- published: 26 Apr 2016
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Tracee Ellis Ross (born October 29, 1972) is an American actress. She is best known for her lead role as Joan Clayton on the UPN/CW series, Girlfriends. She is currently starring as Dr. Carla Reed on the new BET sitcom Reed Between the Lines.
Born Tracee Joy Silberstein in Los Angeles, California, she is the daughter of singer/actress Diana Ross and music business manager Robert Ellis Silberstein. Actor and musician Evan Ross is her half-brother. Her father is Jewish and her mother is African-American. Ross attended the Dalton School in Manhattan and the Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland. She was a model in her teens.
She attended Brown University where she appeared in plays, and graduated in 1994 with a theatre degree. She later worked in the fashion industry, as a model and contributing fashion editor to Mirabella and New York magazine.
Ross made her big screen debut in 1996, playing a Jewish/African-American woman in the independent feature film Far Harbor. The following year, she debuted as host of The Dish, a Lifetime TV magazine series keeping tabs on popular culture. In 1998, she starred as a former high school track star who remained silent about having been abused at the hands of a coach, in the NBC made-for-TV movie: Race Against Fear: A Moment of Truth. Her next role was an independent feature film Sue. In 2000, she landed her first major studio role in Diane Keaton's Hanging Up. The same year, she broke into comedy as a regular performer in the MTV series The Lyricist Lounge Show, a hip-hop variety series mixing music, dramatic sketches, and comedic skits.