Taraji P Henson Popular Books

Taraji P Henson Biography & Facts

Taraji Penda Henson ( tə-RAH-jee; born September 11, 1970) is an American actress. She has received several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award and four Primetime Emmy Awards. After studying acting at Howard University, she made her film debut in the crime film Streetwise (1998). Henson gained recognition for playing a prostitute in Hustle & Flow (2005) and a single mother in David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). The latter earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2016, she portrayed mathematician Katherine Johnson in Hidden Figures. She has also acted in Baby Boy (2001), The Karate Kid (2010), Think Like a Man (2012), Acrimony (2018), What Men Want (2019), The Best of Enemies (2019), and The Color Purple (2023). Henson has also had an extensive career in television. From 2011 to 2013, she co-starred as Joss Carter in the CBS drama series Person of Interest. From 2015 to 2020, she starred as Cookie Lyon in the Fox drama series Empire, for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama and was nominated for Primetime Emmy Awards in 2015 and 2016. Her other Emmy-nominated roles were for the Lifetime movie Taken from Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story (2011) and for her guest role in the ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary (2023).In 2016, Time named Henson one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Later that year, she released a New York Times best selling autobiography titled Around the Way Girl. In 2019, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Early life and education Taraji Penda Henson was born September 11, 1970, in Southeast Washington, D.C., the daughter of Bernice (née Gordon), a corporate manager at Woodward & Lothrop, and Boris Lawrence Henson, a janitor and metal fabricator. She has often spoken of the influence of her maternal grandmother, Patsy Ballard, who accompanied her at the Academy Awards the year she was nominated. Her first and middle names are of Swahili origin: Taraji ("hope") and Penda ("love"). According to a mitochondrial DNA analysis, her matrilineal lineage can be traced to the Masa people of Cameroon. She has said that North Pole explorer Matthew Henson was "the brother of [her] great-great-grandfather."Henson graduated from Oxon Hill High School in Oxon Hill, Maryland, in 1988. She attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where she intended to study electrical engineering, before transferring to Howard University to study drama. To pay for college, she worked mornings as a secretary at The Pentagon and evenings as a singing-dancing waitress on a dinner-cruise ship, the Spirit of Washington. Career 2001–2014: Early career Henson received her SAG membership card in the early 1990s for doing three roles as a background performer. Her first prominent role was in the 2001 comedy-drama film Baby Boy, where she portrayed Yvette, alongside singer Tyrese Gibson. Henson has guest-starred on several television shows, including The WB's Smart Guy, the Fox series House in 2005, and CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in 2006. She also appeared in an episode of Sister, Sister. In 2005, Henson was in the independent film Hustle & Flow as Shug, the love interest of the male lead, DJay, portrayed by Terrence Howard. She made her singing debut in the film, which was nominated for two Academy awards and won one. In 2008, she appeared with Brad Pitt in David Fincher's drama film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, where she played Queenie, Benjamin's mother, and for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. In an interview with Lauren Viera of The Chicago Tribune, Henson described Queenie as "the embodiment of unconditional love."Henson acted in two Tyler Perry films, The Family That Preys in 2008 and I Can Do Bad All By Myself in 2009. In 2010, she appeared in the remake of The Karate Kid with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. Though reviews were lackluster, the film was a commercial success. Additionally, Henson has been a cast member on several television shows, including Lifetime's The Division and ABC's Boston Legal for one season. Her recurring characters include Angela Scott on ABC's Eli Stone. In 2011, she was cast in the CBS crime-suspense series Person of Interest. In the November 20, 2013 episode, "The Crossing", after co-starring for two and a half years, Henson's character, 'Joss' Carter was killed as part of the series' new storyline.In 2011, Henson starred as Tiffany Rubin in the Lifetime Movie Network film Taken from Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story. It was based on true events in the life of a New York woman whose son, Kobe, was abducted by his biological father to South Korea. Her portrayal of Rubin received positive reviews and earned her several award nominations, including a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie. In 2012, Henson was in the large ensemble cast film Think Like a Man, based on Steve Harvey's 2009 book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. She reprised the role in the film's sequel, Think Like a Man Too, released in June 2014. 2015–present: Empire and beyond In 2015 Henson was cast to headline in the Fox series Empire, a musical drama set in the hip hop recording industry, where she plays Cookie Lyon opposite former Hustle & Flow costar Terrence Howard. Fox ordered the pilot in May 2014, and the series debuted on January 7, 2015, with positive critical reviews and wide commercial success. The role brought Henson widespread recognition and critical acclaim. In July 2015, she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, and submitted the show's pilot for Emmy voting. for which she became the first African-American woman to win the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series. In January 2016, she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama for Empire, becoming only the third African-American actress to take home the award after Gail Fisher (1972) and Regina Taylor (1992). At the 46th NAACP Image Awards, she was named the 2015 Entertainer of the Year for her roles in Empire and No Good Deed.In 2015, Henson teamed up with Howard to produce and host a variety holiday special for Fox, Taraji and Terrence's White Hot Holidays. The special was produced again in 2016 and 2017, without Howard. In 2016, Henson starred in the biographical drama film Hidden Figures, a major box-office success nominated for numerous awards, including three Oscars (Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress for Octavia Spencer) and two Golden Globes (Best Supporting Actress for Spencer and Best Original Score). It won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. In January 2018, she starred in Sony Screen Gems's thriller-drama film Proud Mary, .... Discover the Taraji P Henson popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Taraji P Henson books.

Best Seller Taraji P Henson Books of 2024

  • Purple Rising synopsis, comments

    Purple Rising

    Lise Funderburg

    Celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece The Color Purpleas well as the acclaimed 1985 film from Steven Spielberg, the Tonywinning Broadway musical,...

  • Reaching for the Moon synopsis, comments

    Reaching for the Moon

    Katherine Johnson

    “This rich volume is a national treasure.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)“Captivating, informative, and inspiring…Easy to follow and hard to put down.” School Library Journal (sta...

  • Bold Words from Black Women synopsis, comments

    Bold Words from Black Women

    Tamara Pizzoli

    Celebrate the power of Black womanhood in this firstofitskind collection of inspirational quotes from fifty activists, artists, and leaders, featuring bold, attentiongrabbing illus...

  • The Curious Case of Benjamin Button synopsis, comments

    The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

    F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nunzio DeFilippis & Christina Weir

    Upon completing “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” in 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald declared it “the funniest story ever written” and “one of my two favorite stories.” It’s the stra...

  • My Remarkable Journey synopsis, comments

    My Remarkable Journey

    Katherine Johnson, Joylette Hylick & Katherine Moore

    The remarkable woman at heart of the smash New York Times bestseller and Oscarwinning film Hidden Figures tells the full story of her life, including what it took to work at NASA, ...

  • Around the Way Girl synopsis, comments

    Around the Way Girl

    Taraji P. Henson

    From Taraji P. Henson, Academy Award nominee, Golden Globe winner, and star of the awardwinning film Hidden Figures, comes an inspiring and funny memoir“a bona fide hit” (Essence)a...

  • Hiding in Hip Hop synopsis, comments

    Hiding in Hip Hop

    Terrance Dean

    “If you’re a fan of the hit show Empire and its characters Cookie, Lucious, Hakeem, Jamal, and Andre, then you have to check out Terrance Dean’s provocative memoir Hiding in Hip Ho...