, and Serial Mom. She starred in Mrs. Winterbourne, Cabin Boy, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Cookie, and Inside Monkey Zetterland. She joined the cast of the Vietnam War drama series China Beach as a Red Cross volunteer, Holly "the Donut Dolly" Pelegrino, for the show's third season. She also had a recurring role on the CBS sitcom The King of Queens as Doug's sister Stephanie. She also had a cameo in the 2007 film Hairspray as a talent agent and sang "Mama I'm A Big Girl Now" with Nikki Blonsky and Marissa Jaret Winokur for the film's end credits. In 2008, her documentary about home birth and midwifery, The Business of Being Born, was released. She also jointly wrote a book, Your Best Birth, on the world of natural childbirth and birthing options, along with Abby Epstein and Jacques Moritz, which was published in 2009. Lake and Epstein also launched MyBestBirth.com, an online social network, powered by Ning, intended to allow parents and medical professionals to dialogue about varying birthing options and resources. She returned to television on May 11, 2009, succeeding Sharon Osbourne as host for the third season of VH1's Charm School. On November 10, 2010, Lake joined fellow talkers Phil Donahue, Sally Jessy Raphael, Geraldo Rivera, and Montel Williams as guests of Oprah Winfrey on The Oprah Winfrey Show, marking the first time those hosts appeared together on one show since their respective programs left the air. She competed on the 13th season of Dancing with the Stars. She was partnered with three-time champion Derek Hough and cited Kirstie Alley's appearance as an inspiration to do the show. In October 2019, she began competing in The X Factor: Celebrity. In March 2018, at SXSW, Lake and Epstein premiered their documentary film Weed the People, examining the use of cannabis as medicine and its status as a Schedule I prohibited drug in the United States. The film focused in particular on the use of cannabis in the treatment of pediatric cancer.
Acting credits
6.7Beverly is the perfect happy homemaker, along with her doting husband and two children, but this nuclear family just might explode when her fascination with serial killers collides with her ever-so-proper code of ethics.
Serial Mom
1994
5.6Blonde, bouncy Buffy is your typical high school cheerleader. But all that changes when a strange man informs her she's been chosen by fate to kill vampires.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
1992
6.6When a secretary's idea is stolen by her boss, she takes a risky chance to reclaim it by impersonating him and running the project from his position.
Working Girl
1988
6.7Pleasantly plump teenager Tracy Turnblad auditions to be on Baltimore's most popular dance show - The Corny Collins Show - and lands a prime spot. Through her newfound fame, she becomes determined to help her friends and end the racial segregation that has been a staple of the show.
Hairspray
2007
6.8'Pleasantly plump' teenager Tracy Turnblad achieves her dream of becoming a regular on the Corny Collins Dance Show. Now a teen hero, she starts using her fame to speak out for the causes she believes in, most of all integration. In doing so, she earns the wrath of the show's former star, Amber Von Tussle, as well as Amber's manipulative, pro-segregation parents. The rivalry comes to a head as Amber and Tracy vie for the title of Miss Auto Show 1963.
Hairspray
1988
6.5A prim and proper schoolgirl goes against her society grandmother's wishes when she dates a motorcycle-riding juvenile delinquent.
Cry-Baby
1990
6.9A British documentarian profiles washed-up diva Jackie Washington as she prepares for her comeback concert.
Jackie's Back!
1999
5.4Sylvia Stickles runs a convenience store with her husband and mother-in-law. One day, Sylvia is hit on the head and transforms from an uptight prude to a sex-crazed lunatic. As she goes on a rampage through town, Sylvia attracts the attention of Ray Ray, a sexual healer and tow truck driver in search of the world's greatest orgasm. Their sexual revolution, however, causes a class war in their tiny Baltimore community.
A Dirty Shame
2004
NRSpecial reporting from the deadly fires in California.
American Catastrophe: LA Burning -- Special Edition of 20/20
2025
NRPart talk-show host, part comedian, and all-out extrovert, the very Irish and very gay Graham Norton is one of the few people who deserves all the adjectives that are thrown at him: "bawdy," "saucy," "outrageous," and "hilarious" are a few of them. His BBC talk show, So Graham Norton, is something that you just couldn't find in America: a rampant exercise in audience titillation that wallows gloriously in bizarre human behavior. It's like an audience-interactive NC-17 Saturday Night Live, with occasional breaks for celebrity chit-chat. If you ever wanted to see Gillian Anderson, Cher, Sophia Loren, or Dolly Parton break the talk-show mold with bawdy sex talk, then your dreams have come true. And Norton's cringe-inducing yet compulsively watchable audience polls, which ask common folk to relate embarrassing, adult-oriented tales, reveal a European openness (and sense of humor) that just wouldn't fly in the U.S.
