Virginia Capers

Virginia Capers was an American actress born in Sumter. Her Broadway debut came in Jamaica in 1957, where she replaced Adelaide Hall as Grandma Obeah, and she later appeared in Saratoga and Raisin. She won a 1974 Tony for best lead actress in a musical for playing Lena Younger in Raisin, the musical based on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. On television she had a recurring role as Hattie Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and appeared in many series, including Dragnet, The Waltons, Murder, She Wrote, and ER. Her film work included What's Love Got to Do with It, Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), Lady Sings the Blues (1972), Howard the Duck (1986), The Toy (1982), and Teachers (1984). She founded the Lafayette Players, a Los Angeles theater company for African-American performers, and later narrated the 1993 game Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, winning a Computer Gaming World award for her voice work.