After college, her first job was as a contracting specialist at the National Security Agency, where she worked for five years. Sykes attended Arundel High School in Gambrills, Maryland, and went on to graduate from Hampton University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing and became a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha. According to historian Ira Berlin, a specialist in the history of American slavery, the Sykes family history is 'the only such case that I know of in which it is possible to trace a black family rooted in freedom from the late 17th century to the present.' Her ancestry was traced back to a 1683 court case involving her ancestor, Elizabeth Banks, a free white woman and indentured servant, who gave birth to a biracial child, Mary Banks, fathered by a slave, who inherited her mother's free status. Sykes' family history was researched for an episode of the 2012 PBS genealogy program Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr. Her mother, Marion Louise (née Peoples), worked as a banker, and her father, Harry Ellsworth Sykes, was a U.S. Her family moved to Maryland when she was in third grade. Wanda Sykes was born in Portsmouth, Virginia. She currently stars in the Netflix original series The Upshaws which premiered on May 12, 2021, with Kim Fields and Mike Epps, and has appeared in the HBO Max comedy series The Other Two, as well as playing Allegra Durado, a new, powerful, and 'messy'-brained partner in a legal firm on Paramount+'s acclaimed The Good Fight.Īside from her television appearances, Sykes has also had a career in film, appearing in Monster-in-Law (2005), My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006), Evan Almighty (2007), and License to Wed (2007), as well as voicing characters in animated films such as Over the Hedge, Barnyard, Brother Bear 2 (all in 2006), Rio (2011), the subsequent films of the Ice Age franchise (2012-2016), and UglyDolls (2019). She is also known for her roles on CBS' The New Adventures of Old Christine (2006–10), HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm (2001–present), and ABC's Black-ish (2015–present). In 2004, Entertainment Weekly named Sykes as one of the 25 funniest people in America. She was first recognized for her work as a writer on The Chris Rock Show, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1999. Wanda Yvette Sykes (born March 7, 1964) is an American stand-up comedian, actress, and writer.

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