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Tracey Ullman (born Trace Ullman; 30 December 1959) is a British-American actress, comedian, singer, writer, producer, and director. Critics have lauded her ability to shift seamlessly in and out of character and accents, with many dubbing her the "female Peter Sellers". Her earliest mainstream appearances were on British television sketch comedy shows A Kick Up the Eighties (with Rik Mayall and Miriam Margolyes) and Three of a Kind (with Lenny Henry and David Copperfield). After a brief singing career, she appeared as Candice Valentine in Girls on Top with Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. Ullman emigrated from the United Kingdom to the United States. She would go on to star in her own network television comedy series, The Tracey Ullman Show from 1987 until 1990, which also featured the first appearances of the long-running animated media franchise The Simpsons. She later produced programmes for HBO, including Tracey Takes On... (1996–99) garnering numerous awards. Her sketch comedy series Tracey Ullman's State of the Union ran from 2008 to 2010 on Showtime. She has appeared in several feature films. Ullman was the first British woman to be offered her own television sketch show in both the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2016, she returned to British television with the BBC sketch comedy show Tracey Ullman's Show, her first project for the broadcaster in over thirty years. This led to the creation of the topical comedy series Tracey Breaks the News in 2017. In 2017, Ullman was reportedly Britain's wealthiest comedian and the second-wealthiest British actress, with an estimated wealth of £80 million. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including twelve American Comedy Awards, seven Primetime Emmy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, four Satellite Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Early life Tracey Ullman was born Trace Ullman in Slough, Buckinghamshire (now Berkshire), the younger of two daughters, to Doreen (née Cleaver; 1929–2015), who was of British and Roma extraction, and Anthony John Ullman (1917–1966), a Roman Catholic Pole. Anthony served in the Polish Army and took part in the Battle of Dunkirk during World War II. After emigrating and marrying in England, he worked as a solicitor, a furniture salesman, and a travel agent. He also brokered marriages and translated among the émigré Polish community. When she was six, Ullman's father, who had been recovering from a heart operation, died of a heart attack in front of her. She was subsequently uprooted to Hackbridge, southwest London. Her mother could barely make ends meet without their father's income. In an effort to cheer her family up, Ullman, along with her sister Patti, created and performed nightly shows on their mother's bedroom windowsill. After their mother remarried, the family began moving around the country, with Ullman attending numerous state schools, where she wrote and performed in school plays. She eventually caught the attention of a headmaster, who recommended that she attend a performing arts school. She won a full scholarship to the Italia Conti Academy at the age of twelve. At sixteen, she attended a dance audition under the impression that she was applying for summer season in Scarborough. The audition resulted in a contract with a German ballet company for a revival of Gigi in Berlin. Upon returning to England, she joined the Second Generation dance troupe, performing in London, Blackpool, and Liverpool. She branched out into musical theatre and was cast in numerous West End musicals including Grease, Elvis The Musical, and The Rocky Horror Show. Television career Early years Ullman began her television career in 1980 playing Lynda Bellingham's daughter in the British series Mackenzie. "I really thought I was great when I did a quite serious soap opera for the BBC. I played a nice girl from St. John's Wood. 'Mummy, I think I'm pregnant. I don't know who's done it.' Then I would fall down a hill or something. 'EEEEE! Oh, no, lost another baby.' It seemed all I ever did was have miscarriages—or make yogurt." Ullman appeared in Les Blair's avant-garde Four in a Million, an improvised play about club acts, at London's Royal Court Theatre. She won the London Critics Circle Theatre Award as Most Promising New Actress for her performance. In 1981, she was cast in the BBC Scotland sketch comedy programme A Kick Up the Eighties. This led to her being offered her own show. "My first reaction was you must be joking, as women are treated so shoddily in comedy. Big busty barmaids and all those sort of clichés just bore me rigid." Eventually a deal was struck with the proviso being that she would get to choose the show's writers, have script approval, and choose the costumes. Three of a Kind, co-starring comedians Lenny Henry and David Copperfield debuted in 1981. This led to her winning her first BAFTA in 1984. She would soon go on to become a household name with the British media referring to her as "Our Trace". In 1985, she signed on to star in the ITV sitcom Girls on Top. She was cast as the promiscuous golddigger Candice Valentine. The show, co-starring Dawn French, Ruby Wax, and Jennifer Saunders continued after Ullman bowed out after the first series. Saunders also wrote the scripts. The Tracey Ullman Show In 1985, Ullman was persuaded by her husband, British independent television producer Allan McKeown, to join him in Los Angeles, where he was already partially based. She set her sights on a film and stage career, believing that there was little in the way of television for her. Her British agent put together a videotape compilation of her work and began circulating it around Hollywood. The tape landed in the hands of Craig Kellem, vice president for comedy at Universal Television. A deal was immediately struck with CBS. I Love New York, a show about a "slightly wacky" British woman working in New York, was written by Saturday Night Live writer Anne Beatts. Unhappy with the direction the network wanted to take the show, Ullman's agent decided to contact producer James L. Brooks. Brooks felt that a sketch show would best suit her. "Why would you do something with Tracey playing a single character on TV when her talent requires variety? You can't categorize Tracey, so it's silly to come up with a show that attempted to." The Tracey Ullman Show debuted on 5 April 1987, along with Married... with Children. The show also produced The Simpsons as a series of animated shorts, or "bumpers", which would air before and after commercial breaks. The Simpsons shorts would eventually be spun-off into their own half-hour series in 1989. The Tracey Ullman Show was awarded ten Primetime Emmy Awards, with Ullman winning three, one in the category of Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program in 1990. The show was the first Fox network primetime show to win an Emmy award. The show concluded after a four-season run in 1990. HBO I.... Discover the Tracey Media popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Tracey Media books.