The Best of So Graham Norton
2004
6.4A young lunatic director and his devoted cult of cinema terrorists kidnap a Hollywood movie goddess and force her to star in their radical underground movie.
Cecil B. Demented
2000
6.5A gallery of characters in Brooklyn in the 1950s are crushed by their surroundings and selves: a union strike leader discovers he is gay; a prostitute falls in love with one of her clients; a family cannot cope with the fact that their daughter is illegitimately pregnant.
Last Exit to Brooklyn
1989
6.1King is a young man, but he's already a veteran of life on the streets of Los Angeles. The de facto leader of a group of teenage runaways, King acts as a mentor to troubled kids such as gay hustler Little J and junkie Greg. When Heather, a beautiful girl from Chicago, starts hanging out with King and his crew, it changes the dynamic of the gang. However, it seems as though nothing will alter their dangerous lifestyle.
Where the Day Takes You
1992
7.2Connie Doyle is eighteen, pregnant and alone. She accidentally ends up on a train where she meets Hugh Winterbourne and his wife pregnant Patricia. The train wrecks and she wakes up in the hospital to find out that it's been assumed that she's Patricia. Hugh's mother takes her in and she falls in love with Hugh's brother Bill. Just when she thinks everything is going her way, her ex-boyfriend shows up.
Mrs. Winterbourne
1996
5.2A foul-mouthed finishing school graduate mistakenly winds up on an ill-fated fishing boat, and faces the wrath of a crew that considers him bad luck.
Cabin Boy
1994
6.9When Leah's husband Benjamin dies suddenly, Benjamin's brother Jake is stunned to learn he is expected to marry the childless Leah to carry on his brother's name. Jake suggests to Leah that they get married and maintain a secretly platonic relationship. The harder they try to disguise their "pretend" marriage, the more their appreciation for each other's worlds grow, and out of understanding, a real love develops.
Loving Leah
2009
4.9Park takes place all in one day in a public park in Los Angeles, as 11 disaffected Angelenos find both love and loss in unexpected ways
Park
2006
7.3A teenage girl living in Baltimore in the early 1960s dreams of appearing on a popular TV dance show.
Hairspray Live!
2016
A family comes to grips with their own grief after the eldest daughter is killed.
A Family Again
1988
4.5A man rents a room in a couple's house and roams the streets at night looking for victims to skin, while constantly being followed by a junkie he mutilated who is now looking for revenge.
Skinner
1993
5.4A heinous crime tests the complex relationship between a tenacious personal assistant and her Hollywood starlet boss. As the assistant travels across Los Angeles to unravel the mystery, she must stay one step ahead of a determined policeman and confront her own understanding of friendship, truth and celebrity.
Gemini
2017
5.6Cookie Voltecki is the illegitimate daughter of mobster Dino Capisco, who has just finished thirteen years in prison. Since being released from jail, all that Dino wants is to settle some old scores, and make up for lost time with his daughter.
Cookie
1989
7.3Harris Glenn Milstead, aka Divine (1945-1988) was the ultimate outsider turned underground hero. Spitting in the face of the status quos of body image, gender identity, sexuality, and preconceived notions of beauty, Divine succeeded in becoming an internationally recognized icon, recording artist, and character actor of stage and screen. Glenn went from the often-mocked, schoolyard fat kid to underdog royalty, standing up for millions of gay men and women, drag queens and punk rockers, and countless other socially ostracized misfits and freaks. With a completely committed in-your-face style, he blurred the line between performer and personality, and revolutionized pop culture.
I Am Divine
2014
6.0Marketing whiz Alma Beltran and Christmas tree whisperer Charlie Freemont cross paths when Charlie finds the perfect tree for the Maine Governor's Holiday Celebration — right in Alma's back yard. While they initially spar, romantic sparks soon begin to fly between the two women as the enchanting tree and some Christmas fairy dust from the town's pâtissière extraordinaire bring out the best in them and spark each other to take leaps of faith and fight for love and Christmas magic.
Under the Christmas Tree
2021
