Biography

S. Epatha Merkerson

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A native of Michigan, S. Epatha Merkerson earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Wayne State University. In 1978, she moved to New York City to apply her craft on stage. Although best known since 1993 as the smart and shrewd Lieutenant Anita Van Buren on the long-running TV crime drama Law & Order (1990), she has a long list of Broadway and off-Broadway credits and honors that include Drama Desk Award and Tony Award nominations for Best Actress for her performance in the August Wilson play The Piano Lesson (1995), a 1992 Obie Award for her performance in "I'm Not Stupid," and a 1998 Helen Hayes Award for her starring role in the Studio Theater production in Washington, DC, of the John Henry Redwood play "The Old Settler." Her first appearance on television was a guest-starring role on an episode of The Cosby Show (1984). Her earliest regular role in television, however, was that of Reba the Mail Woman on Pee-wee's Playhouse (1986). Merkerson remains a theatrical force on the stage and on the screen and has the distinction of having been nominated for an Image Award in the Outstanding-Lead-Actress-in-a-Drama category for Law & Order (1990) for three consecutive years by the NAACP.
- IMDb mini biography by: Eljay_Allen

When walking the streets of New York she is frequently approached by members of the NYPD, who jokingly ask how they can be transferred to her precinct.
She appeared in 391 episodes of Law & Order (1990), more than anyone else. Consequently, Lt. Anita Van Buren is the most prolific female character in the history of US primetime television.
Her Law & Order (1990) character, Lt. Anita Van Buren, whom she has played since 1993, is the longest running African American character in an American television drama.
She wears a wig on Law & Order (1990) to cover up her "twist-locs", which have since been cut off and replaced by short-length hair.
Her sister is a lung-cancer survivor.

My dad said he had a teacher named Epatha who was influential in keeping him in school. But my mother said it was an old girlfriend of his. So that's why she stuck in the Sharon Epatha. That's what the "S" stands for. Everyone knows now because some numbskull I went to high school with decided to put it on the Internet.
On playing Lola in "Come Back Little Sheba": I'm usually typecast as strong, authoritative, so to find that kind of vulnerability is a real challenge. But Lola is not so far from me, either. I was married, and I understand how to be lonely in a marriage. I believe she's in menopause. And that alone, hormonally, can send a woman into a tailspin. Add in her alcoholic husband, and (you've got) a decent person who's just, um ... stuck. In the past. But she's muuuch stronger than she thinks.

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