Vanessa Williams

Vanessa Estelle Williams sometimes professionally credited as Vanessa A Williams is an American actress and producer She is best known for her roles as Maxine JosephChadway in the Showtime drama series Soul Food 200004 for which she received NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series and as Rhonda Blair in the first season of the Fox prime time soap opera Melrose Place 199293 She is also known as Nino Browns feisty gun moll Keisha in the 1991 crime drama film New Jack City and as AnneMarie McCoy in the first and fourth of the Candyman films Though not related she is sometimes confused with American actress singer and former Miss America 1984 Vanessa L Williams Both women were also coincidentally born in New York in the same year In addition Vanessa A Williams starred in the television soap opera Soul Food while Vanessa L Williams starred in the original film