Tracey Ullman (born Trace Ullman; 30 December 1959)[1] is a British-American actress, comedian, singer, dancer, screenwriter, producer, and director. Critics have lauded her ability to shift seamlessly in and out of character and accents, with many dubbing her the "female Peter Sellers".[2][3][4] 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). For the latter she was BAFTA nominated in 1984.[5] After a brief singing career (which garnered three top-ten singles), she appeared as Candice Valentine in Girls on Top with Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders.
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 30 years.[8] This led to the creation of the topical comedy series Tracey Breaks the News in 2017.
Tracey Ullman was born in Slough, Buckinghamshire (now Berkshire),[11] the younger of two daughters,[12] to Doreen (née Cleaver; 1929–2015), who was of British and Roma extraction,[13] and Anthony John Ullman (1917–1966), a Roman CatholicPole.[14] Anthony served in the Polish Army and took part in the Battle of Dunkirk during World War II.[15] 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.[16]
When she was six, Ullman's father, who had been recovering from a heart operation, died of a heart attack in front of her.[17][18] She was subsequently uprooted to Hackbridge, southwest London. Her mother could barely make ends meet without their father's income.[19] 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.[20]
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.[21] At sixteen, she attended a dance audition under the impression that she was applying for summer season in Scarborough.[22] The audition resulted in a contract with a German ballet company for a revival of Gigi in Berlin.[23] Upon returning to England, she joined the Second Generation dance troupe, performing in London, Blackpool, and Liverpool.[24] She branched out into musical theatre and was cast in numerous West End musicals including Grease, Elvis The Musical, and The Rocky Horror Show.[18][25]
Ullman began her television career in 1980 playing Lynda Bellingham's daughter in the British series Mackenzie. "I really thought I was great when I did a quite serious soap opera for the BBC. I played a nice girl from St. John's Wood. 'Mummy, I think I'm pregnant. I don't know who's done it.' Then I would fall down a hill or something. 'EEEEE! Oh, no, lost another baby.' It seemed all I ever did was have miscarriages—or make yogurt."[26]
In 1981, she was cast in the BBC Scotlandsketch comedy programme A Kick Up the Eighties, which in turn led to her being offered the sketch show Three of a Kind, co-starring comedians Lenny Henry and David Copperfield. Ullman said "My first reaction was you must be joking, as women are treated so shoddily in comedy. Big busty barmaids and all those sort of clichés just bore me rigid."[28] Eventually a deal was struck with the proviso being that she would have script approval and choose her own costumes.[29]Three of a Kind premiered in July 1981, running for three series until 1983.[30] Throughout the series, Ullman would also sing, performing comical spoofs of well-known artists of the time such as Toyah, Bananarama, Jennifer Warnes, and Dollar. Three of a Kind led to her beginning her own brief but successful singing career in 1983, and also winning her first BAFTA (for "Best Light Entertainment Performance") in 1984.[31] By this time, she had become a household name with the British media referring to her as "Our Trace".[16]
In 1985, she signed on to star in the ITV sitcom Girls on Top. She was cast as the promiscuous golddigger Candice Valentine. The show, co-starring Dawn French, Ruby Wax, and Jennifer Saunders continued for a second series without Ullman who bowed out after the first series. Saunders also wrote the scripts.
In 1985, Ullman was persuaded by her husband, British independent television producer Allan McKeown, to join him in Los Angeles, where he was already partially based.[32] She set her sights on a film and stage career, believing that there was little in the way of television for her.[33][34] Her British agent put together a videotape compilation of her work and began circulating it around Hollywood. The tape landed in the hands of Craig Kellem, vice president for comedy at Universal Television.[16] A deal was immediately struck with CBS. I Love New York, a show about a "slightly wacky" British woman working in New York, was written by Saturday Night Live writer Anne Beatts.[16] Unhappy with the direction the network wanted to take the show, Ullman's agent decided to contact producer James L. Brooks.[34][35] Brooks felt that a sketch show would best suit her. "Why would you do something with Tracey playing a single character on TV when her talent requires variety? You can't categorize Tracey, so it's silly to come up with a show that attempted to."[33][36][37]The Tracey Ullman Show debuted on 5 April 1987, along with Married... with Children.[38] The show also produced The Simpsons as a series of animated shorts, or "bumpers", which would air before and after commercial breaks. The Simpsons shorts would eventually be spun-off into their own half-hour series in 1989.[39]The Tracey Ullman Show was awarded ten Primetime Emmy Awards, with Ullman winning three, one in the category of Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program in 1990.[40][41] The show was the first Fox network primetime show to win an Emmy award.[42] The show concluded after a four-season run in 1990.[43][44]
Upon her naturalisation in the United States, it was announced in April 2007 that she would be making the switch from HBO to Showtime after working fourteen years with the former.[53]Tracey Ullman's State of the Union, a new sketch comedy series, debuted on 30 March 2008.[54][55][56] It ran for three seasons, concluding in 2010.
In 1995, she became the first modern-day cartoon voice of Little Lulu.[65] In 1999, she had a recurring role as an unconventional psychotherapist on Ally McBeal. Her performance garnered her a Primetime Emmy Award, her seventh, and an American Comedy Award which was her eleventh.[66] In 2005, she co-starred with Carol Burnett in the television adaptation of Once Upon a Mattress. She played Princess Winnifred, a role originally made famous by Burnett on Broadway. This time Burnett took on the role of the overbearing Queen Aggravain.[67]
In March 2014, Ullman was introduced as Genevieve Scherbatsky, the mother of character Robin Scherbatsky in How I Met Your Mother.[68] On 15 February 2017, it was announced that she would star in the Starz-BBC co-produced limited series adaptation of Howards End, playing Aunt Juley Mund.[69]
A chance encounter with the wife of the head of Stiff Records led to Ullman getting a recording contract in 1983. Label owner Dave Robinson was taken with some of the musical parodies she had been doing on television in Three of a Kind and signed her.[75] 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."[76]
Within 18 months, Ullman had scored five Top 30 hits on the UK Singles Chart.[77] Her first two singles ("Breakaway" and "They Don't Know") were certified Silver by the BPI, as was her debut album. 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.[78]
Ullman married producer Allan McKeown in 1983. The couple have two children: Mabel, born in 1986, and John, born in 1991.[109] On 24 December 2013, McKeown died at home from prostate cancer.[110]
Ullman's mother died in a fire at her flat on 23 March 2015.[111] An inquest ruled the death to be accidental.[112] She was 85 years old.[113]
In September 2018, Ullman said that her daughter was pregnant and that she was about to become a grandmother.[114]
Ullman acquired American citizenship in December 2006. She holds dual citizenship in the United Kingdom and the United States.[115] In 2006, she topped the list for the "Wealthiest British Comedians", with an estimated wealth of £75 million.[116] In 2017, The Sunday Times estimated her wealth to be £80 million.[10]
An avid knitter, she co-wrote a knitting book, Knit 2 Together: Patterns and Stories for Serious Knitting Fun in 2006.[117]
